Using an online media room to get attention for your group coaching program

If you are serious about creating a powerful presence and get media coverage for your group coaching program, you need an online media room.

By creating an area of your site specifically for the media, you can save the expense and time of using postal mail (which most reporters hate anyway), assist journalists in their research, and impress your target audience and potential clients for your group coaching programs.

The following is a list of items you should include in an online media room:

• Contact information. Make sure you provide quick and easy ways for reporters to reach you any day at any time. This may include after hours phone numbers.
• A link to prior press releases. Demonstrate your credibility by posting press releases that either you have written or have been written about you.
• About the company. In the media room online, offer the mission of the company and remind them what it is that your business can do.
• Bios. Journalists need to know more about you in order to interview you. So make sure you provide them will a biography that's well written and relevant to what you are doing in business. (After all, no one cares if you were on the college badminton team unless it's relevant to what you are doing now.)
• Company fact sheet. A fact sheet offers the basic information about your business that clients and media outlets would want to know.
• Facts concerning your expertise. Offer findings and statistics to emphasize the importance of your field and how those facts are newsworthy.
• FAQs. Listing frequently asked questions can help address what reporters and clients want to ask about in addition to their concerns without wasting the time of exchanging emails.
• A photograph. A picture can be used by reporters or producers when quoting you as an expert source and also creates a source of familiarity with clients over the vastness of the Internet.
• Client list. Mention clients that you have dealt with in the past. This can establish the success of your business with your client list and provide you with the credibility to prove you are an expert.
• Story ideas. Listing story ideas in your field of expertise can give reporters topic ideas to cover. Journalists sometimes are looking for stories to write about. By doing some of the legwork for them, you are more likely to get coverage.
• Articles. Including articles that you have written shows and establishes you as the expert.  Also, with your permission, these articles can also be used by media outlets to republish.

Almost as significant as the content of an media room online is the way in which the content is presented. Follow these tips to complete the establishment of a great media room:

1.  Make sure your media room is easy to discover. Put a link to the page on the main navigation of your site or on the home page. It can be called a 'media room,' 'press room,' or under 'about us.'

2. Use the HTML format on regular web pages. PDFs are great, as well. You just want to make sure the information is esily accessible to as many people as possible.. This also keeps the content search engine friendly.

3. Include downloadable files. Always offer a link to past articles, photographs, or press releases to be used electronically or for print.

4. Remember that the Internet is global in search. Unless your company is only interested in generating business within a certain area, try to use words that are universal so that it can come up in searches made internationally.

Make sure everyone can access and understand the content in your online media room.

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Shannon Cherry is the publicity/media expert for Group Mastery, and the founder of Be Heard Solutions. Known as The Power Publicist, she helps coaches, entrepreneurs, consultants and solo professionals attract more clients and customers through the power of publicity.