If you’re looking for a PR agency, you should read several recent posts from the blog of Alan Weinkrantz. I completely agree with his opinions.

Let’s start with this post, where Alan comments about one of the first thing we are asked from a prospective client: “do you have the right connections and contacts in the media in order to get our story out?”

Good question, but not the right one to start off with.
Are we connected? Yes. But if your message isn’t right, it’s not going to matter.
Do we know a lot of analysts, bloggers and journalists? Of course. But we are only as good as our last contact with them.
1. Be patient. Journalists, analysts and bloggers are busy and backlogged. You are better off cultivating the relationship and helping the journalist write something interesting, relevant, timely and perhaps even exclusive.
2. Be timely. Send out news on the day you announce something and it’s old news. In other words, send your news out early, before its live, under embargo to selected journalists.
3. Sustain. Counting on one announcement to make you famous is not going to happen. We find that on-going outreach results in longer-term and media coverage of substance.
4. Populate your newsroom with timely and interesting content. Have a newsroom with screen shots, white papers, executive bios, and of course your most recent news releases. Also, don’t forget to have media contacts listed with contact info so you can be found when they need you.
5. Consider blogging. This is a great way to have journalists find your company’s human face and quote your executives who are blogging.

Once cleared this major problem (I’ve lost more than one pitch against agencies that were bragging about their supposed “right connections”, when I was trying to explain all of the above to the prospect while showing him results instead of relations), let’s read Alan’s five confessions.

Confession #1: “No, we’re not personal friends with everyone at CNN, WSJ, NYT, Reuters, etc”.
When making new business presentations, I am always very clear about one thing: yes, we have good contacts, but the truth is that we’re only as good as our last pitch to that particular contact.
I tell the client to be: “Don’t hire us because you think we are so connected. Hire us because we’re really creative and very good at what we do”.

Confession #2: “Much of what we do is by discovery”. Or put another way, we’ll figure it out as we go along.
Sometimes, we try things that just strike a chord and resonate. Then, we know we are on to something. Sometimes, we get a blank stare at the receiving end when we pitch.
I tell the client to be: “Don’t hire us because our initial plan is so good. Hire us because we believe in the principle of discovery”.

Confession #3: “Even with editorial calendars in hand, we don’t always know what the media is going to write about”.
If there is a story written about your competitor or your industry and they don’t mention you in the article, there are a variety of reasons why that could happen. Most of the time, you are not being “found”.
A good way to fix it: produce daily content with relevant tags on your webs site or blog. Your rankings will go up and you’ll be found.
I tell the client to be: “Stay focused. Keep your messages current. Make sure you can be found”.

Confession #4: “You have to give the PR process at least six months to take hold”.
The realities of gaining strategic media coverage is that it takes time to develop and articulate your message, define your strategy, develop quality documents for your press kit, and begin the process of outreach.
This type of coverage takes three to six months from concept, to pitching, to writing, to editing and to have it surface in the media.
I tell the client to be: “If you are looking for immediate coverage, you probably won’t get it from us. If you are looking for sustainable, impactful coverage, you’ve come to the right place”.

Thanks, Alan.

Tags: media, Media Relations, pr, Public Relations

Prego, scattare qui. Questo è l’esilarante risultato della traduzione automatica di un messaggio di phishing dall’inglese all’italiano. Click here diventa scattare qui, e quelli che scattano - in questo caso - se la sono proprio voluta (a chi ha scritto il messaggio, invece, io farei scattare qualcos’altro).

Tags: pr

I’ve started to mumble about this subject after I’ve read this post, which I have quickly summarized.

According to the original Peter Principle: ”in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence”. This means that all the work is done by those who have not yet reached their level of incompetence.

A wider application of this principle emerges from looking at how companies grow in the marketplace and how they innovate and how they “lose their soul” and stop innovating.

Companies innovate until they find a cash cow. At that point, only innovation that supports the cash cow is promoted, while innovation that does not support the cash cow languishes or is actively killed. Eventually, most of the innovation ceases as the innovators leave and start new companies (and the cycle repeats).

PR as an industry has definitely lost the “innovation momentum” a long time ago, when cash cows such as media relations have started to consolidate. Too many people are offering “commoditized” services, which do not - or should not - belong to our profession.

PR should be about research and innovation. Using the same strategy and tacticts - when there is a strategy and there are tactics - to reach audiences wich are different by age, sex, income, culture and skills (and so on) is a total nonsense.

PR should be at the forefront of innovation. PR should be about inventing new ways of relating with people, or perfecting those invented by others, and not about selling “two pounds of press releases and half pound of interviews”.

Too often, this is PR today, at its highest level of incompetence.

Tags: media, Media Relations, pr, Press Release, Public Relations