Publicity Case Study – How To Be Newsworthy In A Saturated Market

Approximate read time: 4 minutes

One of the biggest struggles most people have when trying to generate positive publicity is working out which of what they do is interesting and newsworthy.

“Interesting” is subjective. It’s a common trap to think what you are doing is automatically interesting and newsworthy. It makes it hard to see things accurately, especially when you are heavily invested in it.

There is a video clip making the rounds in online press and on social media.

It’s a death metal cover of “You’re The One That I Want” from Grease The Musical.

Does that sound interesting? (Interesting is defined as “arousing curiosity or interest; holding or catching the attention.”)

Despite whether you like death metal or not, it’s certainly interesting. It’s interesting and it’s genius publicity (now, I don’t know if it was intended to be this way, but I’ll show you the publicity they got from it.)

Check out the video clip…

Did you watch?

Anyway, the problem most bands face is that it’s really hard to get a break and differentiate themselves among all the other competing artists. Most bands that are looking for publicity are in brand-building mode, in other words, they are not established brands (because if they were established, then then publicity would seek them, not vice-versa.) Bands send a press kit, hoping they will be featured (and a feature is probably the hardest type of publicity to get unless you are an established brand.)

The reality is: the band isn’t probably doing anything newsworthy or interesting for a press kit to cut it!

FACT: If you are death metal band, you are competing with millions of other death metal bands to get a break.

However, if you are death metal band and you do a death metal cover of “You’re The One That I Want”, then before 1 July 2015 you were doing something interesting and newsworthy and you were competing against zero other death metal bands to get a break.

It would have paid off for you.

The Grease cover was pick up by:

  • Huffington Post;
  • Sydney Morning Herald;
  • VH1;
  • Boing Boing;
  • College Humor;
  • Laughing Squid;
  • Loud wire;
  • Bro Bible;
  • Blabber Mouth;
  • Nerdist;
  • Revolver Mag;
  • Metal Insider;
  • And lots more.

Dozens of other global radio station websites embedded the clip (you can’t get better alignment with music fans than this), it was shared thousands of times on social media and did 3/4 million video views.

I’m pretty sure they picked up a few extra fans because of this coverage AND they didn’t dilute the message of what the band was about – death metal.

The lessons:

  1. Do interesting and newsworthy things and publicity will take care of itself (but don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting being a clown or doing something outrageous); and
  2. What you think is interesting and newsworthy may not be the same as what outlets and audiences think is interesting and newsworthy (remove the rose colored glasses.)

You can get 21 printed lead generating Process Maps for free, here.

And if you’re serious about marketing and selling more, the logical next step is to contact me to help you do it yourself, have me do it with you, or have it all done for you.

This may be the momentum you need to get great marketing and sales results.

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