59

SIXTEEN

Develop an Online Media Kit

Once you have completed your work on a new product—whether it is a book, a record, a new CD series, or even a blog—you will probably have some time before it is available to the market. This is the perfect opportunity to get your ducks in a row and prepare for the launch.

One of the first things you need to create is a great online media kit. This is a page on your website or blog where you will want to send strategic partners, media producers, product reviewers, event planners, public relations people, superfans, and anyone else who might want to talk about you or your product. Make it easy! Your media kit is a resource page designed to equip people with all the tools they need to help you get the word out. (It can also help you control your message.)

Include the following eight components. You can alternatively split some of these into separate pages. I’ll provide some examples at the end of this chapter.

1. Headline. Make it clear what this page is. It might be as simple as the name of your product and the words Media Kit.

2. Navigation. Provide a table of contents. This provides an overview of the page and a quick way for your visitor to navigate to the parts of the page that are most relevant to him or her. For example, I did this on my Speaking page.¹ Though it’s not a media kit per se, it will give you the idea.

60

3. Contact Information. Make it easy on the media, event planners, and your fans. This is often all they are looking for. Put it near the top. Tell people who to contact for inquiries from the media; event or booking inquiries; review copy requests (for books); questions from fans; and all other inquiries.

If you are going to provide an e-mail address, use a link and encode it, so you don’t attract a lot of spam. Also provide links to your social media profiles, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and others.

4. Product Information. Provide all the basic product information in one place. Don’t make your readers hunt.

• Sales copy. Provide both short (one hundred words or so) and long versions (three to five hundred words) of your sales copy. Bloomberg Media’s short version says, “The global business elite relies on Bloomberg more than any other news source.” The long form:

Bloomberg is a trusted, indispensable source of news and analysis for the largest, most powerful network of global business executives. We’ve leveraged the innovation and scale of Bloomberg technology, analytics, news and distribution to create an unparalleled, full media spectrum. With 2,300 media professionals in 146 bureaus across 72 countries, we deliver award-winning intelligence, as news happens, from where it happens.²

• Product specs. List the simple product or technical specs. For example, for a Coleman Sundome® 4 tent,³ this would include:

Weight: 10.2 lbs
Floor: Polyethylene 1000D-140g/sqm floor
Limited 1 year warranty
Made in China

61

• Product formats. List and link any additional product formats the product might be available in, as well as any ancillary products: premium editions, signed editions, DVD study materials, merchandise, workbooks, seminars, conferences, and so forth. This could be anything organically related to the primary product.

For the Coleman tent above, ancillary products would include a Tent Repair Kit, the CPX™ 6 Lighted Tent Fan, and the CPX™ 4.5 LED Tent Light, as well as the Sundome 2, Sundome 3, Sundome 6, and Elite Sundome 6 tents.⁴

• Product photos. Provide more than one photo, preferably from different angles and in 3-D. I use a program called Box Shot 3D.⁵ It is powerful and enables me to create product shots like this:

62

• Product trailers. First there were movie trailers. Then there were music videos. Now there are great trailers for speakers, product demos, books, and more. In fact, some people produce more than one. Make sure they are uploaded to a site like Vimeo⁶ (my personal preference) or YouTube so people reading the page can embed them on their own site or blog.

• Full bio. Provide a short version (one hundred words) and a longer one (three to five hundred words). Don’t make this look like a résumé. You only need to include what is relevant to this page’s audience.

• Head shots. Provide several head shots of yourself, in several sizes. I provide formal, casual, and action shots.

• Product endorsements. This is where you include all the celebrity endorsements. Try to get authority figures in your category. If you can’t, shoot for people with impressive credentials. If you can’t, customer endorsements are better than nothing. See chapter 14 for how to obtain great endorsements.

5. Promotion Information. Most readers won’t be interested in every aspect of your marketing strategy. However, your live appearances (e.g., speaking events, concerts, presentations) and media appearances (e.g., radio, television, live online chat, blog tour) will be relevant to both professionals and fans.

• Live appearances. Provide a list of your upcoming speaking or concert dates. Include links so readers can get additional information. Here’s an excellent example from Ken Davis’s site:⁷

Best-selling author, frequent radio and television guest, and one of the country’s most sought after inspirational and motivational speakers—Ken’s mixture of side-splitting humor and inspiration delights and enriches audiences of all ages. His books have received national critical acclaim, including the “Book of the Year” award and the Gold Medallion Award. The video and audiotapes of his live appearances are in constant demand.

63

Ken has been the keynote speaker for hundreds of major corporate events. He is a featured speaker for Promise Keepers and a frequent guest on “Focus on the Family.” Ken has made thousands of personal appearances around the world. As president of Dynamic Communicators International, he teaches speaking skills to ministry professionals and corporate executives. Ken’s daily radio show, Lighten Up!, is heard on over 1500 stations in the United States and around the world.

• Media appearances. Provide a list of your upcoming media appearances so that producers, event planners, and fans can tune in. You might also include highlights from previous appearances.

6. Interviewer Resources. You want to make it easy for producers to book you. Provide the following items:

• Bio talking points. This is similar to your bio, but in a talking points format instead of a narrative. This makes it easier for the interviewer to make it sound natural. Here’s an example of what I provide to those who introduce me before I speak:⁸

Introduction of Michael Hyatt

Michael Hyatt has spent his career in book publishing. As a publisher, literary agent, and New York Times best-selling author, he has a unique perspective on the rapidly changing world of content creation and delivery.

1. He is currently the chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers:

• The largest faith-based publisher in the world;

• The oldest commercial publisher still in existence; and

• The seventh largest trade book publisher in the United States.

He has worked personally with such best-selling authors as Dave Ramsey, John Maxwell, Andy Andrews, and Marcus Buckingham.

2. Michael is a successful social media practitioner:

• His blog, MichaelHyatt.com, is one of the most popular in the world.

• According to Google, he is ranked in the top 800 of all blogs, with more than 400,000 visitors per month.

• He typically writes about leadership, personal productivity, and social media.

• He also has more than 100,000 followers on Twitter.

3. Most importantly, Michael is a devoted family man:

• He has been married to his wife, Gail, for 33 years.

• They have five daughters, three sons-in-law, and seven grandchildren.

• He makes his home just outside of Nashville, Tennessee.

He is here [this morning/this afternoon/this evening] to speak to us on the topic of [speech title]. Please join me in welcoming Michael Hyatt.

65

• Product summary. Ninety-five percent of interviewers have probably not used your product or read your book or heard you speak. They’re not familiar with your offering. But they want to sound like they are. Summarize it for them. It is an opportunity for you to make the interviewer look smart, which will translate into a good interview and, potentially, more interviews down the road.

• List of interview topics and angles. Again, in the spirit of making it easy for producers to book you, provide a list of interview topics and angles. Make them relevant to what people are already talking about. This is one section you will likely need to update as the current news changes.

• Sample interview questions. This is the single most important thing you can do to get more, high-quality interviews. Develop a list of seven to ten interview questions. This allows both you and the interviewer to look smart.

7. Fan Resources. It’s great to have fans. It is even better to turn fans into evangelists. But in order to do this, you have to equip them to work on your behalf.

• Samples. Give your fans something to share with others. Sample quotes from your seminar, light versions of your app, or sample chapters from your book. One great tool for authors is Scribd.⁹ Why? Because your fans can embed the sample chapters in their own blog to share it with others.

• Twitter post samples. Make it easy. Give your followers ten to thirty sample tweets. Suggest a hashtag so you can track all the tweets in one place. (See chapter 43, “Understand Twitter Basics.”)

• Banner ads. Commission the design of banner ads that your fans can put on their own blogs or websites. These are cheaper than you think. Just search Google for “cheap banner ad design.” You should create ads for all the standard banner ad sizes.

• Incentives. Give people an opportunity to connect with you based on how many of your products they buy or what they are willing to do to promote them. Gary Vaynerchuck and Phil Cooke are two examples of this.

66

Vaynerchuck offers a Crush It! wristband if you buy three books, a personalized video from Gary for buying fifty books, and an hour of one-on-one Skype time with him for buying three hundred books. If you buy one thousand books, you’ll receive dinner with Gary in New York City.¹⁰ Cooke had similar deals for his book Jolt! ¹¹

Be creative!

• Wallpaper. Some of your fans want “digital bling.” They will proudly display it on their computer. What can be more personal than that? A good designer can crank out wallpaper using your exiting graphics in less than thirty minutes.

• Merchandise. Some of your fans want “physical bling.” They identify with your brand or your product so much that they are willing to wear it, display it, or drink from it.¹²

8. Media Reactions. This is basically a “wall of fame.” Include your best product reviews, customer reviews, Twitter comments, Facebook comments, Google+ comments, and so on. The idea here is to share endorsements and enthusiasm from your fans to fuel even more enthusiasm.

The best example of a media kit I have ever seen is the most recent one for Andy Andrews’s book The Final Summit. ¹³ It meets nearly all my criteria. Make sure you download the PDF as well.¹⁴

Also, check out the online media kits for Dave Ramsey’s book EntreLeadership,¹⁵ Dov Seldman’s book How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything,¹⁶ and Jenny Blake’s book Life After College.¹⁷

If you want to equip your potential partners and fans to get the word out, take the time to build a great online media kit.

We’ve covered a lot in this section. From defining your goals to assembling your pit crew to securing raving endorsements, you’ve learned about the need to do your prep work well. Done with care and intent, these will become the footings, posts, beams, and joists for your platform.

In the next section we’ll begin building on that solid substructure as we cover the important elements to building your social media home base.