A new study commissioned by Microsoft finds that Britons spend about one quarter of their daily television habit flipping channels. But it’s hardly an attention-deficit trend limited to the U.K., or to television for that matter.

Bombarded as we all are by the sheer volume and variety of media each day, it’s a struggle to keep our attention span focused for too long on any one thing. Back in the ’80s and ’90s, there was talk of the 500-channel universe, and while the number hasn’t yet crept quite that high, the Microsoft study confirms that a near-infinite channel selection isn’t necessarily a good thing. As this study found, Brits spend an average of a week of their lives each year trying to make up their mind about what to watch, in the process often missing something they wanted to watch.

What do people do when faced with overwhelming choice? They often limit the options to what they know. The study found that more than 40 per cent stick with a handful of familiar channels, while one in three watched only the five main U.K. networks.

In the media business, channels are replaced by pitches, news releases and breaking news from the big names that demand attention. All the news that’s fit to print (or broadcast, or blog about) is too much to fit. With shrinking budgets and fewer hands on deck, media today are overwhelmed by choice, so much so that good material can get lost in the shuffle and never get fair consideration.

At inmedia, we focus on connecting with the media that matter for our clients to tell each client’s story, regardless of who those media are and if we have ever spoken to them before. We engage in a dialogue that brings our client to the attention of these specific media and educates both the journalist and ourselves on where there is a fit between what the media outlet needs and what our client does. It’s a personalized approach that can be tedious and frustrating, but crucial to rising above the noise. It’s far more effective than hoping for the best with mass e-mail blasts, or relying on ”existing relationships.”

This focused approach is the only way to take a client from being just another channel lost in a universe of hundreds, to being recognized as a useful source of information, news and perspective.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, media relations, pitching, channel surfing

As a PR practitioner, once in a while something happens to make you scratch your head and revisit the question we all wonder from time to time: what qualifies as newsworthy on any given day?

Of course, there are certain things we know about this question (known knowns, if you will). For example, that size matters - the big news always gets covered first, and that it’s a known fact that survey results invariably make for good content on a slow news day.

But sometimes the rulebook goes out the window. A recent announcement by a client was deemed by all to be a fairly routine affair - certainly a story that was worth distributing, but not one that would generate significant media attention. Or so we thought.

Cue two days of frantic media activity, spawning all kinds of broadcast and print media coverage. No complaints here - delighted to get the response, but did we miss something on this one? Clearly we did, although, looking back, I stand firmly by our original conviction that the story was a relatively minor one!

In retrospect, the response was unexpected, but primarily driven by the media’s willingness to revisit a good story that, while already having played out in the press extensively, has the kind of enduring appeal that means it only takes a fairly minor event to push it back into the limelight.

It’s great when it happens, but confounding nonetheless.

Technorati Tags: media relations, public relations, newsworthy, news value 

Although it had its genesis in a consulting practice that was already several years old, and its first employee had been in place for several months, inmedia Public Relations Inc. was legally incorporated on November 5, 1998, and so today is our tenth birthday.

I would be less than forthright if I said that 10 years after launching a technology focused PR firm that I had accomplished what I thought would be in place a decade out. The tech meltdown damn near put us under and the continued severe contraction of Ottawa’s tech sector means we have slim pickings here at home. And my initial business proposition, that we could create an agency of excellence and extract a premium from the marketplace for that excellence, has proven to be a tough pitch in a market that too often has yet to be weaned off mediocrity.

But we survived the meltdown, the only exclusively B2B technology PR practice in the city to do so. Today, we get very well paid for our excellence from clients who have come to understand the difference. And our deliberate business development strategy over the past three or four years has been to embrace Ottawa clients certainly, but also to aggressively pursue business anywhere and everywhere we see a good opportunity.

My excellent colleague Danny Sullivan’s self-repatriation to his native Scotland a few years back opened a whole new front for us, and our far-reaching Google Adwords campaigns and this blog have brought us amazing opportunities from many other corners. With Ottawa accounting for about 35% of our revenues, we have embraced clients and projects in Calgary, Toronto, Montréal, Fredericton, Moncton and St. John’s; in Boston, Jersey City, San Jose and Chicago; and in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Farnborough and London.

If the business outcome has not been everything I hoped for 10 years ago, the experience has been nonetheless incredible. Most noteworthy has been the extraordinary people who have come to work with me here at inmedia. In an industry where average employee tenure has been pegged at less than a year, inmedianauts tend to hang around for much longer, with the average tenure here topping three years and some having spent five, six and even seven years on board. The consultants who work here are the real product that we sell, and I have had the unmitigated pleasure of consistently being able to bring to market the very best product in the PR industry, period.

Similarly, we have worked on some amazing projects with some of the brightest minds in technology, business and marketing. Our web site lists nearly 90 clients with whom we have worked over the past 10 years, and each and every one of them has represented a unique story, a unique set of market dynamics and a unique set of media and analyst targets to whom that story needed to be told. It is this ever-changing nature of the business that makes PR consulting so fascinating to me.

It has been rewarding, challenging and frustrating, as most any worthwhile venture inevitably is. It has also been a period of considerable personal and professional growth, and I look forward to learning even more as this little PR company continues.

Technorati Tags: inmedia Public Relations, public relations, technology, entrepreneurship, birthday

I’m always on the lookout for interesting advice and insights that can serve me as a PR practitioner as well as provide insight to those interested in how things work, or should work, on this side of the fence. Here are some recent links of interest.

Be heard

As a PR gun, you are the gatekeeper for your client. It’s not only your job to take the client’s story to the media, but also to qualify and investigate media opportunities when they come knocking. Not all media opportunities are ideal for your client and some can in fact be a well-disguised sales pitch that’s nothing more than a nuisance. Even when there is an ideal fit, you must still ensure your client is prepared for the interview with an overview of what ground the journalist wants to cover and how specific questions should be answered.

This requires that you, as the PR gatekeeper, interview the journalist to some degree. As Cece Salomon-Lee at PR Meets Marketing says, you can’t be afraid to ask questions that put your client’s best interests forward. 

Communication works two ways

Meanwhile, Richard Edelman articulates the evolution of the PR function into a critical tool for public engagement that must be part of business strategy and policy formulation. His particular point that strikes close to one of our key foci here at inmedia is positioning the client as a go-to expert in certain areas relevant to their subject matter expertise to become part of a public discussion on broader issues. Maybe this kind of content doesn’t talk about your client’s products or services, but it still contributes to the marketing effort.  

Sometimes, silence is golden

Lastly, there’s much to be said about pitching your client’s story to key media in the context of current events. Under the appropriate circumstances, it can be an excellent means of demonstrating the value of your client’s product or service using a real world example of what pain point it addresses or problem it solves. It can also give teeth to that story pitch you have in mind that demonstrates your client’s authority and thought leadership in an area relevant to their market.

But note my use of the word “appropriate.” It may be wise to give hard thought to putting out a news release that references a recent event in which lives were lost, no matter how strong the case that your client’s product could have made a big difference.

This may seem like common sense, but as the folks at the Bad Pitch Blog point out, common sense doesn’t always prevail. Of course, if you are interested in finding out how quickly you can have a cocked and ready shotgun in your hands in the middle of the night, this may be just the thing for you. 

Technorati Tags: public relations, media relations, PR 101, pitching

It’s not uncommon to sit down with a startup technology company for an initial discussion about a potential PR engagement and have a conversation that goes something like this:

Tech company exec: “I think we need to start doing some PR and I’d like you to present us with some ideas.”

PR agency: “Er, okay, but can you first give us some idea of why it is that you think PR will help your business at this time?”

Exec: “Well, I was hoping that you could tell us that …”

Of course, at this point the conversation typically becomes an exercise that should really have been started before the agency even entered the equation. That is, to explore what are the primary reasons for engaging a PR program, and what it is ultimately supposed to achieve.

Yes, the PR firm brings the expertise needed to plan and execute an effective program, but they are not the experts in your business … you are. Can you really expect a PR agency to sit down at the first meeting and tell you how they can help you achieve your goals or overcome certain challenges, when they have little idea what those goals and challenges are? Of course not. PR is not a cookie-cutter proposition, and its practitioners work best when they can apply their knowledge to a specific scenario, which invariably changes dramatically from company to company.

This doesn’t have to be an extensive exercise, and the information needed to get things rolling is probably common knowledge within your organization. Simply ensure that you have a fairly clear idea of what it is that you expect from doing PR, and then you can expect to have a valuable conversation about what the experts can do to help you.

Technorati Tags: public relations, strategy, business plan, technology company

“I’ve just come to expect that my (public relations) agency can’t write,” was the astonishing admission I heard a few weeks back from a vice president at one of Ottawa’s larger technology companies who called us to see if we’d be interested in participating in an agency review process.

(I’ve promised not to name him (or her) for reasons that will be obvious as you read the rest of this post.)

I could hardly believe my ears. But yes, he said, it had long been his experience that the PR practitioners he had been dealing with from a range of different agencies and across a number of companies just weren’t very good writers, and so it fell to him to write most of the materials used in his campaigns. One of the key reasons he was approaching inmedia, he told me, was our very strong reputation in the marketplace as superb writers, a reputation he said was confirmed when he read our blog and web site.

I chalked this one up to what I assumed was just an unfortunate experience on the part of one technology marketing executive until I relayed the story to a colleague last week, a CEO at another technology company here in Ottawa and an insightful marketer in his own right. I was again utterly gobsmacked when he said he didn’t view writing as a core requirement in the PR function, that the ability to pitch the story was far more important.

“And what do you do,” I asked him, “When the pitch is initially well received and the next words out of the reporter or editor’s mouth are, ‘Sounds good, send me something about it.’?”

Here’s the thing. To work at inmedia and, I believe, to be an effective media relations practitioner anywhere, you must be able to write at an expert level and you must be able to effectively pitch what you’ve written. There is no hierarchy between these two fundamental skills. Lack one, and you’re out of the game.

And here’s why.

To believe, as these two otherwise successful technology marketers clearly do, that writing is either not terribly important or that your PR function, whether internal or an agency, can be permitted to be lousy writers, is to completely beggar the entire communications process.

In the first instance, despite all the wonderful new communications tools at our disposal, most journalists still want to see something in cold, hard black and white, even if it is delivered electronically. And even if they don’t ask for it, it’s just gotta be in your best interests to give them well-written material so they have the complete story, with all the relevant facts and accurate spellings of company, product and people’s names to which they can refer. This is just so basic I’m staggered it needs stating.

Second, how in the heck does a PR practitioner demonstrate her or his understanding of the story without writing about it? Yes, a properly written document proves the communicator can — gasp! — communicate. That is, the words run together in some sort of comprehensible order, everything is spelled correctly and the commas and periods are in the right places. But it still won’t be any good unless the person writing it actually has a thorough grasp of the subject matter.

Effective writing is not a case of cutting and pasting bits and pieces from other documents to make a different document and it needs to be more than a merely technically accurate use of words, grammar and punctuation. Effective writing is the process of distilling what has been learned — from other documents, certainly, but also, and critically, from interviews with a range of subject-matter experts — into a new piece of work. It not only communicates the story to all who read it, it also demonstrates understanding.

Bottom line: If your agency can’t write about it well, they almost certainly can’t pitch it well. And even worse, they probably don’t even understand it well.

So, did we get the business? Well, that’s another story that I cover here: The Ottawa inferiority complex theorem strikes again.

Technorati Tags: writing, pitching, media relations, business development

Yesterday, research analyst Brian Summer posted a blog on ZDNet about how to conduct, or rather, how not to conduct an effective analyst day. While the post is clearly written with more than a little tongue in cheek, his points are well made.

In particular Summer’s comment around over-hyping a product should be taken to heart by many technology companies. He states, “Sure, any one can tell a story but you don’t need someone who’s clearly drank too much of the corporate Kool-Aid giving your pitch. Over zealous pitchmen are unintentionally obnoxious and impossible to believe.” In my experience this is certainly the case, and it ties closely into another of his points that analysts are smart enough to be able to read between the lines.

Working in tech PR, I can relate to many of his points, it’s incredible how many companies will insist on refering to themselves as some kind of ”leader” in all their communications, even when this claim has absolutely no founding whatsoever. If you are a market leader, then by all means, shout it from the rooftops. For the rest of us, far better to address your market by focusing on the truly strong elements of your story, than adopting the language of hype to create an impression that will be seen through by most at first glance.

Technorati Tags: public relations, analyst relations, pitching, ZDNet 

Industry events, such as conferences and tradeshows, can be a great place to connect with the media that cover your market, but is there any point in meeting with them if you’re not announcing anything of note?

For many organizations, the media are viewed as a channel for communicating news, and little else beyond that. Of course it makes complete sense to arrange media meetings at events when you are launching a new product or have some other major milestone to talk about. But don’t forget the tremendous value that can be gained simply by meeting face-to-face with a key editor, reporter or analyst.

PR is a business where “relationships” are constantly being touted as being key to the success of a program. Here at inmedia, we believe that the strength of the stories you bring to the media has the most bearing on the success or failure of a PR program, BUT we certainly still recognize the significant additional benefit that can result from developing healthy relationships with key contacts.

Meeting with the media at events provides that relationship-enhancing experience, where faces are put to names, and topics of mutual interest can be discussed without any of the hard-sell agenda of a story pitch done over the phone or by email. 

And, in my experience, the media are just as happy to meet with companies that play in the sector they cover, whether they have something specific to announce or not. They can also benefit from the relationship factor, which for them can result in exclusives or advance notice on key news, to say nothing of the increased potential for securing commerical opportunities.

Technorati Tags: public relations, media relations, conference, tradeshow, networking

While we here at inmedia have long maintained there is little difference between bloggers and conventional journalists when it comes to pitching, we do appreciate that many bloggers do not care at all to be pitched by us PR types. That’s not usually an issue for us; as an agency specialising in business-to-business marketing public relations for technology companies, we’re interested only in those bloggers who have real influence in our clients’ markets. These folks are often journalists who have simply moved to this new channel, or de facto technology news sites, like engadget or gizmodo, that welcome properly crafted pitches.

Still, many bloggers are looking for a nice, polite way to tell us PR folk to stay away and Todd Defren is again advocating that bloggers be explicit about their wishes. It’s an approach, as Defren says, worth looking at.

Technorati Tags: bloggers, blogger relations, pitching bloggers, Todd Defren

“Do what you’re supposed to do to the best of your ability and be content with the results.”

Okay, that isn’t a catchy quote from some luminary of historical note. I just made it up. But it is along the same lines of the general theme that Francis espoused the other day with that comment from Canada’s oldest Olympian, 61-year-old Ian Millar, “If you persevere long enough, if you do the right things long enough, good things will happen to you.”

These are words to take to heart for any pursuit in order to reach a state of acceptance and satisfaction, as opposed to a stressed-out state of frustrated discontent. Do the best that your skills, experience and resources allow and find satisfaction in the fact that you’ve done all you can do, rather than feel miserable that the outcome of your effort was less than desired. It’s the best way to evaluate objectively how the results could be improved and muster the courage to try again.

I raise the point because John Greer at Catching Flack blogged today about Five Ways to Make Pitching More Productive and Less Painful. He talks about how many PR people dread pitching the media due to fear of rejection and the expectation of a churlish response.

Well, as any of us in this business know, churlish rejection is a fact of life. There’s no way around it. However, as John points out, if you’ve done the necessary homework to understand the story you’re pitching, to provide relevant and factual information, and know why the journalist should be interested, there’s no reason for fear and stress. You’ve done your job to the best of your ability. If this fish won’t bite, reel in the hook and cast in another direction.

Like they say in sales, every “no” is a step closer to a “yes.”

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