What is a Media Kit? Your Guide Plus Tips for Making One in 2022

In 2022, brands without a media kit are not reaching for their full potential. They are vital for broad outreach to exciting media outlets like Forbes, TechCrunch, and CNN. Contrary to what you might believe or have been told, you don’t need to hire a team of graphic designers.

It’s possible to put a media kit together with resources you already have.

What Does a Media Kit Do?

Media kits provide bloggers, news outlets, trade magazines and other mass media communications outlets with information about you to create exciting content about it. Your main purpose here is to explain precisely what your company, or product or service is about. Their main purpose is to then tell the world about you. Simply – give the media something to work with, and they will do the rest.

Why Do You Need a Media Kit?

As discussed above, media kits are designed to help you gain awareness through media outreach. When done well, this will happen while you sleep. They enable you to automate your public relations and associated queries without individually answering every email and phone call, especially when it leads to repeatedly answering the same questions.

Another reason you need a media kit is brand protection. With all the information up front, the risk of the media outlet giving out wrong or outdated information, and even logos and marketing material from the wrong company (those with a similar name to you). With all your information to hand, the risk of the media outlet doing this is much lower.

Remember: this is a public relations tool and the main rule about that is you controlling what people know about your brand.

Guide to Making a Media Kit for 2022

There is no correct way to design a media kit. It varies depending on your intended customer, your market, the image you wish to portray, and the sector(s) in which you operate. Your bandwidth and geographical scope will also play a part.

Company History – But Keep it Simple

They don’t need a long bio, just an overview from which they can extra key data. It’s not a blog post, so keep it to a few paragraphs with the most relevant details. Put noteworthy milestones in a bullet list. Include a “read more” link is useful too.

Photos and Bios

Press and readers love the personal touch. Put a face to the executive’s name including their role in the organisation; include a short bio and a high-quality photo. Also include quotes – these can inspire readers and provide great focal points.

Branding

Provide an up-to-date company logo in a range of sizes, ideally in PNG format. Not only does PNG maintain quality, but they are easy to work with in design packages. Also include a style guide: how to use your logo, and the hex colour codes for better format branding.

Stock Photography and Videography

Photos and videos of your office and day-to-day work would be ideal here. Also, photos of your products. If you can, include action shots of employees using your products. For digital products, use high quality images or videos for demos.

Statistics

Got any relevant statistics such as demographics, awards, buying power, market share, profitability? Anything related to diversity and inclusion? Quick statistics are digestible and stick in the mind for advertisers.

Contact Information

This is simple: the contact details of the person that the press should contact with any queries – typically the person responsible for press relations. The email address should not just be correct and active, but one they check regularly.

Testimonials

Ideally, customer testimonials and reviews, awards and past press coverage references should be no more than a single sentence each. Don’t be tempted to alter or truncate to change the sentence meaning though.

Places to Get Free Media Kit Templates

You can put them together yourself, but you may also save yourself a lot of time and hassle by using these web tools which provide some great customisable media kits for you to download:

• Adobe Creative Cloud Express
• Canva
• Lucidpress
• Template.net
• Visme

These are great to get you started, especially if you find the process daunting. It is always a good idea start here before designing your own.

Quick Final Tips

Don’t leave it until the last minute – you risk putting out a poor-quality media kit, or not having one at all as you run out of time and resources for your big launch. Get started as early as possible so that you’re prepared for those things that will inevitably go wrong.

Remember that your media kit is a living document. Update periodically with new details, brand images, reviews, and product information. Remove outdated material too.

Also, share it around! Social media, blogs, your website – media kits are designed to be seen and help build a brand image.