Lessons

Lesson Info

Why Create a Digital Media Kit?

what we're going to be doing for the second segment is putting together a media kit that's gonna make it very easy for you to get your pitches out. So the first segment was all about you know, what are your pitch angles? How do you talk about your product to editors and bloggers and what are those? Little custom is ations that can make a difference. Well, now we're Muecke moving past the customization and looking at the tools you can put together that are kind of one and done, which is makes it really easy to dio. So we'll talk about why you need a digital media kit and how you can create one. They're on a budget or actually using. The resource is that you already have. So we'll talk about some options there. We're gonna also talk about the two kinds of product photography that editors and bloggers are looking for. So product photography iss so important because if you remember, one of the things you want to be selling Teoh an editor, is an aesthetic match, and how you actually take yo...

ur photos in the backgrounds you use are a great way to sell that to an editor. We'll also do a little bit of focus on how you write your media bio because your media bio is different than the about content that you would have on your website. And we'll look at you know, how can you write a media bio that's really short, simple and effective. And then finally, we want to take a little bit of effort around. You know, how can you actually batch your work schedule out your work so that the pitching is really easy to do, and it feels really natural and doable so you can actually implement your program? Because what we really want to do here is give you all the tools you need to succeed in pitching your product, and part of that is, you know, keeping the momentum going once you've gotten started. So you're having a great foundation through through this program. But it's also, you know, important that you're able to carry it through. There is a little bit of truth in pitching your product that it can be a bit of a numbers game. I'm just gonna be honest there. You know, the editors and bloggers that you're reaching out to are getting a lot of pitches, and sometimes they'll get your pitch and maybe it'll go to their spam filter. Or maybe they're on vacation that week and they don't get back to it. Or maybe they're just really busy. And they've inbox zero, you know, hit the delete button on their whole in backs. So that kind of stuff does happen. Not every pitch you sent out is going to be open. And so what can be really easy? Important here is creating materials that you can send out your pitch is that you're doing it consistently. It's not taking you a lot of time, but you're able to work the numbers and get enough pitches out there that they were going to get open and looked at. And that's what your media kit is gonna help you dio. So let's just dive into the lesson on why you would create this digital media kit and what goes into it So additional Media Kid is simply an easy way to get a blogger and editor the tools they need to share your product, just a simple package you can put together with the tools. So what? What does that mean? Well, here, I actually pulled Meghan Almonds Media kit for you. So, Meghan honor Almond is a metal smith, a jewelry designer. And she has this media kit on her website, which is the one format that I recommend to a lot of people. A lot is that you can use your website and just create a web page that is your digital media kit. So you don't have to put something physical together. You know, a lot of people in PR talked about media kits in terms of, you know, putting together a folder or a packet that you would mail out, not what we're talking about here. We're actually talking about putting something together that's digital. If you meet somebody in person, you know, maybe you do trade shows. You might want to put it on a thumb drive so that somebody can have it or give them a link to a euro. But you don't need to create these really elaborate physical kits anymore. You can use online tools, so this is a great example here, just looking at Meghan Almonds. She's using the general template on her website. She has a page media kit doesn't come up in her navigation rights. If you look at the navigation you see about log retailers and shop online so you don't need to put it in your menu. You don't need to clutter it up. You just want to have a simple you're around that you can link Teoh when you're sending out your pitches. So when you say, you know, to find more information, you can click here to see some product images. Click here. This is where they're going to be going. So what goes into your media kit? Well, first of all, you want to make sure that you have your contact information. So again, this is another reason you probably don't want this in your navigation, right? Because you definitely want your email address on here, and you also probably want to put your cell phone. You don't have to put your cell phone, but I do recommend it at least having a direct email. This is not a place in general. We wanna have a contact form. So again you don't want to. You want it to be maybe a little bit more hidden, you know, not as public, and this is just a way of showing a blogger editor that they can reach you if they need to get a hold of you. If you if you meet one. If you have happen to meet a blogger and editor or you send them an email, you want to make sure everything is on this page and not just in your pitch in case they bookmark your media kit and then they lose your email. So you just want to make sure that they can find everything they need. You also want to have a brand statement. So you want to start out strong, which is talking about what your brand stand for. You know what? What is that statement you can use to sum up who you're serving and what your aesthetic iss your music? It should, of course, have a product overview. What's your lie? What kind of products do you make? Who were they for? You know, why do people love it? Talking about that? What kind of materials do you use? So this is a place to give a brief product over Bill. You also will. I want to have an assortment of product images so we'll talk about product photography and the next lesson in more detail. But you want to make sure you at least have products on plain white backgrounds in your media kits. That's the most common thing, especially not block so much. If you're doing magazines and civil is common thing, they'll be looking for because they can crop it out and put it in a spread. You also would include your media ready bio, which we'll talk about in more detail and then your head shot or an action photo of you. I'm making your product. So if you're making your product my hands or you have a really cool process or you have a cool studio, you can. Instead of just doing a boring headshot, you know you can take pictures or have somebody take photos of you making your product and in process that could be a really cool way to use it. So and then, finally, we're really not talking too much about press releases. I don't recommend that people generally put press releases together. The email template that I've given to you is all you need. You do not need a press release to sell your product, but If you have one, you can use it in your media kit. So we're not gonna talk about how to create one, because I don't think you need one. But if you happen to have it already and you've already put one together or maybe the one place a press release could be really useful for you oven event. So if you had, like, an open studio event that you were inviting people to you might have created a press release for something like that. You don't have to, but, you know, you can throw that in here. So what does this generally look like? So this here is what I recommend is, um, like a wire frame. You know, in general how you might put your media kit together if you do a page on your website. And so this is how you might think about organizing it. So what? The top you have, You know your normal sight header with your navigation and you want to go right into your brand statement a couple of sentences long. You also want include your contact information. I recommend you do it at the top and at the bottom. This is really prominent easy for them to find. He would not believe how many people contact Tito editor or something, and then or like, they disappear off the planet. So they contact in an editor. Bloggers like I want to cover this time when he use this and then they can't get a hold of them. That's one of the biggest pet peeves. Actually, you hear from editors and interviews you won't have your head shot next year bio so they can see a picture if that you have a product that you can work into your head shot, you know, if you make jewelry. If it's a home decor item, you can, you know, stage it with you. You know, try to get that in there if you can show it off. And then here we talked about putting together three showcase products. Do you want to do in your pitches? So instead of doing your entire line in your media kit because they're under your website, right, they can probably click to your shop and surf around a bit pic three. Pick three that feel like really stand out product that you're really pushing and you can update thes because it's on your Web page if you want seasonally so that's up to you. And then you could put fast facts about your product. You could put this in, ah, paragraph form, but you can also bullet it out, so believing out, you know what kind of materials you use, what's special about them. Price point All of those product details we've talked about already, and then again with your contact information. So what this page does is if somebody decides that they're gonna cover your product, they have everything they need, all in one place. Everything they need is totally together makes it really easy for them to include it now. Another option. If the thought of putting together a media page is like, really intimidating to you and you're like, Oh, my God, I'm gonna have to hire developer designer. I don't do my own Web pages like, Oh, don't make that look good. Okay, This is my super low tech way to do it. So this is actually an my media kit, which I don't do products so you would have more in here. But we have a thing with our clients that, you know, we don't like, share their information without permission, so I couldn't pull when others to show you. But another option is to create a shared folder in either Google Drive or Dropbox or another file sharing service where you can actually pull all these things together, Um, and just put documents and J pegs or P and G's or whatever photo. You know, you use those, I think the two more common formats. So here you can see this is a share folder, my Google drive. If you use you know, Google, you can do like anyone with a link can view. You know, just make sure that anybody can use it. Um, and then And here you see have a folder where there's headshot. So there's headshots laid out horizontally and vertically. There's a square one in there to there is about be so that's about my agency, like a one you know, not even a one pagers about my agency and what we dio my bios in there. So, for your product media kit, you would put in there, then you know all of the elements that we talked about so you'd have product photography in a folder you'd have fast facts about your product in a document so you can put all of that together in this really low tech way and you don't have to worry too much about the design of it. They're not looking for you to be an amazing graphic designer. They're looking at your product and whether it's gonna fit one of the things we get questions from people a lot or, you know, Well, I don't I need to redo my website. I need to redo my website before you go out to the media and you might want to redo your website. If you feel like it doesn't actually speak to your customer like you're like, Oh, I need to redo my website because, you know, my customer base has changed. The aesthetic of my website or the language doesn't match my customer. That's a whole different. That's a branding issue, right? But when you're reaching out to the media, they don't care what your website looks like. They do not care like like there is this one example of somebody who not gonna name names. But she writes for o magazine. And if you look at her website, it is so like you would laugh. You're like this is website is a hot mess. It looks broken. Okay, It is like busted is a homeless dude website. So if you're worried about how your website looks, don't worry about that. You know, we're gonna talk about product photography. You should worry about how you're presenting your product, not worry about, like, feel pride, right? Feel like you're putting your best foot forward. But you don't have to worry about how your website looks. And if you do it a media kit in this format, no one's going to judge you for it, so don't worry about it. So this is easier for you. You can do this. So what we're gonna do here, then, is we're gonna actually go on and look at some of the different elements that we really want to focus on. But first, I want you to decide which format are you gonna be using for your niche Digital media kit, which format? And just start pulling together the elements into a folder that you can start populating into your digital media kit. Don't need to finish it right away because we're gonna look at some more, you know, how do you write your bio, but just kind of collecting the materials and the checklist and checking them off. So I want to know, you know, questions on this. And if anybody here also has a media kit already and and who is thinking about starting one? So on those product images, you want those ones to be on a white background and not like I have style is shots on a wood grain board that air my predominant one. So, but for that specifically, do you want to use that as long as you also include other photos? So sometimes what people will do? And I think I'm Megan's will do this. So if you, if you're if your photography or your product looks best on stylist, that's true for a lot of people. You know, maybe you can see scale a little bit better or something like that. It's OK to use those photos, but if you're going to do that, then I would have a link where they can download other versions. It's like maybe to a drop box, and then you have exactly so the media kit. It's really to get them like you want him to see if you want to show it off and then you want if the resource is aren't right on the page, you want them to easily get to it. Okay? It's a great question. Any other questions about that? Okay, anybody in the room have ah, media kid already? No. All right. This is really exciting. So what kind of format? What kind of format feels most appealing online on the on your actual website? The page? Yeah. I love love. Love. That format is an option. And one thing I didn't include here, but that you don't want to include don't want include, um, which commonly people do is other media coverage. You gone? You never You never want to do that. And the reason for that is often the media. You know, they don't if they see a competitor on there, you've been featured in a competitor. They won't feature you. So you don't really want to brag about that to the media. So when you're talking about your media coverage and sending it to other people, you know, if you're if you're doing licensing, if you're trying to get a wholesale account If you're talking to shopkeepers, anything like that, you know brands, it's OK. It's not OK. It's smart to send them your media coverage, but the person not to talk about up to his other media. So you want to keep that off of your media cat?