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How to make 70 free publications about an unknown project in a week

Yesterday, even Google search did not know about this project, and today top mass media (Forbes, Cointelegraph, The Sun) started talking about it with hundreds of millions of visitors. What have you done for this? We are telling.



Customer


In April 2019, representatives of the Melaka Straits City project, a blockchain-based city that began to be built on the West coast of Malaysia, contacted us.

Task


The project needed to attract investments, so it was necessary to form an information field around it: to make sure that they talk about Melaka Straits City.

The main task was to issue at least 5 publications on resources with a total attendance of 125 million per month in a week. As a result, we exceeded forecasts by 5 times. What was done for this - read in this case.

What was at the start


As of April 2019, there’s nothing on Google for “Melaka Straits City”. Prior to the appeal, the project was presented at only two conferences.

If, then, Google’s output were displayed on a map, then it would look empty:



Team


3 employees worked on the project:

  • The project manager communicated with the client and monitored the fulfillment of the conditions.
  • The PR specialist was involved in the preparation and publication of publications.
  • The editor was preparing a press release.

1 step. Training


We delve into the project. To do this, we conduct a briefing with the client and study the materials sent - Whitepaper and presentations with a detailed plan of Melaka Straits City.

Is there anything similar in the world? Googled. It turned out that no. This is in our favor - it will be easier to pitch the project in the media. The only similar news appeared on the network only in 2018: when crypto-millionaire Jeffrey Burns announced his intention to build a blockchain city.



What are we focusing on?It was necessary to form UTP, which would be of interest to the media and allow to agree on free publications. Based on a study of the project and market analysis, we decided to focus on the fact that Melaka Straits City is the first blockchain city in the world to be built with the support of the Chinese government. The ambiguous attitude of the PRC to the blockchain led to the fact that any news, at least somehow relevant to the matter, instantly spread across the media and even fluctuated the rate of bitcoin to 10%.

We are writing a press release. Prepared material with a quote from CEO, futuristic layouts and catchy headline. Many large media outlets use sent releases only as a basis for writing their text, but the decision to publish is made on the basis of this source. Therefore, the essence of the news should be clear immediately - from the headline and the first paragraph.



Tip


When the text is ready, read it again, but through the filter of an indifferent reader. He listlessly flips through the news feed and constantly asks the question “so what?”. Will your news be interesting to him and, consequently, to a media journalist? If not, consider how you can improve the text. If necessary, form additional informational reasons.

2 step. Media Pitching


The client already had a date for meeting with investors, and therefore we had to prepare the information field around the project in one week.

The first article appeared on Hackernoon : they prepared it together with the author of the platform, which already had authority in the field of blockchain and cryptocurrency.



The turning point in the work was the material on the Cointelegraph : 55 sources reprinted it. Among them were T he Sun (118.3 million per month) and Express.co.uk (157.2 million). The article worked well even inside the resource itself: it was viewed 11,261 times, given that the average number of views the author had was 4,000.



From the moment of the first contact with the author of the Cointelegraph and until the article was published, 4 days passed: since the material was published for free, the journalist was waiting for the editor’s approval for placement.

In just a week, the materials went to RBC Crypto , Bitcoinist , Forbes.com, FXEmpire (with reprint in Yahoo.finance) and 69 more resources.

Guidelines for Pitching Journalists


Agree directly, and not through the general mail of the resource . From experience, the best pitching option is on LinkedIn. It is faster and more efficient.

Get to know in advance, not the day you need to post . To do this, PR-specialists are developing a database of contacts in order to know who to contact if necessary. Read journalist articles, follow his news on LinkedIn, write comments and personal messages about your impressions of his materials. In general, be friends with a journalist. But do not confuse sincere relations with deliberate flattery: when you start to be interested in his work only at those moments when you need to read an article.

Choose a journalist who writes on similar topics.. You should not write about the blockchain city to someone who runs a food blog. And even two journalists who write about technology may be interested in different areas: one will write only about AI, the other about mobile applications. Knowing in which direction the journalist is working is very important before writing about the placement.

Tell us about the project in detail . Journalists operate on facts, like statistics and numbers. The success of the PR campaign depends in part on how detailed and understandable you will reveal the topic in the first message. But do not think that the very first journalist to receive your letter will immediately publish the material. You may have to write dozens of letters.

Do not promise what you cannot fulfill. It happens that PR specialists first entice the journalist with exclusive information, and then, after consulting the project’s founders, back up. In this case, the material will most likely not be published due to a lack of facts, and you will simply lose time.

Know how to wait . You should not constantly ask when the publication will finally be released. Even if the journalist is interested in your material, he will not start writing the text until the topic is agreed with the editors. In this case, just ask to keep you informed, and in case of refusal do not get questions, why did this happen.

Use additional services . For example, Muck Rack. This is a site where you can search for suitable journalists by topic, article and publication. Here, journalists create profiles for themselves, which are, for them, a kind of calling card: the pages list the media for which they write; links to all articles are attached and contacts are indicated.

Since journalists often write simultaneously for several publications, Muck Rack is a convenient tool for monitoring the author’s work.



3 step. Monitoring


In parallel with the pitching of the media, you need to check daily the publication of new publications, namely in what tone they are written and if there are any actual errors.

Journalists do not always report when they take a press release to work. And if the publication is not paid, then they certainly do not send it for approval. A long chain of reprints from various resources can distort the meaning of the material, so the correct wording must be monitored. For example, in one of the publications it was written that the city was already built. The task was to track such moments as quickly as possible and quickly contact the journalist.

Tool


Google Alerts This is a Google program that allows you to follow all the references to the project for given phrases. As soon as material containing “Melaka Straits City” appeared on the Internet, a link to it immediately came to our mail. This made it possible to quickly respond to all articles, analyze them and add them to the media plan.



Result



Content map: red highlights those countries on the resources that go publications about the project

2 weeks made 76 publications in 18 countries on resources with a total attendance of 671 300 000 per month.

findings


Important and catchy in the project must be carried forward . The news about Melaka Straits City interested journalists with its rather high-profile headline: “The first blockchain city will be built in Malaysia with the support of the Chinese government.”

Here we agree that not all clients come with such large-scale projects. Sometimes we are asked to disseminate internal company news - for example, entering new markets, changing leadership, and so on. If the project is small, then most likely such press releases will not be interesting to the media. Then you can try to tell how this event will affect the sphere as a whole and to connect what is happening with the global context. You may have to form additional info feeds.

Read the resource’s redaction and adjust the format of the news for the publicationthat you want to hit. So the probability of reaching the right media increases. Ideally, write for what category you are proposing this text: in this way a journalist or editor will see that this is not a thoughtless newsletter, and the time spent on personalization will pay off.

Sometimes it's worth the wait . If you know that the resource you are interested in will take only a unique article, do not offer it to other media and wait. 5-6 days is a normal time to place material.

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