There are all kinds of ways to get your company into the media, from PR stunts and pitching director profiles to press releases revealing interesting data and trends.
Or, if you prefer negative press, you can always tap people’s phones.
But in my experience, one of the easiest and most effective ways for brokers to start getting their names out there as experts in their field (in the eyes of consumers, especially, which boosts credibility and potentially business) is to go with the flow of the news.
What do I mean by this? I mean that brokers should actively look out for the big stories that are due to break in the mortgage world and make sure that they are there to give their views to the media when they do.
For example, when the Council of Mortgage Lenders publishes its gross mortgage lending data each month, at 9:30am on some Thursday or other, the media tarts are all there, skinny cap in hand, waiting for the data to come out.
They know that ‘hijacking’ data like this is a surefire way to bag some good ‘hits’ online, in print and, if the data is good or bad enough (usually bad enough) on TV.
The moment it does, these tarts, very possibly with some PR fluffy at their side or at the other end of the phone line, analyse it, get their thoughts down and then email, tweet or even Facebook them over to the hacks – in this case money and mortgage journalists – who are writing the story up.
So if you can send journalists some strong views of your own on a story just as they are writing it up, there is a good chance those views will be used in the piece.
Basically, you’re giving the journalist what they want just when they want it.
And maybe, just maybe, you’ll shunt one of the tarts out of the story in the process.
Now wouldn’t that be nice.
Dominic Hiatt is founder of Rhizome PR
