Often I will get asked to write a story for a client and I soon realise that, with a few tweaks, that story can be made press ready for use by media in a different location. At no extra charge.
In recent weeks this has happened twice – firstly for regular ad hoc client Dansworks Dance Academy of Performing Arts and secondly for contracted client Haslingden High School.
The first story centred around three dancers who had achieved amazing success taking their careers onto a new level, two of the dancers had links with the Rochdale area, so the original story that had been written for the Rossendale and East Lancashire press, was tweaked to give it a Rochdale bias and bingo – in print in the Rossendale Free Press and Rochdale Observer while also securing online coverage on Rochdale Online.
The Haslingden High School story told the inspirational tale of a science technician Emily who would do anything to avoid sport, but during lockdown discovered walking… and now can’t stop and has completed a marathon. As she came from Accrington, I wrote one story with a Rossendale bias and tweaked the Hyndburn element so that it was press-ready not just for the Rossendale Free Press but also the Accrington Observer – and it was used by both.
You may think… well I could just send the same story in and let the news editors change it around. As a former news editor, I know how busy I was, in 2020 there are fewer journalists producing copy for the papers and so the level of work has only increased. That is why, when the story sent to them has been written by a journalist and the subject is tailored to that newspaper’s area, there is more chance they will use it straight away without a re-write it.
Helping my clients to get the best coverage they can… it’s what I do…
