How to Open a Financially Successful Bed & Breakfast or Small Hotel by Lora Arduser & Douglas R. Brown

Author:Lora Arduser & Douglas R. Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atlantic Publishing
Published: 2013-09-12T00:00:00+00:00

Before you begin your media campaign, you should get to know the media as much as possible. This may mean inviting them—one at a time—to have a brief tour or visit of your establishment and, perhaps, lunch. This gives them a sense of you and your business and begins to build a relationship. These visits are not the time to sell them on doing a story on you. It’s a time for you to get to know each other and to build a relationship. If the reporters trust you, they will help you, and vice versa. They need article ideas as much as you need press, and getting to know them will give you insight into how you can help them do their job.

Once you’ve built this relationship, and your friends in the media trust you won’t be barraging them with endless story ideas, you can begin your media campaign. It is important to remember that having a positive rapport with reporters doesn’t mean they’ll do a story on you. Your relationship with the reporters will help get a newsworthy story printed, but you won’t get a boring story to press just because a reporter likes you. Your story needs to be newsworthy on its own. Also, reporters are always working against time. The more you can give them pertinent, accurate, concise information, the better your chances of getting their attention.

If you’ve built a respectful relationship with the media, reporters who get a story from an interview or news conference at your establishment will mention your place in their story. These are the “freebies” that come from developing strong relationships with the media and learning to think in their terms.

Many businesses go one step further and give their media contacts news releases that are written in journalistic style. A news release describes the newsworthy development in your bed and breakfast in a ready-to-print article. Editors can then change it or print it as is. These can be immensely valuable for getting your message out there.

If writing journalistic articles is beyond your reach or budget, tip sheets can be very effective in getting your story across. A tip sheet gets the message to the media by simply outlining the who, what, when, where, why and how of your story. It’s basically an outline of the story the reporter will then write. Tip sheets give the spine of the story and, because they are so concise, often get more attention from busy editors. Here are a few more tips on how to work effectively with the media:

Earn a reputation for dealing with the facts and nothing else.

Never ask to review a reporter’s article before publication.

Never ask after a visit or an interview if an article will appear.

Follow up by phone to see if your fact sheet or press release has arrived, if the reporter is interested and if anything else is needed.

Provide requested information—photos, plans, etc.—A.S.A.P.

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