For entrepreneurs and business owners dealing with the media can feel both daunting and exciting. You’ve put in the hard work and now the media are interested in your story. Or maybe you want to establish yourself as the go-to person in your industry. I always advise clients to be fully prepared for this moment by ensuring they are up to speed with the campaign project or announcement that has generated the interest from the media.

For small business owners who are juggling all aspects of their business, this won’t be an issue as you’ll be super invested and know the announcement/ project inside out. However, for larger organisations where there are lots of moving parts, it may be the case that the most senior person will need a full briefing and media training on the topic. Or another individual in the organisation may be more suitable to give the interview, this happens a lot with larger organisations as it makes sense to put forward the most knowledgeable on the said subject for the interview.

However, for this blog, we’re going to assume you know your project well and can talk about it at length.

Print media interviews:

For interviews that appear in print, so your newspapers, magazines, and online media, you’ll either get journalists that will email you their questions and you can fill them out and return them, or you’ll get a journalist that wants to conduct the interview over the phone or face to face (rare these day as everyone is so busy). I’ve arranged many interviews for clients in this way, particularly my overseas clients.

Broadcast interviews:

For broadcast media so that’s your TV and radio outlets it’s a different story, firstly it may be the case that you are asked to attend their TV or radio studios or the nearest studios to you that they are linked with. Both are time sensitive so you need to be able to communicate your story message in a clear and succinct way. If you get a TV interview be mindful of the clothes you wear and colours and noisy jewelry. Be presentable but most importantly be yourself.

Online interviews:

With everything going digital it won’t surprise you that some interviews are conducted via Skype or zoom, in fact, I recently didn’t an interview with Canadian media out all via Zoom. Again, be aware of how you present yourself and relax.

8 Top tips

1. Be ready and prepared – do your research on the outlet(s) requesting interviews
2. Check out the journalist’s style of reporting so you are not caught off guard
3. Prepare a Press brief and bullet point your key messages for your story (keep them brief) and add in any helpful statistics (one side of A4)
4. Listen carefully to questions
5. Remember to give clear answers that include your key messages (more often than not for broadcast they’ll just take a couple of soundbites from your interview)
6. Stay on message with your brand – remember why you’re doing the interview
7. If you get any difficult questions you can’t immediately answer it is fine to say ‘can I get back to you on that’ -rather than give out the wrong information
8. Relax and enjoy it – you wanted to get media coverage – here it is!

Lastly, don’t take it personally

Remember with media interviews you only have control of what you say, so make it count. Don’t be disheartened if you spent 10 minutes talking to a reporter for a TV or radio interview to only hear or see 1 minute of your interview shown. That can happen and as news is very reactive sometimes so your time slot can be chopped to accommodate other news. The main thing is that you got the coverage and managed to get your top key points across.

What would you add to this list? Leave your comments below. If you want more info like this check out my online DIY PR course.