By Danny Sullivan
Following Michael Arrington’s pre-Christmas attack on PR embargoes, I think it’s a topic that is still worth exploring, particularly for those unfamiliar with how to use them effectively.
Why would anyone agree to embargo a news story in the first place? An embargo is supposed to be a tool that makes things easier on the time-constrained reporters who cover breaking news, allowing them the time to build their story ahead of the release date. The company providing the embargo realizes the added benefit of helping insulate coverage of their story against the possible negative impact of bigger “on the day” news, and can also gain more detailed coverage as a result.
So it’s like an exclusive? No. An exclusive is given to a single outlet, whereas an embargo is a set date and time for release of the news that can be agreed upon with any number of media.
But how can you ensure that the embargo is not broken? Herein lies the rub. An embargo is not a legally binding contract and is entirely based on trust. As such, embargoes should only be taken up with media that can be trusted to adhere to them.
The growing problem with using embargoes in today’s online society is that there is now much more to be gained from breaking them. As Arrington explains, “Traffic and links flow in to whoever breaks an embargo first.” This added incentive to break the agreement means that the trust element is ever more important.
So, are embargoes no longer a worthwhile option for the PR professional? On the contrary, I would argue that they are still just as useful as they have ever been. The point is not to use an embargo without due care and attention. Sending a news story to 50 media contacts with “Embargoed until…” marked on the header is not going to cut it. At a minimum, agreement has to be reached through personal contact with each target before any information is imparted. But it is also important to ensure that those contacts you are reaching out to are the least likely to break the story – for example, they should have an ongoing interest in your company and products, or you should have already dealt with them successfully in the past. Media that value the relationship they have with your company are much less likely to break an embargo than those that have little real knowledge of your story and will think nothing of damaging the relationship in order to be first with a story.
By Francis Moran
Okay, I’m sure that headline reads like a naked sales pitch for our services here at inmedia Public Relations. And while it most certainly self-serves that function, it’s actually one of 18 tips on sales and marketing to help you recession-proof your software company published last week on softwareCEO.com. (I’m indebted to my good friend Jason Flick for bringing this article to my attention.)
We have consistently advocated that companies that maintain — or even increase — their market presence during a downturn emerge from the downturn stronger than their competitors and in a position to springboard into the new opportunities that the eventual recovery will bring. So it’s no surprise to us to hear other sales and marketing professionals echo that sentiment.
The softwareCEO.com piece, the second in a series that also includes 18 tips on finance and operations, is full of terrific advice. Within the piece on boosting your PR investment, it cites software marketing expert Judy Schramm of JMR Consulting and three low-cost ways in which your PR presence can be boosted. (We’ve been doing all three for some time now.)
I also liked the sales tips it outlined and I wasn’t surprised to see they came from Steve Kraner of Sandler Sales Institute. We’ve worked in the past with Sandler’s Ottawa-based sales-training guru, Terry Ledden who advocates that rather than trying to compete with other salespeople on price or feature set, you differentiate yourself from the outset by employing a highly consultative approach that helps you develop a thorough understanding of the prospect’s pain and the willingness the prospect has to address that pain.
I don’t know how many times over the past few months I’ve heard seasoned technology entrepreneurs say that downturns represent an opportunity, not a setback. The tough operating conditions wash the marginal players out of your way, force you to focus on where you create real value, and both reduce the cost and increase the impact of raising your voice in your marketplace.
Update: My Google Reader just fed me a post from the excellent Out of the Fog Marketing blog drawing attention to a Knowledge@Wharton article in Forbes titled, “Don’t skimp on ad budgets.”
By Leo Valiquette
A trade show has “a carbon foot print that would leave David Suzuki twitching and reaching for his heart medication.”
That memorable line came Thursday afternoon from George McTaggart, VP of marketing at local cyber-security firm Third Brigade. He and Mark Emond, business unit executive, North American field marketing, at business intelligence software maker Cognos, now part of IBM, squared off at OCRI’s Zone5ive marketing event yesterday in a friendly tit-for-tat over the merits of using eight marketing activities and tools for lead generation.
At one point, Mark shot back at one of George’s tirades with the comment, “Pinocchio, your nose is touching the back wall.”
It’s safe to say this was the most entertaining OCRI event I have ever attended, and not only because moderator Kelly Kubrick, owner of Online Authority, also threatened to upstage the debaters with her own presentation skills. The content from all was crisp, informative and candid, regardless of whether one agreed with the viewpoint on offer.
George and Mark each had 90 seconds to make the case for or against each of the eight tactics, with the audience voting on who emerged the winner. The eight were trade shows, white-paper syndication, direct marketing (by either e-mail or snail mail), webinars and seminars, search-engine marketing, a website, telemarketing and social media.
Both men argued their points well, labeling each of the eight as either “naughty” or “nice” in keeping with the spirit of the season. However, once the dust had settled, all had earned a “nice” endorsement from the audience, with the exception of white-paper syndication. “Who has time to read what too often comes across as a blatant sales pitch?” appeared to be the point that earned the one “naughty” nod from the audience.
In retrospect, however, the overwhelming “nice” result shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. The tactics under scrutiny in this debate are only individual tools in a complete marketing toolbox. It’s a matter of choosing the right tool for the job, which begins with an understanding of what that job is. What works in one context may not work in another. It all depends on the company, its product, its market and how one particular marketing activity can reinforce or complement another. A social-media channel, for example, may be an excellent means of lead generation for a company targeting a specific age group or market vertical, and be a dismal failure for another.
What’s important is that the effort, in whatever form, is:
1. Current and relevant to an organization’s business-development objectives and has been identified, through market research, as an effective way to reach a desired category of customer.
2. Focused and targeted, again at a desired category of customer or specific market vertical.
3. Revisited, evaluated and revised. Which, of course, requires that some kind of metrics or analytics are in place from the get go to confirm whether the effort is generating the desired impacts and outcomes.
4. Expendable. If it’s not working, scrap it and try something else.
By Leo Valiquette
Seeing the forest for the trees
Francis is fond of describing our roles here at inmedia as “advocates in the court of public opinion.” That’s a much more appropriate and accurate label than “spin doctors.”
But the role of advocate is more than simply conveying our clients’ stories to the outlets that matter. We must also be willing to impress upon clients the agendas, or the simple realities, of the markets we are trying to reach on their behalf. What elements of their story must we have to effectively attract and retain the attention of the media we are targeting? What works? What doesn’t? How is the way the client wants to approach things more of a hindrance than a help to our efforts? To adequately serve our clients, we must deliver frank and honest counsel that sometimes includes feedback from the marketplace that may be painful to hear.
Over at the PR Conversations blog, Kristen E. Sukulac offers an interesting perspective on this by citing a classic exercise in inattentional blindness and change blindness.
PR helps raise venture capital
Bottom line here: good PR pays. Don’t take my word for it. This post at PR Squared may be a couple of weeks old, but the findings of the study it cites are timeless. A survey of 300 U.S. startups that received funding in the past three years found a clear correlation between employing a PR program and greater success in securing new financing.
Time well wasted?
And over at really practical marketing, Mark Nagurski gives a no nonsense primer and how to create, and derive value from, an effective online presence and the pitfalls that come of looking at it in terms of traditional advertising. In his view, less can be a whole lot more.
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.
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A Christmas gift for Lesotho
December 01, 2008 by Francis Moran
By Francis Moran In the late 1960s and early 1970s, I spent four childhood Christmases in Lesotho, the tiny mountain kingdom in southern Africa where my father worked for the country’s newly independent government. I have vivid memories of our very first Christmas there, which came scant weeks after we first landed in this strange […]
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November roundup: Audacious, horrendous and noteworthy
December 01, 2008 by inmedia
By inmedia In case you missed them, here’s a roundup of our posts from November. Francis: Nov. 5: Happy birthday to us Nov. 5: Breathtakingly audacious Nov. 18: Customer service so bad it wins an award Nov. 26: Velocity students showcase projects Danny: Nov. 7: Sometimes you just never know… Nov. 13: Getting covered by […]
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The balance of power
November 28, 2008 by Danny Sullivan
By Danny Sullivan BBC technology correspondent, Rory Cellan-Jones, posts an interesting piece on the dot.life blog about the slating of the new BlackBerry Storm by English comedian, Stephen Fry. No, this wasn’t part of a stand-up routine, but rather a series of messages on Twitter, where Fry apparently has a following of thousands. I note Fry’s […]
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Velocity students showcase projects
November 26, 2008 by Francis Moran
By Francis Moran An application that allows users to create their grocery-shopping lists online and then see which of their local stores has the lowest total or individual prices for the items on the list was the debut project to be presented at the first-ever exhibition Monday of projects developed by students at the unique […]
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When the iron’s hot, strike!
November 25, 2008 by Leo Valiquette
By Leo Valiquette As a former journalist, nothing warranted a head shake more than PR folks who weren’t interested when opportunity came knocking. Sure, there are always situations in which a journalist is a burr under the saddle, pricking away at tender spots that an organization would rather keep out of the public eye. But I’m […]
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Boldy going where we’ve gone before … sort of
November 21, 2008 by Leo Valiquette
By Leo Valiquette Say what you will about the mindset of Hollywood executives, they do like to reuse and recycle, even if the concept of “reduce” remains beyond their grasp. We’ve seen the bigscreen reboots of such classics (I use that term loosely) as Charlie’s Angels, Starsky and Hutch, The Dukes of Hazard, Get Smart, The Fugitive, […]
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Customer service so bad it wins an award
November 18, 2008 by Francis Moran
I don’t know if it’s because we have a client whose software helps companies vastly improve their customer service, or whether we, like most others on this planet, rage against lousy customer service when we are victims of it, but it simply defies comprehension that companies would willingly lose business because they can’t seem to […]
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Top tech PR cliches
November 17, 2008 by Danny Sullivan
By Danny Sullivan Over on the BBC web site, readers have submitted their personal choices for the most-hated cliches in current circulation. Reading through the article was a painful exercise, and I’m sure most of you will also recognize many of the expressions as appearing frequently in your own day-to-day vocabulary. The technology sector is rife with such cliches, and I’ve […]
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