By Amber Roberts, Senior Vice President, LANEAnyone who has worked in public relations for more than a few minutes knows that the media landscape – and with it the PR profession – has changed dramatically over the past few years.People are turning to new sources for news, and traditional media outlets are facing increasing competition for consumer attention and ad revenues. Many publications have shuttered, and others face consolidation and shrinking staffs. For journalists, the 24/7 media cycle leads to immense deadline pressure, while staff cuts and turnover bring more responsibilities and changing beats.All this means that earned media opportunities have become more challenging to secure. At the same time, though, the forces driving this transformation have also created new opportunities to share information and engage with audiences. So how can we as PR practitioners adjust our approach to more effectively address the current challenges and opportunities?Here are three tips for generating media results in today’s changing environment.

1) Modernize your pitch.

Everyone is busy and overloaded with information, and a reporter or blogger may not read an entire formal press release. Try to make your pitch brief and brilliant. You can also cut through the clutter by creating an attention-grabbing email subject line that your media contact could use verbatim as the headline to his or her article. Writing the headline you’d like to see is a time-honored tradition in preparing for media interviews, but it can help frame a potential story for a journalist as well.Finally, add value rather than simply asking for coverage. Instead of pursuing a placement that focuses solely on your brand or product, use your expert knowledge of the industry to pitch a broader story idea or trend that is related to your brand or product. Your outreach will seem less self-serving and will give the reporter a solid, newsworthy story to take to his or her editor.

2) Amplify secured coverage.

Because earned coverage is more challenging than ever to obtain, make sure you get all the mileage you can out of it. When you secure a good placement, boost its reach and longevity by sharing it across all your brand’s digital channels – website, social media, newsletters, and so on. This enables even an article in a small niche publication to reach a much wider audience. And if you can kick-start social sharing, the snowball effect will then generate increased content awareness and inbound links. Recommendation engines such as Outbrain and Taboola can also be a good way to get your content on high-quality sites and in front of the right eyes.

3) Give equal time to influencers.

Word-of-mouth is the primary factor behind 20 to 50 percent of all purchase decisions, and a study by McKinsey found that marketing-induced consumer-to-consumer word-of-mouth generates more than twice the sales of paid advertising. So it’s well worth the effort to spend time identifying influencers who align with your brand’s target audiences. Get to know them and find out how you could potentially partner with them to support your brand or product.[author]About the Author: Amber Roberts is a vice president at LANE, a national, independent public relations agency with 13 years of experience providing strategic marketing counsel, media relations, digital marketing and investor relations services to financial services companies.  Amber has managed campaigns and provided strategic public relations counsel for a broad range of companies, including retail and commercial banks, brokerages, investment banks, wealth managers, and private equity firms. [/author]