You’re probably experienced in trying to get domestic press coverage – there are countless companies and services in place to get you into the eye of UK journalists and bloggers.
But getting word out internationally is different – how do you get word out to everyone, regardless of location or language?
It would seem like you’d need to be a giant to get that sort of reach, but luckily for us, that’s not entirely true.
In reality, getting international press isn’t impossible – it’s the same basic process as getting domestic press coverage, but there are a few crucial steps you need to take in order to have success.
We’ll cover some international press coverage tips from our experience over the last 12 years with the world’s biggest international marketing and PR firms so, if you’re looking to generate real buzz behind your products, services or a recent project, read on.
Pinpoint your individual country targets
Going after every publication in every country is asking to be ignored.
Start by pinpointing one or two countries to target.
- Where do you think your product would be successful? (Are there any overlaps in similar cultures or market maturity? For example, the UK and some parts of Europe have very similar demographic and social media usage)
- Where do you think citizens would care about what you have to say? (Think of regional and cultural differences.)
- Does your customer base skew towards one demographic already? Are your products particularly popular with certain elements of society within the domestic market? Can you reach these types of prospects with a perfectly placed press release in another market? An example would be niche B2B press that have the same readership demographic as a title you have a great relationship with already.
The importance of country-specific material
Most people fail to get international press coverage because they don’t realize one simple thing…
The journalist’s mind-set is exactly the same… everywhere in the world.
Imagine if you were a UK journalist and you read a press release (written in English) that had multiple spelling, grammar, and misused-word errors. Then, when you went to the linked website, it wasn’t in English – or geared towards the English audience at all.
Would you write about that company/product/service?
You wouldn’t. In fact, you probably wouldn’t even get so far as looking at the product/service itself – when you saw the broken English, you’d probably delete it right away.
So, you need to do two things before even attempting to get international press coverage:
- Translate your press release professionally so that when the journalist/blogger opens it, he or she can immediately understand what you’re saying and what your product/service is all about in context of their country’s readership.
- Translate the assets behind your products/services (for example, your website) so that if a journalist/blogger is interested in your press release, they will feel good about writing about the product/service for his or her audience specifically and give you a perfect call-to-action for the new found awareness.
Bubbles Translation can help you with your press coverage translation needs – we’re able to handle translation projects for more than 280 countries around the world. We can handle your asset translation (like your website), too – just get in touch and ask how we can help.
Getting coverage: the basics
Now that you have your country-specific press releases and assets, it’s time to put them to work.
A fantastic first step is using the widely-known press release services for each individual country you wish to target.
For example…
BusinessWire offer geographic circuit packages…
PR Newswire also offer social media monitoring
If you have something worthy of coverage, some well-placed press releases (with perfectly-translated content, of course) will often land you a bit of initial press coverage. You can find country-specific press release distribution with a bit of digging – unless you’re trying to target an unusually obscure country, there will be companies in place to help with distribution.
But we get it – you’re looking to go BIG. Press releases are a great start, but you’re looking to have real buzz in each country, not just one or two media pieces – right?
Getting coverage: above and beyond
If you want to go big, you have to go personal. You have to start reaching out to individual journalists and bloggers and talking with them in a relatable way. It’s the best way to ensure that you get noticed.
If you were reaching out the UK journalists/bloggers, this wouldn’t be difficult. You’d be able to create custom messages for everyone who you wish to reach.
International is much more difficult. If you take your “first contact” email and just run it through a web-based machine translation tool, it will come out the other end looking like a mess. You won’t make a good impression on the person you need to impress, and you probably won’t get coverage.
So, you need to translate the “first contact” pitch message, too. Often times, this can be used over and over again (for example, one message for each country).
And again, Bubbles can help you translate whatever you need to say. Communications translation is one of our many specialties.
Go through popular country-specific news publications and start reaching out to writers who have written about similar products or services before.
And of course, the most important part to remember when reaching out…
You are not the journalist and the journalist doesn’t care about your product as much as you do.
You’re not giving the journalist a story – you’re just giving him or her the raw facts about your product/service to work with. If you approach journalists saying “my product’s story is perfectly fit to publish”, you’ll probably get ignored by the journalists that really count. It’s a borderline-insulting approach to getting press.
Overall, getting press on an international level takes work – but press coverage is one of the most powerful marketing channels in the world, and once you get the hang of it, you’ll be able to get your name into the public eye in new countries with nothing more but newly-translated material.
Pinpoint one or a few countries to start with, contact Bubbles Translation Services to get your press material translated, and launch into international press coverage with a solid foundation that will get you noticed.
