The Public Relations Society of America found that 75% of journalists use media kits when researching stories, meaning businesses without one are at an immediate disadvantage when a reporter comes looking. A media kit (also called a press kit) is a prepared collection of materials that tells your business story in one place: who you are, what you do, what you've accomplished, and who to contact. In Greater Los Angeles — where entertainment and media industries set the professional communications standard — having a media kit ready before anyone asks is increasingly the baseline expectation for businesses of any size.
Earned media is coverage you didn't pay for — a feature story, a podcast mention, a news segment. It's what happens when a journalist decides your business is worth writing about. 92% of consumers trust earned media more than any other form of advertising, making press coverage one of the most credible marketing channels a small business can pursue.
The practical difference from paid advertising: earned media costs preparation, not ad spend. A media kit is what enables it — giving journalists everything they need to cover you without a back-and-forth that often derails a story before it starts.
A well-built media kit doesn't need to be elaborate. It needs to be complete. Six core components belong in every business media kit:
Company overview — A 1-2 paragraph description of your business: what you do, when you started, and why it matters. Written for a reader who has never heard of you.
Executive bios — Short profiles (100-150 words each) of key team members or founders, with professional headshots attached.
Recent press releases — Copies of announcements from the past 12-18 months. These give journalists a track record to reference and story hooks to build from.
Product or service information — Clear fact sheets or one-pagers describing what you offer, without sales language.
Media clippings — Links or PDFs of positive coverage you've already received. Social proof matters even to journalists evaluating whether to write about you.
Contact information — A direct name, email, and phone number for whoever handles press inquiries — not a generic contact form.
Nearly 70% of journalists source stories from press releases, which is why recent releases belong in your kit even when those announcements felt routine at the time.
Here's something most business owners don't account for: journalists move fast. Studies show that 70% research companies independently rather than wait for email responses, so if your materials aren't findable in the next few minutes, your business typically won't make it into the story.
A media kit on your website or in a shared folder works around the clock. It doesn't require you to be reachable at 3 p.m. on a Friday when a story is going to press.
Save every component of your media kit as a PDF. PDFs preserve your formatting across devices and operating systems, can't be accidentally edited by the recipient, and attach cleanly to emails. A company bio that looks clean in Google Docs can shift unpredictably when someone opens it on a different platform — a PDF doesn't have that problem.
Adobe Acrobat's free online tool lets you trim PDF pages using a drag-and-drop interface to adjust margins, remove extra pages, or resize content — no software download needed. It works in any modern browser on Mac, Windows, or Linux.
Plenty of businesses assume a media kit requires a publicist or a professional designer. It doesn't. Start your media kit for free with a well-organized Google Drive or Dropbox folder containing your logo, bios, company overview, and fact sheets — that's a fully functional starting point.
The goal is accessibility. A reporter shouldn't have to hunt through your website or email multiple people to find your founding year, a high-resolution logo, or your press contact. A simple, organized folder handles all of that without any specialized tools.
Greater Los Angeles is home to some of the world's most media-savvy businesses. The entertainment industry, major logistics firms at the Port of Long Beach, and the region's technology sector all maintain professional press materials as a matter of course — and that standard filters down to smaller businesses across every community in the metro area. When a journalist is writing about Chatsworth or Porter Ranch, you want to be the business that's easy to cover.
If you're building your first media kit, the SBDC press kit workshop teaches small business owners how to build digital press kits and develop press releases to earn media coverage. It's a practical way to get there with guidance rather than guesswork.
Put the six components together, save everything as PDFs, and make the folder easy to find. When a reporter goes looking, you'll be ready.