Cision’s MultiVu recently hosted a webinar on Reinventing Your Media Strategy for the Virtual World. We quickly contextualized the discussion around 2020 and how its impacts have created the need for most of us to adapt to socially distanced and virtual strategies. Here at MultiVu, we can relate! Near the beginning of COVID-19, our clients were asking us about virtual options.
One of our biggest shifts was taking Satellite Media Tours – normally an in-studio, full-scale production with producers, camera folks, catering, make-up, you name it – and switching to virtual production, recording, and interviewing. We wanted to know how others had been affected by the events of 2020.
We were joined by two thought leaders: Gayle Fishel, Vice President of Marketing & Communications for the USO, and Ben Daufeldt, Brand Marketing Manager for The HON Company. Our guests had diverse and interesting experiences in their industries:
- The HON Company was a B2B furniture company operating from HON > Dealer > End Customer. Enter the pandemic, and it needed to adapt in two ways: making home office space work for consumers and preparing in-office space for the eventual return to in-person working with safer features.
- The USO needs to continue to support the troops and their families with new provisions in place. Rather than have in-person entertainment events, they pivoted to virtual programming. They’ve also been supplying PPE and USO2GO Kits and care packages globally to military families.
In both cases, the organizations found that a virtual media tour was a key part of their adapted 2020 planning. This falls in line with The Nielsen Total Audience Report: Working From Home Special Edition (Aug. 2020), which said 64% of consumers who connect with news content while working tune into local news to remain informed. Since media tours specifically target local audiences, it’s an effective solution for reaching people where they are and with information they can use.
So what makes for a successful media tour?
- Your metrics for success: impressions, target markets, quantity and/or quality of interviews?
- Audience: which target markets are considered a “win” for your company and why?
- Localize the story: How do we make it relevant for local viewers and key demographics?
- Spokesperson: celebrity, doctor/patient, corporate, third-party expert?
- Visual: b-roll content plus remote or in-studio set all add to your story
- Line-up: usually includes a mix of local affiliates, nationally syndicated stations, and niche radio shows
We recognize that budgetary constraints may be restricting your ability to communicate effectively this year. For this reason, as well as wanting to dip your toe in the media tour world, we offer co-op tours. These are a chance to share both the spotlight and the cost with up to three other non-competing brands. They are usually centered around a general topic or time of year that appeals to many different types of brands; some upcoming co-op tours are on topics like Stress-Free Thanksgiving, Holiday Gift Giving 101, and Winterizing your Beauty Routine. The 2021 co-op tour calendars are now available on multivu.com!
To read through the live Tweets from the webinar, visit us on Twitter @MultiVu.
