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 Linda Forrest
Yesterday’s Bulldog Reporter had an insightful piece suggesting that the model for PR is broken and some suggestions on how to start trying to fix it. It struck me that the author was suggesting a best practices approach to PR, something to which we’ve long adhered, but that sadly, the industry as a whole is being judged by our weakest link: those agencies and practitioners that are doing a shoddy job and dragging our reputation down with them.
The reminder at the start of the piece about the recent escalation of the hacks vs. flacks war was fresh in my mind when I saw a story on Gawker about the high incidence of journalist burnout. This study made me wonder about this chicken and egg scenario: are hacks hating on flacks because they’re dissatisfied with their own jobs? I certainly don’t think that this is wholly to blame for the friction between the two camps but is certainly something worth noting. Also worth noting is the irony that the vast majority of the complaints registered by journalists could easily be voiced by PR professionals as well. It would be interesting to see the results of a similar study on how satisfied PR practitioners are in their careers…
By Francis Moran
A few months ago, Karen Russell of The Teaching Blog made a list of a dozen things she wished PR pros would blog about. Since I am on the receiving end of many, many enquiries from people seeking employment here at inmedia, most of which utterly fail to dazzle me, I thought I’d tackle this one, five ways to dazzle a potential employer.
Truth is, I feel sorry for today’s university grad or early- or mid-career person looking for that first or next position, especially if they’re responding to a job ad or board posting. Information technology has made it easier for resumes and cover letters to be machine-scanned, with only those that meet specific requirements making it through to be read by human eyes. Further, everyone knows that personal networking and connections are extraordinarily powerful tools in any job search and, if you don’t have them, you’re at a terrible disadvantage.
So, I’m not sure I can counsel anyone on how they can break through those barriers when seeking employment at a big company. But here are five things that would certainly put you several steps ahead at a small company like inmedia.
1. Present as though you actually know who I am. I admit I have one of those gender-ambiguous first names, but that’s no excuse for addressing me as Ms. Moran or, even worse, Dear Sir or Madam. A simple phone call is all it takes.
2. Also present as though you actually know what my company does. Telling me all about your political science education, or your years of sales experience, or what an incredible engineer you are means you have done absolutely no research whatsoever into who we are and what we do. We have a web site and, now, a blog, both of which should tell you everything you need to know about us, what we do and a whole lot about our culture and approach. The better an understanding of that you exhibit, the more you’ll dazzle me.
3. If you truly want to dazzle me, draw clear, compelling connections between what you know and what we do. Tell me how your education, experience and interests would make you a superb technology media relations practitioner.
4. Dazzle me with your writing. Writing is what we do, and we set extraordinarily high standards for it. Everyone, from clients to media, consistently comments favourably on our writing. You won’t survive a week here if you’re not a superb writer, and your cover letter won’t survive a first reading if it’s poorly written or contains spelling or grammar errors. As unbelievable as this may be, if everything is spelled correctly and there are no grammar errors, you will be in the top percentile or two of all the enquiries I get. Shocking, but true.
5. Try to rise above the noise. When I was younger and looking for a job, I often used some gimmick to attract attention to my application. I can’t say it ever worked for me, but the very first person I ever hired when I set up my first agency about 15 years ago enlarged his resume and cover letter to poster size and sent them to me in a mailing tube. He got my attention, and the job.
Bottom line — and here’s the real nugget for anyone seeking a job in public relations: These five suggestions just happen to constitute a solid handful of best practices in media relations itself. Know your media targets and why you’re pitching them. Get the story right and write it well. Do what you need to rise above the newsroom noise. If you can apply the fundamentals when you’re applying for a job, you’ll engender a lot of confidence that you’ll be able to apply them if you get the job.
By Linda Forrest
Typically, when we engage with clients, whether they’ve ever done any media and analyst relations in the past or not, we engage in something we call a ramp up and roll out. This media and analyst launch ensures that all the key target media and analysts for a company are made aware of our client and its offerings, and is usually centred around a news release that either has some sort of “today” hook or positions the company in the marketplace as a thought-leader or ground-breaker in its own particular niche.
The main goal of this exercise is to get a lay of the land for what the media and analyst opportunity for the company is over the long term. Any coverage that we get, and inevitably we do get coverage for our clients during the launch, is, in fact, largely a by-product of this investigative and introductory exercise. What we hope to end up with after the roll-out portion of the launch is a clear view of the ongoing opportunity to tell a company’s story and what sorts of methods we can employ in order to harvest that opportunity.
The arrows in our PR quiver extend well beyond hitting send on news release after news release, and methods we employ and to what degree depend on what will best serve the needs and further the sales objectives of the client. Sometimes, especially when a launch has gone particularly well in terms of garnering immediate coverage, companies tend to think, “We’ve done PR now – look at all this coverage. I don’t have to do anymore for a long time as we’ll ride the wave that this initial push has created.”
These companies are doing themselves a great disservice by losing the momentum created by the launch and by not pursuing the worthwhile opportunities unearthed during this process. Our strong counsel to clients is that the best approach to media and analyst relations is a sustained, on-going conversation with the media and analyst targets who have the potential to greatly influence purchasing decision-makers in your market. Through the launch, we have established a “Rolodex factor” that means that when media are writing an article about a topic on which you have a perspective, there is a much greater chance you’ll be included. Likewise, if an analyst is writing a report about your market and the vendors therein, you will be included as a worthy competitor. Although some mindshare is gained during the launch process, the only true way to learn of and take advantage of these appropriate opportunities is to maintain the conversation with media and analysts and the only way you can do that is to engage in an ongoing PR program. The specific dynamics and budget of the program are variable propositions; we map out what we feel is the ideal program and then, if required, augment it based on budget and other considerations.
Whatever your budget, if you’re going to invest in PR – and it is an investment, not a cost centre – it’s best that you have a long-term view and plan to support the program for more than just a launch. If you wait too long to re-engage after a burst of PR activity, the progress that you made can disappear, and disappear quickly.
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.
