How To Promote Your Book, Event, Or Brand When You Get Featured On TV

written by Julie Parise

Whether it’s a book launch or an upcoming event, it’s really exciting when you get featured on TV. While the publicity is great in and of itself, you want to make the most of every television appearance. This means directing people to your website, social media, or wherever they can learn more about you and your book or brand. 

This is easier to do than you think. It just takes one step. 

Step 1: Tell people where to buy your book or product. 

That’s it. Tell people what your website is, how to follow you on social media, or where/when you’re doing your book signing. Don’t be afraid to promote what you’re selling. When you’re doing a media appearance, don’t wait for the anchor to host or ask about it. 

Many times, we hear from our clients that they don’t want to come off too “salesy” when they get featured on TV, so they don’t mention their website. We understand where this fear comes from, and it leads us to our next point. 

Pitch yourself for TV using the exact same strategies and pitches we use! 

There is a right and wrong way to promote yourself. 

The wrong way to use this strategy is by making promotion the main part of your interview responses. You don’t want to bombard people with your website or social media information from start to finish. That is when you come off “too salesy,” which is a turnoff for most people. 

Instead, focus on your story and messaging. In fact, work on making your interview responses 95% of the interview. Leave the other 5% for promotion. The key is to subtly work in a plug for your book, brand or event. How do you do that? 

As you answer the interviewer’s question, start with confidently sharing one of your main messaging points and then end by mentioning your website or social media account where people can find the right link. 

For example, our client, an event producer for a weekly Las Vegas comedy show, recently went on a local TV station to promote her production. During the appearance, the host asked about the style of the comedy show. Our client took the opportunity to push out some key messaging by talking about the musical aspect of the show that makes them unique — their focus on diversity and free speech — and then wrapped up her response with a subtle promotion. 

You can watch her response for yourself. 

At around 3:50 in the video clip, our client mentions all the things that make her show unique, like diversity and non-censorship — the core values of the production. Then, before wrapping up the response she said, “We really believe in having conversations and that comedy is the best way to do that….so come on down to the show on Saturday nights, you can head over to our website (here she gave the actual URL)  for tickets, and you can see everything we’ve got going on there.” 

It’s as easy as that. 

The first and only step to promoting your product when you get featured on TV is to…promote it yourself! 

For more steps to landing great publicity and continuously getting featured on TV and podcasts, check out our other blog posts with advice for authors on book publicity.