Media webinars can be good for hosts and media alike
Key takeaways:
- Hosting educational events for media demonstrates your firm’s leadership and authority.
- Make sure the focus is educational and serves to help media fill knowledge gaps, address misperceptions and identify sources.
- Benefits can include expanded media relationships and media coverage.
If you want to get on the media’s radar—and maybe shape their thinking about investment products or services—consider educational media webinars.
Several times a year, Lowe Group convenes educational media webinars on behalf of clients. You may be familiar with news conferences to which the media is invited to hear timely and breaking news. Media webinars are different in a few ways. They are private, invitation-only events. There's no time-sensitivity to them—which we've found is conducive to learning. They're not a sales spiel about your firm and your products but an open and transparent sharing of background and data on a technical subject featuring leading experts offering timely insights and answering questions.
“Don’t let self-serving or overly promotional material sneak into your deck.”
Think about it from the media’s perspective. They need to become experts on their beat and identify sources—experts who can answer their questions and help them get the information they need to effectively cover their focus area. They also need story ideas. Media webinars can help them with all of the above, especially when they include robust data, thoughtful and articulate guests, and rich and engaging discussions.
Getting the logistics right
Organizing a media webinar takes time. It starts with a timely and important topic. Finding a good day and time is important. We avoid Mondays and Fridays and often choose a midday or early afternoon time to avoid the media’s most busy times of the day. Neither early in the morning when news is often released or the end of the day when reporters face deadlines will work. How long is the webinar? No more than an hour including time for questions.
Identifying the right spokespeople to serve as your experts is critical—choose those who can present and not be overly promotional. Include your own thought leaders, of course. We’ve also seen firms include outside experts like academics or other respected authorities. If you are hosting a webinar on a product or service, featuring a user of the product, such as a financial advisor, can also work.
Spend time on your presentation deck and allow enough time for a compliance review, if necessary. Don’t let self-serving or overly promotional material sneak into your deck—reporters don’t want to be sold, and you will undermine trust if your webinar becomes a sales presentation.
Media briefings can be in person or virtual. When they are virtual, they are best on a professional call platform that allows for questions—ideally on camera, but it can also be via a chat capability.
Our team spends significant time building the right invitation list, sending invites and following up to get a meaningful audience. It often can take several follow-ups to get a busy reporter’s attention.
Is it worth the time? A wholehearted yes. Here are some of the benefits we see for the firms who host media events and the media who attend them.
The benefits of hosting
- Enhanced authority: When you host a media webinar, you help to shape the conversation, and your experts are positioned as knowledgeable sources. This helps build your company’s authority and your professionals’ status as thought leaders.
- Expanded relationships: An educational media webinar may be a first opportunity to meet a journalist covering your industry and their first chance to get to know your firm. Webinars can also be a chance to reconnect with reporters you’ve met, reminding them of your areas of expertise.
- Ability to shape the story and chance perceptions: Sometimes webinars can help shape perceptions on a new or emerging product type or technology, or change perceptions about existing ones.
With complex subjects, hosting a media webinar can help more media get it right. One firm we’ve worked with has hosted multiple media master classes to help journalists better understand annuities, demonstrate how they can be used, and change misperceptions. - Media coverage: We often see immediate coverage after a media webinar, especially if the topic is tied to subjects that are in the news.
Recently, a client who specializes in custom tax management programs hosted a webinar a few days after the passage of the recently passed OBBB, Trump’s tax law. That webinar led to immediate news coverage. In our experience, many but not all media who attend your event will follow up with you later when they return to the subject.
The benefits to media
- Professional development: Most media have no choice but to learn on the job. And with limited training budgets, media webinars can help media gain foundational knowledge to advance their ability to cover complex topics. The best media webinars feature skilled experts willing to share data and fill knowledge gaps.
- New source identification: Media webinars can introduce media to new and different sources who are clearly interested in talking to the media.
- Story ideas: Coming up with new and interesting topics is a never-ending part of any journalist’s job. The best media webinars plant seeds for future stories.
Post-webinar follow-up
Follow up with attendees to share your deck and any materials discussed during the webinar and a recording, if available. In our experience, there will be some no-shows. Send the deck and the recording to registrants who didn’t attend too. Be sure to include contact information and bios and background on your expert presenters.
We host several media webinars in a year for a reason: they are effective at expanding and improving coverage for our clients. And the best ones lead to genuine appreciation on the part of attendees. We often get thank you emails from media participants, confirming the information shared was helpful.
For more information, on our media relations program, send us a note.
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