Five steps to get your summer menu into the media right now

Spring is here and people are thinking of being outdoors and eating lightly. Your local media, knowing full well that their audience members are thinking that, are now looking for stories that will help them enjoy their summers.

You’ve just come out with your summer menu and you’d like it to get some coverage. Here’s how you can get the media’s attention.

1. DON’T start your press release with “Good Food Restaurant Announces Their New Summer Menu!” The media gets hundreds of releases like that every day. Remember, they’re looking for a story, so give them one.

2. Select a specific item from your summer menu that is particularly tasty and/or artful that is a favorite of your diners.

3. Create a list of tips based around that item in your summer menu that will help the audience enjoy their outdoor cooking more. For example:

• “Five creamy yet fat-free sauces for BBQ Chicken Wings”
• “Five burgers that go well with a light red wine”.
• “Five light wines that pair well with burgers”
• “Six strange-yet-effective grilling tips for large crowds”

4. Create an email to your list of media contacts. Put the name of the tip list in the subject line, and include the tips as bullet points.

5. That same day, snail-mail the press release and the tip list to your media contacts (use a 9x12 envelope). Put the name of the tip list on the outside of the envelope (“Inside: Six Strange-Yet-Effective Grilling Tips for Large Crowds”). (Why? This will pique the media person’s curiosity about what those tips are. Like a true foodie, they’ll read the list. When that happens, your chances for coverage have improved.)

Foodies and wine-drinkers LOVE new tips and ideas for more enjoyment of their outdoor dining. And the media knows this. So when you provide new and unusual tips and ideas, the media will give it some consideration.

Here are some tips lists that have been in the grilling issues of magazines like Food & Wine and Bon Appetit’, and online newspapers:

• 5 summer wines to try right now
• 3 sauces for grilled chicken
• 30 top pinot noirs
• 8 grilled steak marinades that don’t use Worcestershire sauce
• The 4 most unique barbecue tools available

Those sound interesting, don’t they? Kinda makes you want to find out what those BBQ tools are, doesn’t it? (One of them is the "turkey cannon" (!)) That’s what I mean about the power of lists.

When you get your media appearance, make sure that you (subtly, of course) let the audience know that yes, you make that chicken/steak/wine at your place of business. Don’t make it a sales pitch, just tell them that you have it in an “Oh, by the way…” manner. The result: you’ll get customers because most people would rather have the food or wine prepared by an expert (you) than to do it themselves.

So give it a try. Get out those summer recipes, make up a tip list, and let the media know that you have the Five Best Creamy but Fat-Free Sauces for Grilled Chicken in town, and you’ll get noticed.