The best laid plans …
By Leo Valiquette
It’s that time again for PR practitioners everywhere. With the end of the year looming, attention turns to the next year and charting a fresh plan of attack to take our clients’ stories to the media outlets that matter.
With our emphasis here at inmedia mainly on the specific trade and industry media that move a particular client’s market and care about our client’s story, an easy starting point is the editorial calendar. This typically charts specific topics, trends and issues that a publication plans to cover throughout the coming year. Editors need content and this is a ready means to get a bearing on what they will be looking for and when.
More often than not, however, details are scarce and a followup with an editor is required to validate, or disqualify, the opportunity before we can even see if we can get the client’s foot in the newsroom door.
But while the edcal is a good starting point, it’s hardly exhaustive. For one client, my colleague Danny is engaged in active discussions with an editor about a Q&A-style article. However, in reviewing this particular publication’s edcal, I didn’t see one opportunity for the entire year that appeared to be a fit for the client.
The morale of the story? An edcal only paints part of the picture. It is a great starting point, but no substitute for real person-to-person communication with an editor or journalist.
And even the story painted by the edcal can deceiving. In a call with a client earlier this week, I presented what appeared to be the low-hanging fruit: edcal opportunities coming up in January for which the client appeared to be a perfect fit. Prior to this meeting, I had already pinged the editorial contacts of these publications about discussing their January issues in more detail. No sooner had I told the client about what appeared to be particularly well-suited opportunity that she thought was fantastic, a message popped into my inbox that began with, “Hmm… must be some sort of error.”
Turns out someone had made a mistake and the publication’s focus for January was, in fact, a completely unrelated topic unsuitable for the client.
Easy come, easy go.
And it’s a rare edcal that doesn’t carry the caveat in fine print, “Subject to change without notice.” Edcals are often driven by the advertising department. Sure, the editorial content may be at arm’s length and independent of the sales department’s agenda, but advertising revenue is what keeps the lights on and the paycheques rolling in. While the editorial department must come up with relevant content to fill the page, the advertising department must find advertisers who see the value of plugging their related products or services in amongst the news articles. One is needed to pay for the other.
It just goes to show that effective media relations is a process in a dynamic state of flux. To get the client’s story told requires active and ongoing engagement with the media, all 12 months of the year.
