Thanks to Stuart Bruce, I’ve reached these sever rules for getting ink in business magazines. Although they have been written by the editor of a UK business magazine, Real Business, I’m pretty sure they’ll work almost everywhere. For sure, they work in Italy, with the exception of rule number six.

1. Most of our stories talk about how a company solved a particular problem. So, don’t be afraid to admit you’ve run into difficulties. Conflict is interesting.
2. Tell us what makes your company unique. Is it your product or your business model? Have you found a new way of getting finance or advertising your product/service? Make it crystal clear why we should write about you and not your competitors.
3. Write your email as if you were talking to a six or sixty years old chap. Don’t talk about “value-added systems integration management solutions specialists”, say: “we sell software”.
4. Do give numbers. Turnover, profit, number of employees, years in operation. They’re the only way to prove that you’re as successful as you say you are.
5. Tell us what section of the magazine you think your story would work for.
6. Don’t send a press releases every day or every week. We get too many to deal with! Instead, send a really well-crafted proposal for an article, listing everything you think we ought to know about your company. (This is the only rule that I would question, at least for Italy. When you don’t have that many business or “vertical” magazines, journalists are usually generalists and tend to forget companies if they don’t receive press releases on a regular basis).
7. Anniversaries, milestones, charity donation, new products, sponsored events? No thanks!!! Maybe it works for local papers, but it doesn’t for us. Lots of companies have anniversaries, lots give money to charity. Again, it’s about saying what makes you unique.

PR agencies should read these rules with a lot of attention, and maybe send them to their clients with a comment, underlining rules number four and number seven.