Want to get quoted in the media? Try a video expert advisory

One great way to get publicity is to be quoted in the media as an expert. Even if the story isn’t directly related to you, just getting your name out there can be a big plus on the PR front. So how do you get the reporters to start calling you or your clients?

You could cold call/email, pitch expert advisories or follow up with a reporter on a story they just ran. In fact, I’ve tried all those routes and found moderate success. But recently I put a new twist on an old favorite and got a really pleasant reaction from area media.

Having a two day lead on a breaking story about the national poverty rate, I ran out and did a quick video interview with one of my faculty members. I cut the video down into easily digestible soundbites, wrote up a five – yes five – sentence advisory, and put it out on our website, RSS feed and did some light email pitching.

The reaction? We were contacted by four different media outlets in the very first day it was out. Each outlet said they were specifically calling in reaction to the advisory and one LA-based radio station went so far as to even use the audio from the YouTube video itself in their story.

So why did this approach work? The video.

Sure, the pitch was timely and relevant, but it was the video of our faculty member talking about the subject at hand that made the difference. The reporter was able to watch him speak directly to the topic and get an idea for exactly how he would answer similar questions when asked.

Since we weren’t going for high production value, shooting and editing the video didn’t add much time to the process. It’s an approach we’ll definitely try again.

You can check out the pitch below.