Welcome to my revamped blog.
In the last month we’ve been wind beaten and chilled to the bone. But the festive season has been lovely. A great time recharge the batteries and relax with family. Edinburgh sparkles in the crisp winter weather.
Now it’s time to get back in the gym. More fitness classes. More Yoga. And more blogging.
Happy New Year everyone. Have a great 2012.
The world of the media may seem like a scary place, especially with celebrity scandals, phone hacking, and high profile publicists mauling each other for column inches. It certainly doesn’t seem very relevant to personal trainers and fitness businesses. But away from the hyperbole of the National Media, local newspapers and radio stations are much less daunting. Most importantly they can be a useful method for raising your profile in your own area.
Journalists and editors are constantly looking for interesting stories, especially something a little bit different or out of the ordinary. You will have already defined the unique services you offer, and may be advertising these via your website, blog, Facebook, Twitter or other media. Putting together a series of press releases highlighting these unique and interesting services can raise awareness and drive customers to your door.
The key is finding the hook that will draw the journalist’s interest. They may see many press releases every day, and ignore announcements about Bootcamps or Zumba classes. But one which also offers a Nutrition Planning Service may catch their attention. A release about generic personal training might be ignored but one focussing on new mothers regaining their figures following childbirth might stand out. Try putting together three or four stories that you can release over a month or two.
Writing a press release is like any form of communication it needs to draw the reader’s attention and motivate them into a course of action; namely a journalist contacting you to discuss the story. Try using the following structure. Headline; Body Copy; Contact Details and Notes for editors.
For the release you need a powerful headline which sums up the entire story. “Local man and wife fitness team bring bootcamp and dietary planning to Worthington Park”, for example already provides a mass of information.
It’s outdoors in a park. A husband and wife team so it’s accessible to both sexes. Sounds like hard work but there’s dietary advice as well.
You should write the body copy of the release in a relaxed and informal style. It can come across almost as if you were saying it out loud. Provide some background about the service you offer then go into the specifics. You can deliver one or two pieces of information in the form of a quote which the journalist may well include in their article. “Fitness expert and local DJ David said, ‘Our bootcamps will improve your fitness and provided you take the dietary advice as well you will see changes in your shape'”.
Then include your contact details, mobile, website, Facebook and twitter. If you have any videos of yourself in action on YouTube provide links to these as well.
Finally prepare a notes section where you give more detail, such as your qualifications, the time of your sessions and the cost. Here you can invite the journalist to attend one of your classes. They may even send along a photographer as well.
Once you have drafted your releases, email them to your local newspapers (daily and weekly versions including any free papers) and radio stations. Google will reveal the contact details of most publications. Include your headline as the title of the email as well as on the release itself.
Sometimes the release may not generate any interest, or the publication may just copy and paste your words. Obviously the best result is for them to contact you to discuss the release. This is your opportunity to develop a relationship which could lead to more coverage later. You are the expert in your line of work so you could offer to supply more copy in future for feature articles, or just offer yourself as a spokesperson on fitness related issues. It could be the start of a very rewarding relationship – and maybe even a regular fitness column in the paper.
Thanks to the internet, even your local area is a clutter of information overload. But the media have a thirst for stories that stand out. Give them what they want and your fitness business will benefit from the investment of your time as more clients seek out your services.
Over to you: What do you think of these press release tips? What would your press release headline be? Please leave a comment and let me know.
A version of this article first appeared in FitPro Network Magazine
A combination of local council paranoia, the usual insanity from Health and Safety, and a doom and gloom announcement by the police closed Scotland on Thursday 8th December.
Yes a big storm with strong winds was forecast but was this reaction really necessary? It started with some local councils deciding to close the schools. Very soon the majority had followed suit. No doubt they were panic stricken that if they were the ones to remain open and someone was hurt that they would be lambasted or sued. People had to rearrange their work plans around this.
Then the police issued a statement that no one should travel anywhere between 2pm and 9pm. The media latched on to this and embellished it with doom and gloom predictions of death and destruction. Companies therefore closed down and sent their staff home. The result was gridlock on the roads as so many people attempted to get home before the expected Armageddon.
Egged on by news reports, a mass of humanity fled Edinburgh leaving it eerily quiet and awaiting annihilation.
In the end things did get a little breezy. Certainly there was damage to some parts of the country. But then this was not a perfect storm. It did not bring with it mass destruction. Most of the chaos was caused because common sense departed first. The police advice not to travel made people travel, closed businesses and created mayhem. In the background the media fed the frenzy duping everyone into accepting the inevitable.
How fitting that the storm was named Hurricane Bawbag which became a worldwide trend on Twitter.
If we had all turned off the TV and the radio, and not read about the impending disaster, I wonder whether we could have carried on as normal and let it all blow over.
Okay I’ve had enough of this. I have dealt with journalists for over 15 years. I know how to write a decent press release and to get a story out there either in-print or on-line. There is spin and there is super spin. There are true stories and there are tall stories. But the latest RyanAir PR stunts tale is so preposterous I can’t believe anyone picked it up let alone a national newspaper.
I don’t know whether I love or loath Michael O’Leary, the boss of Ryan Air. You often see photos of him looking like a manic gibbon with a smile so wide you could land a Boeing 737-800 in it. And such a photo accompanied this Daily Mail article claiming that Ryan Air will put Porn on Planes. Yes that’s right. Passengers will allegedly be able to rent porn films on their journey.
O’Learly acknowledges that it wouldn’t be fair to put porn on seat back TVs. No it would instead be available on discreet hand-held devices that the porn watching passenger could angle away from his fellow travellers to spare their blushes. Perhaps the device would come in a big plain brown paper bag to add to this discretion. I doubt it.
And anyway in true Ryan Air style the cabin crew would announce it’s availability in their customary style, “Today ladies and gentlemen we have some filthy dirty mucky films for you to hire. Just ring the cabin crew call bell and we’ll bring your own personal porn player to your seat. Only £10.99 per hour and an extra £2.99 for a packet of branded tissue wipes.”
This is of course complete twaddle. But the Mail reported it as fact.
Why are intelligent journalists taken in by this PR posturing? Do the Ryan Air press releases include a footnote informing readers that the word gullible is not actually contained within the Oxford English Dictionary along with a suggestion to go and check. Obviously not otherwise we would have seen a tabloid headline claiming it’s true along side a photo of a giggling Mr O’Leary giving the thumbs up.
They fell for the statement about Ryan Air introducing charges to use to use the toilet on board. They fell for the frequent releases about introducing stand-up seating. Or more sit down seating made available by taking the toilets out completely.
Anyone with five minutes to spare can find that the 737-800s that Ryan Air use are already at their largest capacity under the Boeing certification and various Aviation Authority evacuation rules.
So it would be easy to debunk the stories. But they report it as fact whilst Mr O’Leary sits in his office cackling insanely and having a right good laugh at those he has duped yet again, and revelling in his free publicity – good or bad.
Personally I won’t fly Ryan Air because I was once kidnapped by them. There was a meeting in Dublin I was going to but after a 4 hour delay on the flight there was no point travelling as I’d missed the meeting and it couldn’t be rearranged for later. I asked to get off the plane (the doors were still open) but they refused and I had to travel all the way to Dublin for no reason. And then come back again. As a result if I had a choice between flying direct to Paris with Ryan Air or via New Zealand with another airline, I’d take the kiwi route every time.
The near genius of O’Leary’s PR is that the public know that flying Ryan Air is a pretty miserable experience and that they will get fleeced for extra charges, so O’Leary’s PR stunts fit so well with people’s perceptions of the airline that they almost could be true.