The Microbrewery Handbook

Chapter 27How to Get the Local Media on Your Side

MEDIA COVERAGE FOR a brewery is often treated like a spare tire. You only care about it when you need it.

After more than a decade as a journalist, I've seen both sides of this dilemma. Fortunately, living as a journalist first has prepared me to know what businesses should do to optimize their chances at getting the best kind of exposure out there: free, objective exposure.

This may be outdated, but when I was in the business mid‐2010s we used a common metric that objective news coverage about an event or a business was worth 2.6 times more than a paid advertisement. Think about your own media consumption. Do you give more credence to an ad you see about a brewery or when CraftBeer.com does an article on the same brewery?

Earned media is valuable in so many ways.

So, what helps a business get exposure, and what makes it as likely as possible that a journalist will take on your story? We are grateful for our local media, the Pensacola News Journal, WEAR3‐TV, Ballinger Publishing, and the Independent Weekly, who have all been gracious with their time and coverage of our company and our events.

Be aware, however, that there is no guarantee of coverage just because you send a journalist or blogger an e‐mail. Don't be mad if they don't respond. They get zillions of e‐mails just like yours.

We think that our insider industry knowledge has helped garner more coverage, and I'm passing that knowledge on to you today. Here are my suggested ...