Category: Advertising & PR

You have sent out your news release. Now what? Get back to what you do best? Take a walk? Sit by the phone and wait? Most people who don’t have a public relations person in their company, or don’t use a PR advisor or agency often make the mistake of thinking that just because the news release went out that it will get “picked up.”

It might if the news is compelling, or it aligns with other stories like it in news cycle, and/or you have some history with the news organizations that you sent the release to. In my career I’ve met many people who have let a release fly but never once made a callback to follow up. “Media Relations” are all about following up, but there are some basic rules to follow when making “The Call.”

Rule 1

Never call and ask if the news release was received. What you are really calling about is why your story is important or plays off something making headlines that day. Or your story has a strong local angle to something occurring nationally or internationally.

Rule 2

Be succinct. If you’re lucky enough to get someone live on the phone, you have precious seconds to convince the other party that it merits their attention and coverage. Create a script if you need to that includes your key message. Rehearse. Call a colleague and practice it. But sound natural and not like you’re reading the ingredients off a can of soup.

Rule 3

Put on your Telemarketer Hat. The next time an annoying telemarketer calls you, rather than saying, “No thank you, you idiot, you are calling me during dinner yet again and there are laws to prevent these calls if only I wasn’t so lazy to call the number and be registered as part of the no-call zone, I would not have to listen to your sorry spiel, you must be really hard up for work, or lazier than I am. Goodbye!” Instead, listen to how they pitch whatever it is they’re selling, a politician, a new product, or service. Whatever it is, most likely the person has their message down and is ready to engage.

Rule 4

Set a callback limit. As a general rule I go by the three strikes and you’re out limit — meaning, I’ve tried three times and left three messages. Depending on the client or the urgency, I may not leave a message at all but just keep calling until I get a live one on the line. If I’m using email, once or twice is enough. If I haven’t made my case but feel I really need to push — and this story is really worth being told by a TV station or section of the newspaper — I’ll keep trying and maybe reposition my pitch.

Rule 5

Be discreet. There’s a fine line between being persistent and being a pest. It doesn’t take much to land on somebody’s black list if you’ve breached their tolerance level or filled up their email with the same message over and over again. To paraphrase the great Joe South song, “walk a mile in their shoes,” and make The Call confidently, expecting only good results.

A longtime client asked me to post a news release to the media last Friday. I gulped and said to myself, “Where have I gone wrong? How many times I have I told them, ‘Any day but Friday?’ Am I totally not communicating clearly in my media savant communications capacity?” Gulp, and gulp again…. “Can I home go home yet?”

But, being of service, I obliged.

Today said client emailed and said there seemed to be no action on the release. I promised to look into it, which means calling the usual suspects and most likely resending the news release to a handful of them.

Why is Friday such a bad day to send a news release? Simply because it is the end of the work week. Unless you have breaking news that can’t wait, it’s a day better left to other endeavors. Ditto for Monday, when people are just getting back into the work week and also getting inundated with news releases, plus taking the regularly scheduled Monday morning meeting while jumping onto a bunch of other multitasks.

On the other hand, plenty of organizations do freely send out releases on Friday, late Friday, too — news that is rarely “good.” These parties are usually large corporations that misfired (the recall of Motrin story broke Saturday so I’m guessing — only guessing — this was a Friday release — see the story link here: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6401AK20100501). Or a branch of the federal government that screwed up or was slow to react to other news (notice how Obama arrived over the weekend to visit the growing Oil catastrophe in the gulf). Or a tarnished political org (pick an org, any org), hoping this news goes unnoticed. Ha!

I’m guessing no one in media — especially at the big news media outlets — has ever missed a “bad news” news release that was sent on Friday afternoon when most people’s thoughts are turning to what the weekend has in store for them. While the press and broadcast media all staff for the weekend, the available resources are usually thin. And getting thinner.

Over the past two years, the lousy economy has decimated the ranks of those working in media — yet another reason to consider what day of the week to send your news release. Of course, PR is about much more than just sending a news release.

But you knew that already. Didn’t you?

Gulp.

In my PR career, I’ve heard some unbelievable things people have said about “The Media.” Things that made “The Media” out to be some kind of monolithic machine, the political equivalent of the Teabagger viewpoint about “The Government” (as if “The Government” were one entity. Seriously, are they mad at the Department of Agriculture, or The Business Transformation Office over at the Department of Defense?!)

Still, the big bad “Media” is there to report news and if you have bad news, it generally will be reported in some fashion. There are ways, however, to diffuse the fear or anxiety of dealing with “The Media.” Some of these true examples hopefully underscore my point:

1) “Are they going to look for skeletons?” asked one worried small business owner who was going to be profiled. If the business desk is assigning an Investigative Reporter to your story, yes. However General Assignment reporters are not there to dig up the dirt and look for bones, they simply want your story. They don’t have another agenda. Having a good media kit and key messages in place to hand off to someone in the media puts up guardrails to help focus your business or issues on what’s important and positive.

2) “Can I review the story before it’s written?” Hardly ever, although sometimes the rare reporter who gets really want to get it right, or is challenged by a complex issue about something your company does, or something you did, will let you review for accuracy but not content changes. That’s why media training in advance of interviews with “The Media” to stay on message is a good thing to do.

3) “I have an event on Friday night that I would love to get some coverage of before that, can it happen?” asked someone once in a cold call two days before the event. Unless you’ve got the president of the US or Leonardo DiCaprio at your shindig — or have truly invented a whizbang device that no one has ever seen before — chances are almost nil.

Even with a news cycle that turns over 10 times a day or more on the internet, sufficient lead times are important to adhere to. Give yourself — or your PR person a few weeks in advance of when you want your story “out there” to contact the right person in “The Media” (Note: Magazines are often working 4-6 months ahead of real time.) Breaking News is one thing that gets instant coverage, but that is usually a tragedy of some sort unfolding or a national or international incident (although these days, a celebrity marriage break up or drug bust, or even a car chase in Oklahoma, unfortunately qualify). Investor Relations is a whole other universe, and we won’t go there today.

4) “The Media” will make my company famous. Well, it could. Overall, a few stories well placed will increase your visibility, hopefully help drive sales and/or achieve some of the objectives you set forth once you engaged a PR company or put your PR strategy into motion.

But let’s be realistic. Most overnight success stories I know of took 10 years of hard work. PR — as a wise friend once described it — is like drip irrigation in the desert: Droplets of water falling on the plant eventually produce a bloom, and if you’re lucky, fruit.

5) “Can I get the photo/video/radio interview The Media?” Generally no. It becomes the intellectual property of the paper, television or radio station. You can get back copies or links of the paper you need for a price. And there are services to obtain DVD copies or links to something that ran on TV, or a radio interview. Usually all such copies come with legal guidelines about how the material may or may not be used. Always have your own photos on hand (sometimes “The Media” will request it — and maybe even your own b-roll — footage that tells your story in images as background, if appropriate).

Remember, dealing with “The Media” is like dealing with other human beings. Sure, people working in the profession hold a power to magnify what you do. But the last time I checked, those doing it were like you and me, 90% water.

What do the month of May, the 50^th anniversary of the Pill and a pending big bill for rental tuxedos and pretty dresses have in common?

If you guessed the Prom, you’re about half right — and, some would say, maybe a little morally jaded. But if you have a news announcement that can somehow be pegged to the season, or an event in history like The Pill after five decades, you have got a solid news hook to exploit. Maybe you have a similar birth control issue, or a clinic or hospital that does reproductive research of some kind. Maybe you work with an organization or individual that is against the Pill and has published something, or lectured about it.

In any event, the media loves to hang stories on anniversary dates, seasonal occasions and headline trends. The coming month of May is traditionally a big month for weddings. Got a new type of wedding gift or gadget, or maybe you’ve reinvented the perfect wedding ceremony? This is a good month to go to your local media, or if it’s a really hot story, national newspapers and broadcast. The big national magazines that cover this stuff will have already done their wedding and wedding-related stories a few months ago so that these magazines are on newsstands right at the end of April, staring out at you like forlorn single people in search of the perfect mate. But you could see if any of their writers are blogging.

Find your killer PR theme in the procession of seasons and in traditional month-based occasions like The Prom, weddings, and, of course, Mother’s Day. Your chances of coverage will improve greatly. Which reminds me, the bill for my kids’ rental of tuxes and dresses are due about the same time as Mother’s Day, since they’re all in our former babysitter’s big fat wedding. It’s the price one has to pay for the ties that bind.

There are awards for everything and you don’t have too look far to find them. Why just this week there were four award-related pieces of business on Media Savant’s radar. The first was a Media Alert drafted for the news about Token Media (http://www.token.com/shortfilms) and its film-making crew (that extends into the greater Twin Cities community) winning the national 48-Hour short film festival and having another film place first runner-up in the world (out of 3,000 entries). The second was a request from some ad agency pals at Morsekode (www.Moresekode.com) wanting their peeps to vote for them in the annual Webby Awards (come, on, help ‘em out by clicking on Healthcare Lane at: http://webby.aol.com/services/insurance !)

The third was drafting an award announcement for Creative Water Solutions, the coolest natural, greenest water conditioning/treatment company in the world (www.cwsnaturally.com). It recently won two awards for its game-changing use of sphagnum moss to dramatically reduce chemicals loads, maintenance times, and damage to pool and spa equipments and the irritating side effects to pool and spa users like burning eyes, dry scalp and hair, etc.

The fourth was by way of subscribed information from the brilliant and practical minds at Iconoculture (www.iconoculture.com), which sent this notice out along with other newsy, cultural trends and insights:

The AmeriStar competition is billed as the Oscars of the packaging industry by the Institute of Packaging Professionals, the nonprofit org that sponsors the contest. The clothes, hairstyles and gossip aren’t quite as over the top as a Hollywood affair, but the emotions displayed are authentic and the camaraderie among the guests can be inspiring.

The winners — people with titles like packaging engineer, graphic designer and R&D director — finally get recognized for all their hard work.

Should clients seek awards as a way of raising their visibility? It depends on how you leverage them. The entry process can be time-consuming for your PR person and you. Unless you have won a prestigious-plus award like The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, or a similar one, you probably won’t get a feature news story out of it but rather a few sentences in local media publications. So why do it?

A true client experience says it all. A few years ago, the founder and CEO of a leading remodeling company/client that had won literally 30 or 40 awards for its work, warily asked in a meeting if we should enter the XYZ awards again.

“Gee, we’ve won it so often I wonder if it even matters any more,” he sighed.

“How do you customers feel about awards? I asked.

“They like them, they like to see us win them even more.” And there was his answer.

Awards are often critical for building your credibility within your industry and in the public at large, and occasionally you also will get media exposure for it. Now… here are the forms for the next one, due in about three days. Better get crackin’ .

What can we learn from the announcement that Twitter will begin accepting advertising (besides the fact that this giant of social media finally thinks making money is a good idea)? We can surmise that Tweeting — or microblogging — is going to be around for a long time. However the 144 characters that all Twitterers are required to enter also can teach us something about writing quick, zinger press release headlines, headlines that you might event Tweet to raise more awareness about your news and to help drive search.

Writing for the ‘Net is increasingly changing the way people write, think and communicate online and “in the real world.” A recent New York Times article (“Texts Without Context: The Internet Mashes Up Everything We Know about Culture”) looked at the new spate of books now out exploring this impact, the good, bad and the regrettable. The takeaway in PR land is that writing press release headlines that are memorable, catchy, or play off some current news item or pop culture trend is now more important than ever given the Google Words Universe we live in.

Of course it’s hard to make a new hire release, a relocation announcement or other prosaic matters sing and dance like those mega-talented actors/kids on the new season of Glee. But news release headlines are sometimes the only thing a news editor, TV assignment desk person or radio producer will look at, given the hundreds that pass in front of them every day.

Make that headline pop. Read the headlines in newspapers and magazines and go for that style. Journalists, producers and others working in media will appreciate your ability to speak their language. Besides everyone appreciates a good play on words, the unexpected bon mot or even a fine Tweet that can be Tweeted again and again.

A new Twitter advertising tool launches today after much strategic planning and customer analysis

What does it mean for marketers?

According to Chris Bruzzo, vice president of brand, content and online at Starbucks, “When people are searching on Starbucks, what we really want to show them is that something is happening at Starbucks right now, and Promoted Tweets will give us a chance to do that.”

Often, Tweets get lost in a sea of similar keywords and searches yield non-specific results.

“Marketing” Promoted Tweets allows companies to enter the stream of real-time dialog. When a Twitter user searches for a word, a single ad shows up on top in small type.

If users don’t respond to these Promoted Tweets by re-tweeting, favoriting, or replying, however, they will be pulled from the search results. This is a concept called “resonance”, a metric by which twitter will gauge the effectiveness of its ads. A few of the nine aspects of resonance include:

• number of people who saw the post
• number of people who replied to it or passed it on to their followers, and
• number of people who clicked on links

Initially, Twitter advertising will be charged by the thousands of people who saw the ads, a model that will evolve with experience. The Promoted Tweet is one of three streams of revenue Twitter will have available. For more information, see the AdAge article, “Twitter Has a Business Model: Promoted Tweets”

For more social media “Marketing” tips and tactics, search these phrases:

• Online advertising trends
• Advertising techniques
• Twitter search

Happy “Marketing” hunting!

What online ad platforms work best for you?

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman: With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman assists clients in establishing and enhancing their online brand, attracting their target market, engaging in meaningful social media conversations, and converting online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

Does the Pope have an in-house public relations team, or is the Vatican getting expensive, or pro bono, outside counsel to handle the latest, growing scandal over the actions — and alleged cover up by pre-pope Ratzinger, then a Cardinal, and others — of one particularly notorious pedophile priest who was accused of molesting more than 200 deaf children in Wisconsin? Whatever the answer, those inflicting their advice on the Holy See, need to be shown the door. Yesterday. They have mismanaged this crisis by magnitudes of 10 or more.

This pathetic news story unfortunately provides a teaching moment or three about what not to do in a crisis situation that not only affects the now-grown victims of the child abuse and their surviving family members, but the millions of Catholic believers still taking direction from an authority claiming to be the intercessor between humankind on Earth and God in heaven.

Rich in the irony that only real but unseemly events can produce (the Vatican’s “PR problems” exploded during the Catholic Church’s most sacred week of the Christian year, Easter), the sheer incompetence of the fiasco is staggering! You can read the entire unraveling of papal credibility and its anointed message masters at this Washington Post account here:

www.startribune.com The money quote, as they say in the profane world, is here:

“In a Good Friday sermon in St. Peter’s Basilica attended by the pope, the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa said a Jewish friend had written to him, saying the recent accusations about the church reminded him of the ‘more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism.’”

“Jews know ‘from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence,’ the priest said, and ‘because of this, they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms.’”

Mistake One

In a crisis, do not look for an out where none exists. The church needs to admit this priest perpetrator — and the hundreds of other abusers whose priestly vocations were corrupted by their own actions against the innocent — should never have been allowed to continue as an ordained priest. The now-Pope Benedict and his Cardinal colleagues were egregiously in error then for ignoring the case for 12 years.

Mistake Two

In a controversy this extreme and incendiary, never send a messenger who lacks a clear message and genuine authority. The Vatican needed to find a credible spokesperson within or outside of its ranks to go on point and take the heat if the top guy isn’t going to do it.

Mistake Three

In a roiling crisis with growing controversy, widening worldwide anger and enduring media coverage, don’t drag in another historical controversy to deflate or deflect the main accusations. That the Reverend Catalamessa would bring the Jewish “experience” into the fray — after centuries of distrust between the two faiths and questionable insensitivity (if not disturbing inaction) on the part of Catholic Rome during the persecution of Jews in Europe during WWII — is simply one hell of a way to dump more fuel on a raging inferno.

As the above newspaper story of Good Friday concludes: “’If they hired someone to draw up the worst possible PR plan for the church, they could not do any worse than these guys are doing right now,’” said the Rev. Thomas Reese, senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University in Washington.

“’It’s disastrous,’ he said. ‘They really need to get someone from the U.S. bishops conference who has been through this before to get over there and help guide the coverage. I mean, to invoke the persecution of the Jews? They are making every mistake in the book.’”

Amen, brother. Amen.