Your prospective customers are bombarded by advertisements every day, with each brand claiming to meet their needs best. Joining this crowd may not be your best bet to gaining customer trust and popularity, especially as a startup. What you need to focus on instead is earned media.

Earned media primarily includes recommendations from customers or news sources like articles and TV reports that cover your brand favorably, even though you do not pay for it or own it. Naturally, such earned media is far more trusted by customers than your advertising! In fact, 92% of consumers trust earned media more than any other form of advertising.

In this article, we will see how you can upgrade your branding strategy to get positive coverage from the media by using business media kits. Moreover, we will closely examine five successful media kit examples to help you get the inspiration you need to make a running start.

The power of a business media kit

A business media kit or press kit is a collection of marketing content and details about your business that you put together to inform and impress the media when they want to create a report about you. It is created as a separate document and sometimes integrated into a webpage.

A successful media kit is much more than just a pile of promotional material for the media. It is a powerful tool that can help entrepreneurs establish their brand’s credibility, provide easy access to information, ensure a positive narrative in the media and create a cohesive brand identity.

By creating a media kit, you can showcase your company’s unique value proposition and make a lasting impression on both potential customers and investors. It also conveys a professional image, which is critical for gaining the trust and confidence of stakeholders. These benefits could be achieved by directly sharing the kit or through media reports made using your kit.

Related: 5 Ways to Make Journalists Actually Want to Publish Your Brand’s Stories

Elements of an effective business media kit

A business media kit is incomplete without multiple essential components that convey your company’s story, products and services. These components typically include:

• Company history — A brief overview of your company’s background, mission and values. This can help establish credibility and provide context.
• Product or service descriptions — Clear and concise descriptions of your offerings that help potential customers and investors understand the value you provide.
• Target audience — Identification and description of your target audience with their needs and pain points. This aspect is instrumental in building empathy and trust.
• Logos and images — High-quality images and brand logos that help create a professional and cohesive brand identity.
• Contact information — Clear and easy-to-find contact information. This makes it easy for potential reporters, customers and investors to get in touch with you.
• Statistics and social proof — Key statistics, brief case studies and testimonials to add to your persuasiveness and credibility.

Overall, the media kit should be neat and professional in appearance. It must also include infographics and images that make it engaging and easily understandable for the target audience. Remember that its primary purpose is to engage and inform instead of promote.

Related: Monetize Your Website By Creating a Media Kit That Sells

5 Business media kit examples

In a world where attention spans are shortening rapidly, making a quick and strong first impression with a captivating media kit can make all the difference. Let’s check out five media kit examples from businesses who solidified their impression and authority with exceptional press kits that impress in an instant-

1. AWeber

AWeber’s media kit webpage provides tailored media kits for diverse purposes. They have a beautiful web media kit that is perfect for online publishers, while a distinct set of files caters to those printing, and a third bundle has their brand usage guidelines.

Their material is clear and to the point, with direct usage instructions and high-quality images. Their media kit focuses on reader convenience and efficient information sharing. It aims to make reports’ lives easier to improve the chances of coverage of their achievements.

2. Airbnb

Rather than a conventional press kit document, Airbnb has built a beautiful and fast website to use as a hub for its brand’s media interaction. The site is simple to navigate and includes a lot of content in different areas, placed strategically to avoid overwhelming the audience.

It is an excellent example of modern media kit design, where you build your media kit into your online newsroom. This design is ideal if you need to present extensive or frequently updated content.

3. Entrepreneur — Entrepreneurship magazine

Entrepreneur’s media kit uses a modern design with convincing content that showcases the brand’s dedication to innovation and thought leadership while helping advertisers understand reader demographics. The kit includes information about the publication’s audience and diverse services and even includes an editorial calendar.

Starting with a clear vision statement, Entrepreneur’s media kit combines social proof, statistics, content samples, and beautiful graphics to create a great impression right at first glance.

4. Headspace

This simple media kit example includes logos, images, videos and other press materials that help journalists and other interested parties to learn more about the company.

Headspace’s media kit communicates the brand’s message on health and wellness by simply putting the most important content together in a Google drive so people can easily understand and share information on the brand.

Related: 4 Apps for Mental Health and Stress Relief Amidst COVID-19

5. Realestate.com.au

This company explains its property management and real estate services beautifully using images, infographics and well-structured slides. The media kit covers all major aspects of the business, covering the perspectives of all stakeholders. At the same time, it maintains a consistent slide design and tone to match its brand positioning.

The bottom line

While these media kit examples can provide valuable inspiration and ideas for your kit, you must tailor your media kit design to your brand and target audience. Always consider what information the media and stakeholders are looking for and present it in a way that is engaging and easily understandable.

Remember that a well-made media kit is key to increased credibility and popularity for your brand. Still, a cluttered or difficult-to-navigate kit can do more harm than good for your branding strategy. So, give it some time and develop a media kit that your stakeholders love to read and share.