When preparing to pitch an earned media story on behalf of your organization, consider if and where a climate impact angle could be incorporated. Did the land acquisition project have a high climate resiliency score? Did a citizen science project contribute to protecting a climate-endangered species? Did a volunteer organize a successful community event to address impacts of a changing climate?
Earned media is an effective tool to test messages before explicitly communicating a climate commitment to your core supporters and to reach new audiences who may exhibit an interest in climate but are not existing land trust supporters.
As you craft an earned media pitch, be sure your team can answer the following questions:
Is it relevant to the reporter’s focus area?
Is the story new or unique?
Can you provide the reporter with a diverse cadre of storytellers?
Once you’ve identified that you have a climate angle to incorporate in a media strategy, incorporate these actions into the planning and preparation of your media representatives and materials that will be shared.
Identify the overall topic for the story and determine how or where a climate angle will be incorporated. Will a reference to climate impacts or solutions be shared in the project description or a quote from an organization representative?
Prep your staff with climate-related talking points ahead of any media interviews. Be sure those talking points reinforce your organization’s climate messaging slate or mission focus.
Select messaging that is clear, concise, relevant and of interest to reporters and news readers/listeners. Your story should not be heavy on scientific data.
Diversify your interview list. Identify volunteers, board members, organization champions or local topic experts who are comfortable sharing their stories or experiences. Reporters enjoy representing voices directly from the community in addition to land trust staff or subject matter experts.
Oftentimes, the most successful story placements include providing a reporter with women, young people, people of color as interview subjects.
If a traditional media pitch is not the right approach or not successful, consider placing an op-ed from a board member or executive director expounding on your organization’s work and relationship with climate impacts and resilience.
If your organization is considering paid advertising, analyze the return on investment before investing in one or more mediums. Determine the budget, goal and intended audience. Then make sure those parameters align with the need to spend advertising dollars. If your ad budget is prohibitive, explore multimedia advertising, streaming radio and social media influencer partnerships before investing in print ads.
One example of a successful media pitch was when CTNC pitched an exclusive story of a collaborative land acquisition project to a local reporter in Asheville. The story was featured on the front page of the newspaper and resulted in new and increased donations. Check out the press release CTNC sent and the resulting story.
