How do you get your Startup featured on national television news?

Let's make the following assumptions:

• That you are focused on the critical tasks of producing a product customers want and connecting with customers.
• That you have a realistic marketing and advertising plan.
• That you are not relying on winning the lottery of national news coverage to help you go "viral" as the basis of your marketing effort.
• That getting on national news is not something you are "worrying about" -- but something that you see would be helpful to your start-up's efforts.

Then the question is how:

There are a couple ways that stories end up on national television news. One way is that stories are pitched to producers by reporters. Another way is that reports are assigned stories and go out and seek examples which fit in.

There is also this type of reporting called "investigative journalism" -- but that is in steep decline in national television news and hardly worth discussing for the purpose of this post with the exception of pointing out that to get published it is often the reporting pitching it to the producer.

So if you want your story to get picked up by the national news you need to do one of two things:

1. Pitch it to a reporter
2. Position it in a way that it can be an example for another news story.

Here are the things you need to do:

1. Pre-write the story in a way that would be appealing.
2. Know why it would be appealing
3. Know who it would be appealing to
4. identify the reporters on the national news that cover similar stuff or the subject matter
5. Find a hook for your pitch: why it is relevant for their viewers now
6. Contact them directly to tell them why.
7. Do as much of the background work for the reporter as possible

There are also a host of websites where you can go and post your name and story for reporters to access when they are seeking an expert of an example. Here is an example

Of course reporters are pitches all the time. How will yours pitch get through? Well it helps if you know the reporter. Or have some qualification that let's the reporter know the story has been vetted and it will be easy for them to just lift and present. (Think: minimal work)

Many companies (Most companies) intentionally seeking to get on national television news hire public relations firms. They are professionals in the way a programmer is a professional. It is possible to teach yourself C++ and build your own application -- and at a certain point, the cost benefit analysis is that it makes sense to hire a professional.

When hiring a PR professional focus on two aspects: development of the story and placement. You can find a professional who will be paid based on actual placement of stories.