Getting news coverage is becoming more and more difficult. Journalists are overworked, readers have online information overload, and ranking high in search engines is a challenge. The appeal of news coverage is very real, however. Getting a well-placed news story can create free advertising for your business that has a more objective feel than a regular ad. Let’s take a look at how you can break through today’s barriers and get news coverage for your business.

Establish goals

The key to creating a successful PR outreach is to first get an idea of what you want and define what success looks like. Do you want to increase phone calls to your business? Increase traffic to your website? Improve your search engine ranking? Increase sales? Build your reputation in your market? Find new employees? Make sure that you have a goal in mind so you can target your public relations program and measure your ROI in order to make sure any time and money is well-spent.

Find your audience

Next, target your program in order to reach your desired audience. If you want to reach people in your local area, reach out to local newspapers, TV stations, radio stations, web publications, associations, and other local media outlets. If you’re trying to reach people in a vertical market, find out where they get their information, including trade publications, associations, and events. If your news has a broader appeal, target national publications.

Contact the right people at the right time

Once you’ve decided where you’re going to share your news, do everything you can to maximize the likelihood of your story being covered. Get to know the newspaper, its audience, the right newspaper section for your news, and the right contact for that section. Contact television station assignment editors well in advance, and reconfirm right before your event to make sure they’re still coming. Remember that publications have early deadlines, so you should pitch your stories early in the day or days in advance. Take news cycles into consideration and submit your story in advance of times when news is traditionally light—the day after Thanksgiving, for example, or at the end of the summer. Be sure you’re not flooding a particular news outlet with press releases, so that they’re sure to open your e-mail or take your call.

Present a compelling story

Often, the best stories are about people—who’s winning, who’s losing, why we care.  Make sure your pitch has a people angle—and it’s more likely to be published. If you want TV coverage, make sure to think visually. If you’re holding an event, make sure it’s in a remarkable location or includes appealing participants, such as kids and animals. If you’ve had a recent business success that appeals to a broad audience, share that story with a business editor.

If you gave a keynote address at a distant conference, share the most important points. If you have a new product that will help people solve a current problem, send that information. Just make sure that the information you give is clear, you’ve covered the who-what-where-when-why in your pitch, and that there’s some kind of “people” aspect to your news.

Become a contributor

If you feel comfortable writing articles, let publications know that you’re an expert in your market. Write a business column or Op-Ed pieces for your local paper. Offer to write a bi-monthly column for a trade publication in exchange for ad space in the months you don’t write. If you want to be quoted in articles and books, sign up for daily e-mails from Help A Reporter Out, a list of queries from reporters who need help on news stories they’re writing. It’s a great way to share your expertise and be included in articles with a broad reach.

Spread the news

Once your story has appeared, be sure you publish it elsewhere. If your story is in the newspaper, share a link from your LinkedIn  profile, Facebook page, or Twitter account. Write a blog entry about the news and include a link to wherever the story appeared. Add a link to your website. If you appear on TV, link to the online video of the show. If you’re on the radio, link to the online archive of past shows.

Hopefully, your well-written, targeted, people-focused news piece will spread far and wide, helping you reach your business goals.