public relations Archives - Page 4 of 4

Strategy is a word used too often in public relations circles. Actually scratch that. It’s an over-used term in business overall. People make a list of things to do and they say it’s a strategy. It might be a very good do-list but it’s not a strategy.

People sometimes come to us wanting help with their press interview and presentation skills which is fine, it’s what we do. We want to help you (or your clients if you’re one of our colleagues from the world of public relations) to hold on to the agenda and control the messages people attribute to you in public.

Other times they come to us and it becomes obvious they want us to build their sales. Or do some lead generation.

Don’t get us wrong, lead gen and sales are completely respectable things without which most companies – including this one – would be dead in a very short order of time.

If you don’t apply some sort of strategy, however, there’s no point in even trying.

Strategy and your starting point

What we mean by strategy is that your communications (and the people behind it) need an idea of where they’re going and why. As you can see we have put in a not-at-all predictable picture of a satellite navigation system to make the point. The first thing you need for a satnav to work – let’s take “decent maps installed” and “a signal” as read – is a destination.

Surprising numbers of people, in other words “more than none”, come to us and ask to talk about media and presentation training without a destination in mind. Worse, they come in with an unachievable destination they want to reach.

Let’s take an example. Someone might come in with an idea that they want to prep for an interview with the Economist or Financial Times. They might want to sell more of their product offering, let’s say it’s sourdough starter.

Let’s look at that again. They are thinking there are readers out there who will be looking for bread making tips in the FT. To be blunt: no there won’t.

That doesn’t mean the FT’s readers won’t want to know some things about sourdough starters. If you’re a serial entrepreneur who is doing brilliantly selling sourdough starters your story could be valuable. You could use it as positioning if you were looking for investment.

You’re still only starting

Even then, it’s not going to work unless it’s part of an overall whole. “Please invest in my company because I’ve been interviewed in the Financial Times” isn’t going to get the cash flowing in. It has to be part of an overall campaign and strategy and one which goes much further than a communications exercise; the communications element is one portion of it, albeit an important one.

To stretch the satnav metaphor even further, lead trainer Guy lives near Croydon. If he wanted to get to Brighton but insisted he wanted to travel via the North Circular then a decent working satnav would be able to do it but anyone who knew the geography of southern England would confirm that’s quite a diversion and would slow him down rather than help.

Likewise if your wish was to sell more of your product and you insisted to your PR company that you wanted an interview in the Financial Times they would most likely advise against it. Even if they had the right connection and you had the right story to interest the publication (and these are non-trivial “ifs”) the interview would most likely take up a lot of your time and not get you any closer to your goal. Other moves would be better.

Let’s stop talking about satnavs

To everybody’s relief we’re now going to abandon the satnav image. It’s inexact because in reality not every pitch, even to the appropriate publications, will land. Also your goals might change along the way. Over the last few years we’ve seen the pandemic and its aftereffects having dramatic impacts on the business world, what’s achievable and how.

This is why there is a picture of a chess set at the head of this entry. Guy has been playing a lot of bad chess recently (took it up again in middle age and is nearly at the stage he’d reached at about 11). One thing he has picked up is that if you have a plan that’s better than not having one but there are other moving parts. The King, which you’d planned to trap in three moves, might have the audacity to move. A knight might move in to protect it or the Queen could take your piece.

At all times you need to keep that objective in mind – check that King in such a way that there is no legal move out. But the moves needed to do so will change as the game moves on and if you’re inflexible then the chances are you’ll lose. Worse, if you insist on using only your bishops or only your pawns, you’re going to neglect some pretty powerful hitters. The thing to do is to understand the power of each of your pieces and how they work together.

Back to strategy and media

The best way to go about securing the right coverage to take you where you need to go is with the help of an expert. We’re going to put our hands up and say that’s not us; we’re a training company and can support you in developing and honing those presentation and interview skills you’ll need to deliver those messages and not get blown off course. Your strategy will be best handled by someone with an overview, whether they are in-house experts or a full-blown PR company.

But whatever you do and whether you use an external trainer like Clapperton Media Training, never assume that interview/media skills will work in isolation. They’re there to be part of a strategy. Once you know where you’re going and the staging points en route can you really be sure to get to your destination – then it’ll be worth acquiring and honing your interview skills.

Many years ago, our lead trainer Guy had a media training client who taught him something about targeting. The client owned a chain of mobile phone stores, let’s say they were in the Reading area. He had been offered the chance of a profile piece in the Financial Times.

He had declined.

Guy was a picture of consternation. What, he wondered, was the point of training someone to speak to the media if they were going to turn down such a great opportunity?

The client’s answer was simple and instructive. His objective, he said, was to sell phones. The FT would publish a trustworthy and accurate piece – and one that would get him precisely nowhere. The publication would deliberately resist anything so promotional whereas the local paper might – we don’t know if he was correct on this point – be open to a promotional idea of sorts. If local people read about his shops they might actually visit, he reasoned. His mum would like a nice FT piece but he couldn’t see it working for his business.

Of course he was right.

Targeting is vital

Bad phone call for targeting blog entry — Journalists might not be terribly pleased with an irrelevant pitch

This is why, in our PR pitching masterclass, we talk a lot about targeting your press releases to the right journalist and publication. There are two elements to this (actually three but we’ll come to that at the end of the section).

First you need to decide which journalists or other media professionals are going to respond to you. This, if you don’t use a professional public relations agency, is a case of asking your contacts and seeing what they think.

That might sound a bit haphazard and there’s a good reason for that. It’s not an exact science. In the same way that a mate can recommend a restaurant and you can turn up and find it’s just not right for you, you can find you just don’t hit it off with a journalist, or the idea is fine but they’ve just written something like that and it will be published next Tuesday. Never forget that “no thanks” is by far the easiest answer to a pitch. It allows the listener to do precisely nothing if they choose. Also remember, however, that journalists and other publishing professionals depend on good ideas for their livelihood. No matter how cynical and jaded they sound, if your idea is good and relevant they need you.

Know the journalist

You need some knowledge of the journalist and what they write, podcast or broadcast about to remain relevant. Many are specialists. Lead trainer Guy has been writing about technology as applied to business (with some minor forays into consumer technology) for over three decades. Here are some of the things that have come into his inbox over the years:

Typing at 11.47 on 7 December 2022: a glance at the in-box tells us the BBC has sent a release telling Guy that Robson Green is fronting a new TV series. Guy did write about a new programme for the Radio Times once. In 2005.
On the same day there was a press release to Guy’s inbox telling him that the Supreme Court had said that bans on prayer and help for women in crisis could be implemented in Northern Ireland. This is something Guy personally regards as important. However he needs to read a complete story when a relevant expert has evaluated it, spoken to people and found out what’s really going on rather than a release from one interested party.
Guy’s favourite example was the company that kept sending him information on female sex toys for over a year. Mysteriously he forgot to ask them to stop sending these releases; we have never had the guts to ask him why not.

There was also a lot of relevant stuff of course, a lot of public relations professionals get it exactly right. The good news is that it’s not difficult to rise above the rest. One of our favourite games is to get the phone out during a PR Pitching Masterclass session and see what’s come in during the previous hour. In the ten years since launching this course there has always been something irrelevant to highlight.

Know the publication

It should almost go without saying but it seems not to. Knowing the publication is crucial. If you have a local story because you work in Edinburgh and have created 50 new jobs at the height of an economic downturn, great! There’s a good chance The Scotsman will be interested but don’t expect much reaction from the Argus in Brighton. Likewise you might have a hot news story to pitch to the Nationals but you’ve got your heart set on somewhere less immediately relevant. It happens.

It’s important to know the publications and also to understand what the readers are likely to do next. Remember the wise delegate at the beginning of this entry; he rejected the Financial Times not because it wasn’t a great publication but because he knew it wouldn’t be great use of his time.

But does it work for you? Targeting your objectives

Targeting image - overworked woman — You can end up working very hard but who is it for?

Knowing the journalist and who they’re writing for are undoubtedly excellent things. However, there is a killer question you need to ask: do you want to end up working for the journalist or do you want to build your own business up?

This isn’t as glib as it sounds even though you know the answer without thinking about it. You want to build your business, of course you do. Everything we’ve said so far, though, has been about finding the right journalist and outlet. We’ve discussed what the journalist does as they’re specialists and we’ve also gone through some real life irrelevant pitches.

So let’s say you’re a small consultant in tech security. You assess your market, you pitch to the journalist and he or she comes back with “that’s great but I need a user or case study to talk to”. That’s sounding good – then the article comes out and your client is cited as someone who had a tech problem and overcame it. No matter how many times you scour the article, you can’t find yourself or your business named as the person who sorted it out.

Will they credit you properly?

This happened to one of our delegates once. He told us he was up at 5am to appear on BBC Breakfast and represent his company (which was a larger concern as it happened). He’d done what he thought they wanted by avoiding mentioning his company name. He assumed they would credit his company in the caption. In the event he just came out as “Technology expert”.

There is a real risk for spokespeople: they can end up working for the journalist and the publication rather than the business for which they are responsible. Journalists mostly don’t have huge resources so if you mention that you’ve seen an important report they’re likely to ask you to send it over, free of charge. If you’ve written a book they’ll expect you or your publisher to provide the review copy. They will want a particular angle and they need to arrange their story around it. They are working for their editor and their readers and they will see everything in this light. It’s important to look at every opportunity that might come up and ask yourself: does this actually help our objective? If not, it might not be the right opportunity for you and you’ll spend a lot of time and effort working on the journalist’s behalf.

Targeting pitfalls

The mysterious “third element” we mentioned at the beginning of the last section is of course the sheer size and impossibility of the task. Keeping track of so many people is difficult. It’s one thing us Guy pulling out his phone and seeing who’s pitched something fairly ludicrous, ignoring decades of what he’s actually been doing. It’s another completely when someone has to sift through all of the potential contacts. According to Statista (see this link) there were around 110,000 people who could be described as journalists in the UK in 2022. That’s up from 71,000 people ten years previously. Many are likely to change jobs, go freelance, others will suddenly start a blog or podcast, still others will start or close a publication.

Nobody is underestimating the difficulty of keeping track of all those people. Unfortunately that’s what the job involves.

Targeting is fundamental

You can have an excellent story. You can understand why it affects many people who are outside your organisation. If you don’t take the trouble to find out about the media professionals and outlets that might be interested, however, you’re unlikely to get much coverage. Make sure you know why a story is important and to whom, ensure you approach the right outlet and the most suitable writer and you should stand above some of the actual professionals working in communications right now.

One more acid test, if we may. When you’re writing your pitch or formulating what you’re going to say to the journalist, ask yourself: why am I telling them this? If you don’t have an answer, start again – if you don’t know, they won’t either!

Further information on “Pitch Perfect”, our media training masterclass, is available by clicking here.