By Jill Pyle
Launch day is always busy, usually requiring us to spend all morning, if not the entire day, contacting the media. On launch day, the news release is sent out, follow up calls are made and pitching for coverage begins. On this day we start mining for both immediate and future opportunities. We begin investigating the potential to secure coverage in our most important media outlets, enquiring about upcoming opportunities and what is required to deliver on them.
On launch day, we need to be on top of our game, ready to rhyme off endless facts about the company or product we are representing. Our knowledge of the client and its technology must stretch far beyond the information included in the news release. We need to know exactly whom we are calling, why we are calling and how to make the pitch relevant to them. Before we can pick up the phone, send out the news release, or schedule a single interview, there is a great deal of work that needs to be done.
Launch preparations often consume the weeks leading up to the launch and are in some ways are more intensive than the launch day itself. During the ramp up period of an initial client engagement, we attend briefings and learn everything there is to know about the client and its technology. In an ideal world, we then have some time to digest the information before developing the required media materials, although often, due to tight deadlines, we need to dive into this process immediately.
The rigorous process of researching, drafting, editing and finally gaining approvals on the materials gives us the requisite level of knowledge we need to hit the phones. It is only after finding the right words to communicate the story coherently to the relevant media audience that we can show up to work on the morning of a launch with all of the information we need to make that first call.
By Jill Pyle
In a business environment, people often give their immediate attention to the tasks and projects with the fastest approaching deadlines. Whether deadlines are set for internal purposes or imposed by clients, they often guide our priorities and motivate us to make the best use of available resources.
When more than one person or several groups of people are working together on a project, problems can arise if roles and responsibilities are not clearly defined. There may be a deadline by which a project is scheduled for completion, but if everyone has a different piece of the puzzle to contribute, you’d better hope they aren’t all delivered at the last possible moment. It’s incredibly important to leave some time for the puzzle assembler to work some magic.
When launching a client to the media or analyst community, there are many tasks that must be completed before the news release can be sent over the wire or the first reporter is called. In advance of the launch, the media kit and news release copy are drafted and approved, the media list is researched and contacts are confirmed, and customer quotes are signed off. The only way to ensure all of these pieces come together in time for the launch is to come up with a plan on which our team and the client can agree. We call this a critical path.
We use critical paths to outline all the tasks that need to be done in preparation for a launch, defining by when they need to be completed, and who is responsible for completing them. With a document containing all of this information, we can break up what might seem like a large project into small, manageable steps.
While critical paths may be a total nightmare for procrastinators, they are a godsend for the rest of us. They help to ensure that as long as everyone involved does what they have agreed to do, by the time they agreed to do it, all will run smoothly and deadlines will be met.
By Jill Pyle
Over the past few days, news of Om Malik’s heart attack has been spreading throughout the blogosphere. Inspired by the story, the New York Times published a piece about blogging as a source of stress.
I have to agree, blogging can be stressful. During the weeks when deadlines are looming and inspiration is lacking, it can be a challenge to come up with unique ideas. I can’t imagine how stressful it must be to have to write several unique posts per day and worry about being the first to break news.
Let this be a warning to all of us. Bloggers, take care of yourselves. Readers, don’t be shy. Your comments and recognition make it all worth it.
By Jill Pyle
More often than not, influential trade media represent the majority of our clients’ top tier media targets. However, in recent months there have been several occasions where I was asked to track down contact information for editors at relatively small newspapers, as well as international newspapers.
We all know that media databases are less then perfect. When using them to search for newspapers that are distributed within a particular area, problems can arise if outlets are tagged with the wrong location or omitted entirely. As means to avoid handing your client an incomplete media list, it’s always best to double check your work and make sure you’ve gathered accurate and complete media contact information.
I’ve found the following sites to be quite helpful when compiling local media lists for areas I’m unfamiliar with.
US
USNPL.com
50states.com
Canada
List of Canadian newspapers on Wikipedia
JournalismNet
Global
Newspapers24
List of newspapers on Wikipedia
Newspapers by region at Yahoo
Newspaperindex.com
World Newspapers
Online
Onlinenewspapers.com
The Internet Public Library
NewspaperDirect.com
If you have any additional resources, I encourage you to share them with me so I can expand the list.
By Jill Pyle
As work starts to wind down for the year, you may find yourself with more spare time than usual. Rather than aimlessly surfing the Internet, consider catching up on some of the things you pushed to the side when deadlines were looming.
Revisit your bookmarks
If you don’t use a social bookmarking tool like del.icio.us, you probably save most bookmarks to your browser. Take some time to review your bookmarks and get rid of any that you no longer need. If you’re married to the practice of saving bookmarks in your browser, create a folder structure and get organized. If you’re feeling adventurous, sign up for del.icio.us and explore the wonderful world of social bookmarking.
Clean your desktop
The files that end up on my desktop are usually only temporarily relevant or valuable. Assuming most of your files are stored on a personal drive or within a set of folders, now is the time to do a clean sweep and make sure all of your documents are saved where they belong.
Grab editorial calendars
Most publications have made their 2008 editorial calendars available online. Think about the work that’s charted out for January and see if you can find the editorial calendars for any of the publications you’re planning to pitch.
Catch up on your reading
If having the time to read industry blogs is usually a luxury, here is your chance to catch up. If you use an RSS feed reader, today might be the luck day you see zero unread items. Take a few minutes to look over the feeds you subscribe to, remove any you’ve lost interest in and add some new ones to your collection. If you don’t have a feed reader, get one. I recommend Google Reader.
Send holiday e-cards
There are a bunch of really neat holiday e-cards floating around. Head over to ElfYourself, personalize a card and send some holiday cheer to your family, friends and colleagues.
Build out your social network
If you’re a member of social networks like Plaxo, LinkedIn or Facebook, now is as good a time as any to upload your address book and add some new contacts.
Content development
While it might be hard to push aside thoughts of baked goods and shopping lists, January won’t be nearly as stressful if you start drafting the content you know you’ll need finalized first thing in the New Year.
