While much of the PR industry will refer simply to “news releases” as a term to cover the whole spectrum of outbound news flow, at inmedia, we at least choose to assign some level of importance to releases before deciding on the level of effort to placed against them. Attributing a level of media value to a release at the outset will ensure that PR resources are not being wasted on outreach that is never going to yield results.

A good example to illustrate this news value is the customer-win announcement. Companies love to be able to announce new customers and often feel that this should always be a newsworthy item among the media. And so it may be, some of the time. There is a huge difference between announcing a deal where the new customer is prepared to speak about the strategic decisions behind a purchase that has a significant dollar value attributed to it, and a deal where the customer is not prepared to say anything more than the fact they are “working with” the new vendor. The news value here is vastly different; one can reasonably be expected to be pitched for real coverage, while all the other can hope for is, at best, a couple of lines pulled direct from the release.

Sometimes this value-assessment exercise can be challenging. Companies often have an inflated opinion of the importance of their news, but taking a clear stance at an early stage helps prevent awkward questions after the fact. News that is simply an FYI to your market should be exactly that - a piece of information to be noted but without anyone making a great fuss.

Conversely, news that you know has real value should be explored to its fullest extent. I’ve had a few experiences in recent months with news stories that had definite value but that took a bit more than just sending a release to media to secure coverage. Follow up is hugely important; it can be amazing how often you speak to editors who claim to have not seen your news story, then checks inbox, finds it and agrees that it’s something they should be covering! For important news, you should never assume that simply sending the email will guarantee it is seen by your targets.

Another common experience is the editor who may have seen the release but “doesn’t cover news” so thought it was irrelevant and deleted it. For this situation, you need to be aware of the deeper issues that your news story addresses. If you are releasing a new product, why does it have the new features and functionality it does? Do they address a trend in the marketplace? Can this trend be explored as part of a feature?

Establishing the importance of news is a crucial exercise for any PR person to undertake for every announcement, helping both manage expectations and ensuring that effort is expended in the most useful areas.

Technorati Tags: News release, public relations, objectives, value for money

We’ve written on marketing in a downturn a few times over the past couple of years - unfortunately, it’s a topic that is close to everyone right now. But I had to come back to the subject again after reading an excellent and insightful article by Beth Comstock, CMO of GE in BusinessWeek.

It’s very refreshing to hear such a frank discussion about how one of the world’s biggest companies is ramping up its marketing spend to capture more market share and position itself for the inevitable recovery. At inmedia, we have long advocated using the downturn as a time to increase the marketing volume rather than cut back, but all too often our words have fallen on deaf ears.

It’s understandable that companies look at marketing as something that can easily be cut back on when times are tough, but such a reaction fails to take into account the immediate opportunity that exists to gain a marketing foothold over other cost-cutting competitors, and does not look beyond the downturn to the time when they will need to be well-positioned to take advantage of the recovery.

Comstock’s example of Priceline outspending the competition to post an 82% increase in profits and improved market share should be enough to convince anyone that there is value to be gained from marketing in a downturn.

Some might say it’s easier for the biggest companies to remain bold during a downturn, but what about those whose revenues are a fraction of GE’s? I believe that the principle remains the same - going silent can only cause one to lose business and market share. The truth is that plenty of business remains to be won in a downturn, and canny marketing investment can help capture that business, while simultaneously ensuring a company’s readiness for the recovery.

Technorati Tags: GE, downturn, marketing

When CRM software company, Sword Ciboodle, recently engaged in a round of media activity targeted towards the insurance sector, the results spoke for themselves. Coverage, both feature and news-focused, was forthcoming in a range of insurance trade publications but, more importantly, that very same month the phone began to ring.

Sword Ciboodle sales director, Murray Farquharson, was immediately aware of the very real impact that PR had delivered.

“Within a month of the media activity, we had three good insurance leads come in the door, all of which can be directly linked back to the coverage,” he said.

Getting this sort of impact for our clients is what we continually strive for and reaffirms our faith that PR is a vital component of the marketing mix of activities. And it’s even better when the client realizes a deeper value behind the results.

“The remarkable thing is that the leads came from a level of seniority within those insurance firms that it would probably have taken us more than a year to get to under normal circumstances,” said Farquharson.

Now we’re really talking impact.

This is probably the first and last time the Pope gets a mention on this blog, but this week’s events in Africa got me thinking.

What got the Pope in hot water while visiting a continent ravaged by AIDS/HIV was his public assertion that the use of condoms could increase risks to public health related to the spread of the disease.

For most companies, there are countless topical situations that could be taken advantage of for the purpose of making a point. In some cases it might be appropriate and prudent to do so, and for others, definitely not. The events of September 11, 2001 are a prime example of the latter, where there were some who tried to capitalize on the fear generated around the attacks. But the majority of businesses rightly balked at such callous practice.

Many technology firms will unfortunately come across occasions when a global disaster or terrible event would provide a potential platform from which to illustrate their product’s capabilities, and how they might have prevented events from happening. But they just don’t. Our ethics help us to realize it’s better to say nothing in certain situations.

While I understand that the Pope has an agenda that he firmly believes in (as does the leadership of most organizations), I would have thought that someone within the Vatican’s PR department might have raised the point that certain subject matter might be better left alone when visiting the epicenter of that subject.

Technorati Tags: The Pope, AIDS, HIV, public relations, Africa

I just read John Rogers’ AP report on the PR phenomenon that surrounds “Octomom”, the California mother who successfully gave birth to eight babies last month. It seems the initial widespread news reporting of the “miracle” story has quickly given way to almost universal derision of the woman for her irresponsibilty in having more children and her attempts to gain financially from the story. Indeed, the mother’s publicist, who had represented her for free, was forced to end his work with her after receiving death threats. Unbelievable.

But this example shows how quickly the double-edged PR sword can turn on you. If the mother had opted for privacy following the birth, the breaking news stories would have come and gone, she would likely have had to lie low for a few weeks until the buzz died down, and might then have been left in relative peace to get on with changing all those nappies. Instead, it appears she opted to capitalize on the PR, and is now paying the price for doing so. Ultimately, the realities of her full story did not meet with the same reaction as the initial focus on the miracle of eight surviving babies.

I’m not sure it would have made any difference to Octomom’s situation, but there is a lesson to be taken from this. Focusing on a single key message, whether it be eight babies or a “world-first” technology, can be a tremendous way to generate headlines, but there always comes a point at which your story’s surface will be scratched and the deeper details will be revealed. Whether you’re planning a product launch, publishing the results of a study, or announcing a new business strategy, make sure that whole story stands up to scrutiny or the initial headlines will always be superceded by the truth.

Technorati Tags: Octomom, octuplets, messaging, marketing, public relations

Last week was a particularly uncomfortable one for four ex-banking bigwigs here in the UK. They faced a public grilling from British MPs about their roles in the events that led to two of the country’s biggest banks needing to be rescued with taxpayers’ money.

The extensive media training that each received was widely reported on, and was even raised during the session itself. “Are you expressing sympathy because your PR advisers have told you to do so?” queried one MP.

Thank goodness not many PR folk will ever have to prepare their organisations to face such a high-profile public dressing-down, but media training is still an important element that serves its purpose well, no matter the profile of your company.

Unless you are partly responsible for the near-collapse of a major bank, you probably don’t need to go through the kind of rigourous training that the four chaps in London doubtless endured in the lead up to the grilling. In general, media training should not lead to the detriment of personality.

The golden rule of speaking to the media centres on the fact that they can only print or broadcast what you tell them, so stay on message. Yes, certain subjects and situations require more focus on key messages than others, and the bigger you are, the more careful you need to be. For the majority of tech companies, however, building a successful ongoing rapport with their target media is just as important as ensuring your top three messages make it into print.

Stifling an engaging and entertaining orator to try and exert control over the resulting coverage will serve only to irritate the media or, at the very least, make for an unmemorable interview. Far better for the interviewer to encounter an executive who is happy to explore additional areas of discussion in a more casual manner. This may mean that you lose some of the focus of the message, but you’ll have left behind a much happier reporter, and hopefully one who’ll want to come back and talk again some time.

Technorati Tags: Media training, Crisis communications, Media relations

At inmedia, we frequently position ourselves against those whose perspective is that PR is “all about relationships.” And, while I wholeheartedly stand by our mantra that it is the ability to convey a story and not the relationship that dictates PR success, it cannot be denied that relationships are still important. They are even more relevant from the perspective of a PR firm’s clients than for the PR firm itself. PR firms come and go but, assuming a company sticks around, its relationship with its target media will last forever.

This week, one of my clients traveled to New York to meet face to face with a group of editors from a key trade publication that covers his company’s market. Was this meeting at the request of the editors? No, we brokered it from our end. Was it for an article they were working on? No. So why was this meeting happening? Simple. It was for the relationship.

While our client had some exposure to the publication, the relationship was very much the domain of inmedia, the PR firm. This is, of course, perfectly understandable - the very reason you have a PR firm is to maintain your relationship with the media, and this remains a core part of our business - but huge value can be gained on all sides from extending the media relationship to include the client at a deeper level.

So what happened in this meeting in New York? Well, they shot the breeze. Discussed the state of the industry, talked a bit about the company and what was going on with it, but no hard pitches for stories, no Q&A, no pressure to come up with the goods.

So where was the value in this meeting, you might ask. Why not ask my client, who left the meeting full of enthusiasm for the people he had just met, and excited about the future prospects for working with them. Or why not ask the editors, who expressed delight at the meeting and a desire to do so again at some point in the near future. Value was seen on all sides from a meeting that accomplished little in hard results.

Sure, inmedia could have handled this meeting ourselves, but our preoccupation with achieving results for clients would no doubt have created a different atmosphere. Sometimes stepping back from the day-to-day hard selling of stories and constant attempts to generate coverage can result in a far more rewarding result - a blooming relationship.

Technorati Tags: public relations, media relations, pitching, networking

“It is early days, but it’s already clear that 2009 will be a crucial year for news media.”

Cautionary words from the Financial Times’ chief exec, John Ridder, as Brand Republic reports today that the business newspaper giant is laying off 80 staff, while still intending to expand its online presence. Coupled with other recent news of woes at major newspapers, including the New York Times and Canada’s Globe and Mail, one wonders if the writing is finally on the wall for print-based media.

Okay, maybe it’s not that likely. Granted, there is still a significant demand from the public for a physical medium by which to consume the news, but the survival of news media depends on more than subscriptions. Advertising is the key, especially among the technology trade media, where the majority of print magazine titles are free to qualifying subscribers, but it seems that companies increasingly seem to prefer the online option when it comes to spending their advertising dollars in a downturn. Certainly, the consensus is that print advertising is set for significant decline this year.

Douglas McIntyre on 24/7 Wall Street seems to think there’s a good chance that 2009 could see the end of a host of big names, with a drop in advertising seen as the key factor. “At least a dozen major magazines had ad page decreases of more than 20 per cent last year,” he states.

Perhaps it’s too early to speak of the death of print but, without advertising to support it and little sign of when this might change, the prospect becomes more real every day.

Technorati Tags: newspapers, media, advertising

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.

Technorati Tags: media relations, embargo, breaking news, Michael Arrington

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 comment at the end of the post, essentially stating that he thought one of the results of the Net and social networking has been to make everyone more equal in their influence. But has this truly been the case?

Certainly in Fry’s case it is partially true, but while his newfound influence in the field of gadgets and consumer technology can be attributed in part to the social networking revolution, it is also true that he is a man who had a considerable public profile before the Internet was even considered a medium of any significance.

The web and its associated technologies have certainly given a voice to millions, but in terms of real influence, the masses still invariably turn to those who have commanded attention beyond the four walls of the internet.  Of course there are some exceptions to the rule, but the notion that we all have equal influence is generally only as true online as it is in the world at large.

Technorati Tags: social media, Internet, BBC, Stephen Fry, BlackBerry Storm