By Linda Forrest
Where the tire hits the tarmac in public relations is when it comes time to pitch a story. All of the materials have been written, the stage is set, spokespeople are available, and the news release has been sent. It’s our time to shine.
There’s a reason that news releases clock in at about 750 words – there is a lot to say about the news item that we’re putting out. We’re adamant that hyperbole doesn’t make it into our clients’ releases, but even when we trim away the fat, there is a lot of ground to cover.
Regardless, we have but a few words to grab our target audience’s attention, whether in an email or in a follow-up phone call. Hence, my reference to Shakespeare in the title of this post. We make it or break it in just a few seconds – can we distill the key message of the story in under 10 seconds on the phone? What few words can we lead with in an email to increase our chances of a positive reply? Has the headline included enough detail to communicate the crux of the story? We work hard to ensure that this is the case because in today’s news dense world, our release is just one of hundreds likely to cross that reporter or editor’s desk on any given day; our phone call is just one of the dozens that they’ll field amid pressing deadlines and breaking news. While we are strong believers that every story has an inherent news value, the fact of the matter is that unless we can quickly and effectively communicate the story, regardless of the channel, we are not doing the best by our clients.
Is brevity similarly appreciated when it comes to blog posts? Today, I’ll have to hope so as I’ve got to get back to pitching.
By Linda Forrest
It’s true, a lot of a PR consultant’s time is spent writing; writing news releases, backgrounders, bylined articles, biographies, blog posts (ahem)… all in the hope that interested journalists or editors will take what we’ve written and repurpose it or use it as source material to develop their own coverage of our client or its product. But an integrated approach to media relations recognizes that while a lot of the stuff we’re pursuing is print or online coverage, there are other media channels and formats that strongly influence decision-makers in the B2B marketplace, including radio and television. Each format has its place in your program and can have valuable impact when properly incorporated into your media relations activities.
The Buggles had it wrong, I’m afraid – video did not kill the radio star, at least when it comes to B2B marketing.
According to a recent article from btobonline, radio is very influential in this arena. “A study by Media Audit found that 55% of business owners, partners and corporate officers listen to the radio between 5 a.m. and 10 a.m., compared with 45% of the general population. The telephone survey, which took the pulse of 6,860 business executives in 88 U.S. cities in 2006 and 2007, also found that on an average day, 75% of these executives tune to radio, compared with 68% of the general market. According to the survey, the top radio formats for reaching business executives are: news/talk (21%), public radio (17%), country (12%) and talk (11%).”
We are lucky in Ottawa that we have a supportive and interesting radio program in CFRA’s Business @ Night. We often have our clients appear on the show, capably hosted by Greg Hebert, and have had a lot of anecdotal feedback from interviewees that not only does Greg do his homework but that they’ve been approached by customers and prospects to say that they heard the interview. When targeting a local initiative, this penetration can be very valuable and help achieve goals relating to local investment, attracting and retaining staff, and building corporate goodwill by highlighting the company’s activities in the community, among others.
National radio programs, like the Business Network on the CBC every morning at 5:45am, hit a much larger audience both numerically and geographically, and can provide a useful venue for your company’s leadership team to demonstrate their subject-matter expertise or contribute worthwhile dialog to conversations about pressing business issues.
Television has not yet been eclipsed by the internet as a key influencer of the business elite in America, those top executives who have the final say on purchasing decisions. According to the Ipsos’ BE: USA 2007, The Media Survey of the United States’ Business Elite, 70% have watched network television and 60% have watched cable television in the previous day, where just over 50% went online. The convergence of video and the web, though, has gained traction with nearly half having streamed or watched a broadband video from their computers in the last month.
As other bloggers have previously reported, print remains king. “The business elite turn to national newspapers first for deeper understanding of the issues that matter to them, particularly financial and business news (18% of the projected C-suite universe), as they trust newspapers to have the best journalists (28%) and reliable reporting (23%) … For keeping abreast of technology, this group of decision-makers prefers business magazines (22%), such as weeklies BusinessWeek (20%), bi-monthly publications such as Fortune (18%) and Forbes (17%), and monthly publications like CFO (15%). Business magazines are also this group’s primary resource for informative advertising (15%), general business help (32%), and information to manage their career development (29%).”
When targeting your customers, keep all forms of media in mind, not just print and online. There may be other channels that are more appropriate to deliver your message and your PR agency should recognize and pursue these avenues to ensure that your coverage is having the greatest impact on your target audience.
By Linda Forrest
Having previously worked in the music industry where copyright was king and the profligate flouting of said rights has resulted in that industry’s expected implosion, I feel especially passionate about the issue, as any of my close friends will tell you should they admit in my presence to illegally downloading music… But I digress.
Copyright is a relevant issue for PR professionals and for our clients alike, as highlighted in a recent article on Bulldog Reporter’s web site. In a nutshell, the article gives an overview of the reasons for the increased attention that we must pay to copyright and to outlets’ more stringent enforcement of their rights in the hopes of quelling infringement. This is a stance that may not be popular, but certainly one that I wholly endorse; unfortunately, movements such as these come too late for a dying music industry, but if other industries where copyright forms the backbone of the revenue model hope to survive, a tougher stance is indeed required.
That is not to say that media coverage is of no useful marketing value; quite the contrary. As in the entertainment fields where copyright infringement is rampant, it’s merely a case of the proper copyright owners receiving fair and appropriate a) recognition and b) restitution for their works.
The next time you are thinking about posting a clipping to your site or photocopying and distributing at a trade show that great article in which your company was mentioned, pay close attention to the guidelines set out in the Bulldog Reporter piece to ensure that you’re not illegally distributing copyrighted material. Your PR agency should be able to help you navigate these rules and guidelines and make recommendations to make certain you get the most value out of your clippings while staying on the right side of the law.
By Linda Forrest
We’re doing a bit of work for the Information Technology Association of Canada, helping to promote the organization’s IT Hero Awards program. The ITAC IT Hero Awards celebrate and recognize creative applications of information technology that significantly improve the lives of Canadians and readily demonstrate social and economic benefit.
Nominations are being accepted in both community and corporate categories until May 9 and the winners will be announced at the ITAC Chairs’ Dinner in Toronto on June 26. The nominees’ work highlighted in the submissions so far is impressive and truly making a difference in communities across the country.
Are you aware of a company or individual that might be worthy of a nomination? If so, please submit an online nomination form. A full set of guidelines and nomination criteria is available on the IT Hero Awards web site. We’re working to get media coverage for stand out nominees like Paul Gillespie and Dan Babineau, and could potentially promote outstanding work that is being done in your community to the media as well. Good luck to all of the deserving nominees and keep up the good work!
By Linda Forrest
This week has been a perfect case in point for why inmedia has a horizontal rather than a vertical account structure. What I mean by that is that our agency, unlike a lot of agencies, puts at least two senior consultants on each account. It is these consultants, with support from the balance of the team, that do all – and I mean all – of the work on a client account, from initial briefings with the client to developing the media list, to writing the materials, to pitching the story to the media and so on. That way, if one of the consultants is unavailable or out of town on business as is the case this week, the remaining consultants can capably manage any and all requirements for that client because they’ve been involved from the outset and have the same knowledge about the client as the other consultant.
In agencies that employ a vertical account structure, the most junior of consultants with the least experience is typically tasked with outreach to the media, having had little to no involvement in the procuring of the client, the learning of their story or development of the materials. If a journalist has a question that requires additional knowledge beyond the news release that the consultant has been handed to pitch, well, let’s just say that it’s this lack of full understanding of clients and their stories that has given our industry such a bad reputation.
This has been a busy week, with a number of our consultants doing international travel, new clients coming into the fold, big projects with upcoming deadlines in production and preparations to be made for several major campaigns getting underway next week. Still, despite being far flung across time zones and countries, the team has been able to keep all of the proper plates spinning because of our account schema. This provides both our clients and consultants with peace of mind, knowing that the needs of clients are not superseded by out of office requirements and that work continues seamlessly on their behalf.
That said, it’ll be nice to have the Ottawa team assembled once again when two of our consultants return from overseas, to hear of their most recent adventures and determine whether any of them picked up a detectable brogue on their travels.
