I have been getting press to come out and cover my sword club for years now and have had some success in doing so multiple times a year. By way of a disclaimer, I am not an advertising expert, but I have been doing advertising for my club, as well as the Utah Scottish association for several years now and would like to share my experience with my fellow clubs.
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Know your audience. You may have to write 2 or 3 press releases based on who the readership/viewership of the media you are sending a press release to, but if that reaches them better, it is worth it. Most of the time, I write press releases to the general public, some of whom may show up after seeing us in print or on the news, so I write a very broad press release. Your audience may know what you are talking about when you explain what your club does, but assume that they do not and then, when they show up if they know the subject better, talk at a higher level about it to them.
In as much as possible, give them something that they could go to press with, with little or no adjustment. What this means is answer 4 W's for them. (Who, What, When, and Where) What it all comes down to is this: You teach a sword class. That is awesome, and it may be interesting to your audience, but it is not something that a news organization will spend a lot of time covering. Before I started sending out focused press releases we had 1 or 2 people come out in the time frame of a couple of years, but now, we have 2 or 3 every 6 months. Timeliness is important here. A story on the fact that you teach a class, since you teach it all the time, it is not timely, as they could run it this weekend or 3 weeks from now and it would make no difference to them.
What they are willing to cover is an event you are holding, or a special class or seminar you are teaching. News organizations are looking for things people can come and see, or things that people can do, this is your bread and butter. Does that mean that you can't talk about what classes you teach? Absolutely not, but rather than lead with "We teach a sword class and it is awesome." Lead with, "We are teaching a different weapon, or style this month." or "We have a class for new people that starts on this day and costs this much" THEN follow it with "this is a part of our regular class, which teaches X, and here is where you can get more information about who we are and what we do.
Make sure you have a good website, Facebook page, or good way for people to get a hold of you. If it is a website, make sure that most of the questions you get asked by new people are answered there. That way when people do go there it will cut down on answering the same question over and over. You may still have to answer those questions some, but it at least will cut down on the number of times you have to do so.
Now you have a piece of beautiful writing, how do you get it to the press?
The way I go about it is this. Go to the website for any organization you want to cover your event, and look for an email of the editor, or where they take press releases. Often, it is something as simple as news@Newspaper.com, or editor@tvchannel.com. Most papers or tv channels will have this information on a contact us page or on the bottom of the main pages. If you are not sure, send it to the press release and the news tip emails. The worst that happens is that they do nothing. If they have a public events calendar, post it there. Most public radio stations for example will, pull stories from their public events calendar for announcement on the air, so it does not hurt to post those to as many calendars as you can. Make sure that you send it out a month before the event, and again a week or so before the event, so they have a chance to run it and a better chance of someone seeing it. What you do not want to do is to send it out weekly or daily to the same people as they will stop paying attention and may ignore things you send them in the future.
Now, you have done all that and you get a call or email from a news source who wants to come out and talk to you. What next?
Be willing to be a little silly. If you are on a morning show, they may want to do something silly as a part of what they are showing. I get it, you teach a martial art, that can be serious business, but if you can't have fun with it, they will not come back. The interviewer may ask a silly question, assume that your interviewer, or your audience knows nothing about the topic and keep it simple. If that means that you are teaching the person a drill, or you are showing a drill, do that, but do not go too far into explaining it. You have limited time with a TV crew so keeping it simple is better than explaining a lot and not covering everything you want to due to time.
Show, don't tell.
When it comes to TV they want to see something interesting. Show some sparring, show some drills, show the different weapons you teach, show a page from a manual, but do not just stand in front of a camera without a sword and say we teach HEMA and it is a lot of fun. Instead, show students doing it or doing a fun game you use in class. They want to see something different, not just a guy in front of the camera talking about your event, even having people spar in the background is better than a guy with a mic talking with nothing going on in the background.
Lastly, know that as good of a story as you write or they come out and do, at the end of the day, your story is a fun human interest story, and could be bumped due to another more important story. Do not get discouraged, it might happen but even if they bump it today, they could run it tomorrow. On a slow news day they may give you a little more time, but be willing to go with the flow on it.
Because I believe in showing not telling I have posted one of our press releases below.
The United Clans Swordsman Association and True Edge Academy of Provo to hold 2ndannual sword fighting competition of the year in Salt Lake City
For immediate release September 24, 2016 Salt Lake City, UTThe United Clans Swordsman Association and True Edge Academy of Swordsmanship will be holding their second bi-annual sword fighting competition of the year October 8th 2016 from 10:00 am until 4:00 pm at Liberty Park in Salt Lake City. Both groups are members of the Historical European Martial Arts Alliance a national nonprofit dedicated to Historical European Swordsmanship. Techniques taught include Long sword, Short Sword, Dagger, and unarmed fighting and defense. Participation in the competition will be limited to members of both groups; however, all are welcome to come to watch the event which will be held on the east side of the park by the large stone fireplace.There will be a beginner’s synthetic longsword tournament, a Synthetic open weapons tournament, and a steel Long Sword tournament all taking place during the competition on October 8th.“The Historical European Martial Arts are really an emerging field,” says Jordan Hinckley a Salt Lake native and Instructor for the UCSA’s Saturday class. “In other sports, what you do is just a game. Even modern Olympic fencing has changed over time and lost much of its original martial intent and skills. This art was something that I always wanted to learn, but up until several years ago did not know existed, what to call it, or where to go learn it. Now having been involved in it for as long as I have it is something I am proud of, and that teaches me skills that go far beyond how to properly swing a sword."The reasons behind joining for many of the participants in class vary. Some students join because they want to explore the fighting styles of Europe, others come to learn a unique martial art that is not widely practiced, still others find themselves attracted to it because they have always wanted to learn how to fight with a sword, but it does come with a particular caveat.“We are not playing a game when we show up to class,” Says Travis Emery, the head of the UCSA. “All of our technique is based historical texts and things that were done with the weapons and technique that we teach. In swordsmanship as an art, we look at what is in the historical texts to see what was taught, and how we can practice it safely while still learning the initial intent. More often than not we are surprised by many of the things that are shown in the historical manuals that would be against most modern sporting rules but make total sense in a self-defense situation. This is a combat art that was practiced for centuries through fighting on the field, as well as taught in fencing schools all over Europe.”“There is a huge misconception that in Europe, the fighting style until fairly recently was very simply hacking and slashing at each other, that there were no martial arts of Europe, this could not be further from the truth. These arts are just as complex as anything taught in the east, after all the body only moves so many ways and can only do so many things.” Says Jack Stewart one of the instructors for the UCSA’s Saturday class.Both groups teach classes throughout the week. More information about the organization, as well as the Historical European Martial Arts can be found on their websites at www.TheUCSA.com, and http://trueedgeacademy.com/ as well as on the Facebook pages for both groups.###
