What’s the Right Media Strategy for Climate Solutions Companies? 3 Tips to Help you Optimize

So here’s the good news. Despite an increasing number of media sites and publications shuttering their doors, the remaining media are bulking up their climate desks. And as I mentioned back in July these climate reporters are beginning to move from the disaster scenarios to a solutions focus. 

In fact, many of them have to write about new solutions each day: if you’re at Bloomberg Green, Reuters Sustainability, The Washington Post, or New York Times, or BBC, you need a major funnel of stories. This is not to say these editors don’t get hundreds of emails each day to choose from. But what they don’t get is value add. 

Here are some tips that can make you stand out from the flood of press releases they see. Over time these can help you enhance your relationship with the editor so that when they see an email from you they know it won’t be a waste of time. All these tips can help you increase your credibility with news organizations.

Tip 1: Help them connect the dots

Why should they be interested in a climate tech innovation if there is no context? Look, your company is the expert in your field. And in the constantly shifting landscape of everything from renewables to carbon capture and changing regulations, you’re the one who has done the SWOT analysis, knows the competition, and sees where the industry is going. Use your pitch to the editors to show them the industry roadmap, and give them clear reasons why this is important. This also sets you up as an industry authority, and even if the editor can’t do the story right now they may come back to you because they have a round-up piece and want your comment.

Tip 2: No company news? Comb the headlines for trends and “hooks” to comment on

Obviously, you can’t pump out a product or get funding every two weeks. But you need to stay on the media radar screen. This is where you need a bit of guerilla marketing. Enter a search term in Google that reflects your company’s business or your company’s challenge. If you’re a battery company, how about “new energy regulation and residential battery sales”? Click on the news button to see what kind of coverage has been appearing. Hmm, a lot of pieces on how homeowners are trying to avoid having utilities suck up all the home-generated solar power without paying much for it. Craft an engaging – or maybe even a contrarian – statement from your CEO and send this out to your media list. 

Tip 3: It’s a wide-open field. Become the resource with an e-book

Nobody knows where this industry is going – it’s too young. But you have ideas. You’ve been homing in on social media to build your B2B presence. You have nearly 20 blog posts. Bingo. Time for repackaging. Organize the blog posts into relevant thematic sections, maybe flesh them out a bit or add a couple new ones. Add a table of contents, try to optimize it for SEO. Voila. An e-book that you can announce. In your announcement pitch, lead with the salient facts or observations to draw the journalist in. Or add it to your signature as a reference point when you pitch other angles.

Of course, if you’re at a start-up you don’t always have time to do the research. That’s where an effective agency can help you get off the ground and into the media. Here at Blue Practice, our ability to leverage climate tech market knowledge from across our entire client base allows us to quickly see the connections ourselves and bring ideas to our clients. We can then embark on the core work of media relations, whether it’s drafting pitches, writing thought leadership articles, or helping you with your e-book. Get in touch, we look forward to starting with you.