We have moved!
Posted by: Mira on: October 19, 2009
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Check out the new blog at avidblog.wordpress.com or our soon to be website at www.avidpr.co.uk. Do it now. Do it.
Never underestimate the power of persistence
Posted by: Mira on: June 8, 2009
This applies in life, in general, but more so to public relations. Of course, it’s qualified: ring somebody up every day when you’ve already been told they’re not interested and you could end up with some abuse, at best, or a law suit, at worst!
But much has been achieved by the tenacious PR who politely but firmly set about badgering contacts for coverage, and this can be the case for you too.
Once you’ve pitched in a story/product/event to the media, and if you’ve followed my guide to doing so, you should have a pretty good list of people who are definitely not interested in your offering, people who aren’t sure, people who sounded mildly interested and people who were definitely interested. All categories except for those that definitely weren’t interested have given you a green light to set about pestering them, in varying degrees.
So, a couple of days after you first made contact, set aside some ‘badgering time’. Obviously allow more time if you have sent any samples in the post. Then give everybody on the ‘interested’ list a call, with the pretext of checking that they’ve received whatever it was you sent, and if it’s something they like or can use. Some people will now tell you they can’t fit it in, others will say that it will be used. For the latter, ask them when they think this will happen so that you can look out for it. Others will still be non-committal. These are the ones to pursue relentlessly.
You need to repeat this process unless you are specifically told that they can either use it, or not use it. Don’t be embarrassed: unless the journalist tells you not to phone anymore, they know full well that you will be phoning again.
There is one exception, and it’s the ultimate PR brush off. When a journalist says “Leave it with me and I promise to tell you if I can use it.” Aaaahhh, that old chestnut. This means you have to leave them for about two weeks and then phone them again.
This can seem like quite a time consuming process, and it is, really. But I promise that it does get results. Think about when you have a lot of paper stacked up on your desk, and you forget about some stuff that’s at the bottom, and it’s not urgent anyway, so you can do it another day. Well, journalists aren’t that different, except that a lot of the stuff which is lying around on their desks are press releases. Because they don’t use it right away, doesn’t mean they’re not interested. Imagine if someone kept phoning you and telling you to deal with that particular piece of paper. Eventually, you’d just do it. It’s the same with journalists. Sometimes they just need some gentle reminding.
Time consuming it may be, but think about what that piece of coverage would cost if you had to pay for advertising. Hundreds, even thousands of pounds. So if you can dedicate a bit of time it makes business sense.
Right, next time I’m going to write a post about what journalists say, what they mean and what people doing PR should interpret this as. I’m looking forward to it already. Please give me a shout with any questions.
missmirataylor@yahoo.com
News when there’s no news: surveys
Posted by: Mira on: April 27, 2009
You may have read my post about press releases, below. These are great when you are launching or have interesting news relating to your business, but what of the times when you are just ticking along, doing what you do, serving customers? The local paper, with all due respect, isn’t going to be too interested in that.
So to keep media momentum (mediamentum?) going and generate that valuable PR coverage, you need to think of ways to create some news. First of all, consider little things within your business – new appointments, one millionth or thousandth customer (ask them to pose for a photo), new offerings. You may get some success locally out of these kind of stories.
But if you don’t, or there really is nothing to write home (to press) about, then all is not lost.
Surveys are a good way to generate news where there is none. You see them in the newspapers all the time – X per cent of Brits prefer a chippy dinner to fine dining. That sort of thing. Fling open the Mail or the Express and you’ll find a few survey stories, which have almost always been placed by a diligent PR officer.
First you need to decide on the best survey topic for your business. This should be something relevant, but not mundane. The aim is to extract from answerers the funniest/best/worst/most shocking trends which will then make an appealing news story. So, if you sell lawn mowers, don’t ask questions like ‘How often do you mow your lawn?’, but try something like ‘Which of these is the best motivation for getting round to mowing the lawn: a) neat garden b) get in the missus’ good books c) get to ride around on a piece of manly machinery d) other’. You can be a bit funny, a bit quirky, and this will result in better story.
You’ll need about five questions, including age and location.
Surveys can cost anything from £0 to many thousands of pounds. If you have a vast budget then get in touch with a company such as 72 Point and they’ll help you to put your questions into a top notch survey, complete with analysis of the results and specially tailored wording. But I’m assuming that most people who read this are trying to do PR on a budget, and so for those, there are other ways to go about this which will cause less damage to the wallet.
If you have a customer database, send out a survey to them. Consider offering a prize, as we all know what a pain it is when these things land in your inbox, but a little incentivisation might help things along. If you have a website which gets a good number of hits, put your survey there. Or, if you have a shop, ask customers to fill in a questionnaire when they come in.
Another way to get a survey done is through a local paper. Ring up and ask to speak to promotions, tell them about your business and your survey to see if they like the idea. You will, most probably have to offer a decent prize (ask what the minimum prize value is), but it still costs you considerably less than going through a survey company, and you can negotiate to guarantee coverage of the results further down the line. If possible, aim to get them to put the survey online and in the paper.
Once the survey appears get all your friends, family and colleagues to complete it. Advertise it online, in your email signature, in your shop. Websites like Money Saving Expert and others have forums where competitions can be posted, so if you are offering a prize then post a link on some of these. Get as many people to enter as possible – the more the better in terms of the quality of the results.
Once you get the results back, you need to formulate the raw data into a press release. First of all, you need to pick out the interesting bits to focus on. This will probably be just one piece of data which is shocking or funny in some way, and maybe much more/less than would have been expected. This will be the main topic for your press release, but you need to include the other data in the details (see press releases post). If you cover more than one geographical area, use the results of location to formulate more than one release and get multiple pieces of local coverage. For instance, if you cover Leeds, Harrogate and Wakefield, look at the results of people from each of those – “76 per cent of people in Leeds have visited a sex shop in the last year”, “53 per cent of people in Wakefield…”, and so on (I’m sure these figures are nowhere near the truth, but I just pulled them off the top my head, before I start getting lambasted by angry Yorkshire folk).
Tie the results back into you and your business. So, for example, with the lawnmower seller, you might find out that most people are motivated to mow the lawn by the prospect of being in their wife or girlfriend’s good books. Then they might like to try X lawmower, which gets the job done as quickly as possible, leaving them to reap the, errrr, rewards.
Or, if they like to ride a piece of manly machinery, it would be your biggest, noisiest number.
Draft all the information into a press release and pitch it into the media (see press releases and media relations posts, below). Should get you some nice coverage if done right.
Please contact me for help with surveys or any other topics at missmirataylor@yahoo.com
How to blog for PR
Posted by: Mira on: April 16, 2009
I remember my mum telling me she was going to write a ‘blog’ about a garage that had ripped her off. This was the first time I had heard the word and was gutted that I had been out-media-ed by my mother.
These days the internet is chocker with bloggers, writing about everything from the point of guinea pigs to great customer service. As with everything, it didn’t take long for businesses to cotton on to the idea and now, if you don’t have a blog for your business, you’re missing out. Blogs are a powerful PR tool, essential in achieving what ought to be one of your main marketing objectives: positioning you/your business as an expert in your chosen field.
In addition to this, you take up more ‘room’ on the web, making yourself more visible. And, because search engines prefer content which is regularly updated, and because blogging programs are optimised for search engines, your blog increases your chances of coming up near the top of potential customers’ searches.
The rules are less strict for blogs than for, say press releases (see below), and they’re very easy to set up. But for those of you that are novices, but want to benefit, here is a rough guide.
First you need to choose where to host your blog. The simplest way to do this is on something like WordPress (here) or Blogspot (Google’s blogging site). Hosting your blog on your own domain links it more prominently with your website, and gives you more options, but is less straightforward and you’ll need to commit more time and money to search engine optimisation to make it creep up the search results page.
WordPress and Blogspot each have their own set of features, widgets and gadgets, available, so you can take this into consideration when choosing. A good comparison is at http://pulsed.blogspot.com/2007/07/blogger-wordpress-chart.html.
So follow the steps to set up your blogging space, choosing a template and colour scheme which reflects the nature of your business. Add gadgets, or widgets, which are relevant – if you are in the travel business a time zone clock, map or currency converter would be appropriate, for instance.
The name of your blog could just be ‘[your name's] blog’ or ‘[your business'] blog’. Underneath the name of your blog is the description. Here you need to include some keywords. These are the words which people would type into Google to find businesses like yours. So, could be, ‘hairdresser in York’ or ‘antique books online’, for example. So you might make the description ‘news, views and comment for enthusiasts of antique books’.
You’ll need a few of these keywords, and they should litter your blog, cropping up at every opportunity. The more you use them, the better your blog looks to the search engines and the more you’ll benefit from ‘free PR’ 
Write some background about yourself, your business and the blog in the sidebar. Explain what they’re about. Use keywords – Welcome to my blog. It’s about the sushi in Hertfordshire/dog grooming in the South West/online diet pills.
Put a photo or a logo, and tag them, if possible, with more keywords (see, keywords, keywords, keywords, everywhere you can).
Once you have your blogging space set up, you’re ready to write your first post. Remember, the aim here is to position yourself as an expert, not to give the hard sell. Look out for relevant topics which come up in the news, post links to places where the stories can be found online and offer your professional opinion on them. Give updates on the things which you’ve been doing recently, which highlight your commitment and expertise.
Keep putting keywords in, but don’t worry too much about your key messages here (see previous posts). The very fact that you offer such informed and up to date comment on your particular subject will reinforce those anyway.
Make your blog a hub of information by including links to other relevant blogs and sites, and submit it to blog directories and search engines. Visit http://www.submitfire.com and http://www.pingomatic.com to do this, and join sites like Digg, Delicious, Blog Catalog and Blog Pulse to submit your blog there as well.
You might ask other, non-competing, bloggers to include a link to yours in exchange. Put a link to your blog on your company website (if hosted externally) and on your email signature.
Make sure to add a post at least every couple of weeks to keep the content fresh. It only has to be a couple of paragraphs, so this isn’t too big an ask.
If you’d like help with setting up a blog, or to enquire about my ghost blogging services, please contact me at missmirataylor@yahoo.com.
Competitions and reader offers
Posted by: Mira on: April 8, 2009
Competitions and reader offers are a good way to get coverage, and make you seem like a thoroughly nice business owner! The media love them because they get to give something to their readers which costs the publication absolutely nothing, and you can utilise them when, perhaps, you don’t have a particularly newsworthy story to pitch in but don’t want to lose momentum, or to accompany a particular event or milestone at your company.
Your giveaway
First of all, you need to decide what you will be giving away. You might give away a small number of prizes, like one wedding dress, 2 x a year’s supply of beer, or something like that. The other thing you can do is give every reader of your chosen media a discount, so every reader gets, for example, a free cocktail with this voucher, or 20 per cent off, something like that. If you’re not in a business where the prize or giveaway is immediately obvious (like you sell cars, for instance, and don’t want to give a whole one away), consider offering something like a case of wine or champagne, or a cash prize. You’ll still be able to get your point across in the competition copy.
Pitching in
Now you need to decide which media you’d like your offer to appear in. Look back to your target audience and key media (previous posts) and pick from there. You may decide to first target a publication which is key for you, but in which you have struggled to get coverage through the straightforward media relations route. Before you phone them, you need to know the monetary value of your prize and how many you can give away – for competitions. For exclusive offers you need to have to hand what the service/product would normally cost, and what it will cost with the discount.
So, phone up your first target publication. Ask to speak to someone about promotions, then explain who you are and where you’re calling from. Ask if they run competitions/reader offers and, if so, explain your offering to see if they think it’s a good fit for them.
If you’re in agreement that this sounds like the right kind of thing for their readers, there are a few things you need to find out:
- The minimum prize value. You’re going to be getting space which advertisers would normally have to pay for, so they can’t let you have it for less than a certain value, otherwise there’d be no point advertising with them and they’d make no money. So your prize will have to meet a certain valuation. This can range from £50 to many, many thousands for large consumer titles. If your prize doesn’t quite meet this, consider throwing another in, so that there are two prizes, or add a makeweight like a bottle of champagne for the rest.
- When they can schedule the competition/offer in to appear.
- What their copy deadline is for this issue. You’ll need to prepare all your materials for this date.
- How much copy they need. This is their word count limit for competitions.
- Can you include images and logos? How many? One image and one logo is standard, if you don’t have an image just a logo will be fine.
- What will the closing date be? Check that they will provide terms and conditions.
Then you just need to agree that you’ll send them all the materials by their deadline. If they’re not interested, don’t worry, just try another title.
With competitions you can set up as many as you like in various different tiles, but with exclusive offers you risk upsetting some of your key media contacts if you double up – these are supposed to be exclusive to their readers.
Competition materials
Now you need to write some copy for your competition. How much detail you can include depends on the word count which you have been given, but this is a rough guide to what to include:
‘[media title] has teamed up with [your business] to give readers the chance to win [one/two/three etc] fantastic prize of [prize]‘. If this is for a particular occasion or event, include details: ‘X is promising to make Easter extra special for one reader, with a luxury chocolate hamper!’
Then put a bit about your business here, making sure to include a couple of key messages (see key messages post).
Then, if you have enough word count, put a bit about the prize, or the event.
Then: ‘To win, just answer this simple question:’
Think of a question which everybody knows the answer to. Like:
‘What kind of animal is associated with Easter?’
1. Pig
2. Ostrich
3. Bunny
Put: ‘Send your answer to….’ leaving it blank so that the publication can put their preferred means of correspondence in.
Reader offers follow the same format, but obviously without the question, and maybe with a voucher, if appropriate. Or you may just say ‘mention this magazine to claim your discount.’
If you don’t have any images, you might consider getting some done professionally – a good photographer costs in the region of £100 to do a nice set of photos, which you’ll then have to hand for all future uses.
Now get someone to proof read your copy, and send in your collateral by the agreed date.
For any help with competitions, reader offers or any other PR topics, email me at missmirataylor@yahoo.com.
Business Networking
Posted by: Mira on: April 7, 2009
This is a plug, kind of, but a really useful one. I’ve just joined 4Networking, Britain’s fastest growing business networking group. I went to my first meeting on Friday and already have three potential new pieces of business from it – well worth the joining fee. I’d thoroughly recommend it to those getting started with their own small businesses.
4networking.biz/
Freebies, gimmicks and samples
Posted by: Mira on: April 7, 2009
I’ll tell you something for nothing: everybody loves free stuff.
Actually, I’ll tell you lots of things for nothing, that’s what this blog is all about. But that people love free stuff is just a not-open-to-debate fact of life.
In PR we frequently and shamelessly capitalise on this fact, and it works. Here are a couple of examples of my own experiences with freebies:
I used to work in an agency in Covent Garden. One day, around 4 o’clock, a box of the most exquisite cup cakes known to man was brought to our office. There were about 12 of them (and 12 of us – well researched), and they were the most beautiful little cakes you’ll ever see. It was almost a shame to eat them. Almost. Because everyone who works in an office is cake obsessed. Tools were downed for 10 minutes of gasping with delight and stuffing of faces, followed by the inevitable “Who sent these?” The answer was Lola’s Cupcakes, and for every possible cake-related opportunity from then on, they were our chosen supplier. Plus, they’re still getting mentioned for it now (here, by me).
In that example I was on the receiving end of some great PR. But I used to work on the PR for a cava client, and, every week, we would send out case after case of the fizzy stuff to journalists for ’sampling’, which they usually scheduled into their workload for Friday night, and assisted in their task by friends. Followed up relentlessly it often resulted in a nice mention in features about anything ranging from the summer, to Spain, to the credit crunch!
Free stuff can obviously be utilised to good effect with the general public as well, as Krispy Kreme has exploited to its advantage by giving away free doughnuts every Friday morning. See the Q&A section for more advice on this.
So if you deal in stuff, real, tangible stuff, then give some of your key journalists a call and ask if you can send them samples. You may choose to drop in yourself and deliver it, telling the journalist a little about your product at the same time. If you’re going down this route, make an appointment to do so, and don’t hang around for more than five minutes. You could also consider taking some extra in case other members of the press in the same office are interested.
If you’re simply sending the stuff over, make sure you include a press release and contact details, and try to package it attractively so that when it arrives it’s like receiving a little present – all the more exciting.
Always follow up a few days later to ask if they enjoyed your samples. You have the upper hand on this call because, having consumed whatever it was you sent, their conscience tells them that they must be nice to you now, so no need for contrition here!
If you’re giving away freebies to the public to promote your business, make sure you issue a press release about it to the relevant media (see press releases). That way, you raise awareness of your special offer and, hopefully, a nice piece of coverage as well. You might even consider teaming up with a publication to do a reader offer, that’ll be covered in my next post, but email me for more info on this in the meantime.
But what about people who don’t deal in stuff? People who offer services? What can the web designers, the business consultants, the hairdressers do in this respect?
The trick here is to think of something which is relevant without losing its appeal. Those in the technology sphere might consider sending their press releases, images and any other bumf on a (branded or otherwise) USB stick. This is appealing because the recipient can reuse the memory stick, perhaps seeing your company logo each time, and is more likely to read a press release delivered in this unusual way.
A hairdresser or beauty salon might send some miniature product samples. Brand it a ‘Detox Hamper’ or “Spa Kit’ and present in a pretty basket. An alternative to this is to simply offer journalists a free ‘one’ of whatever your service is – a free meal, free insurance, free massage, free life coaching session.
There are a multitude of ways which you can leverage your products or services to generate free stuff, and, in turn, use this to raise your profile/get coverage/win clients. Make sure that your gift is exciting in as many ways as possible, from the packaging, to the contents to the ongoing use. Make sure that the recipient knows who it’s from and why (because you want coverage? Say: “If you like the samples I sent you maybe you can give it a review.” Want people to return to your shop in the future? Give them a discount). And, wherever possible, follow up to try to secure this.
Next time: promotions, special offers and competitions
Please email me at missmirataylor@yahoo.com for help with any of the topics on this site.
Case studies
Posted by: Mira on: March 31, 2009
I thought I would write about case studies today, as I am completely snowed under with them myself.
The difference between PR and other types of marketing is this: in advertising, for example, you say something good about yourself – “We provide the speediest delivery of salted snacks in the North East”. In PR, someone else says something good about you. This is why PR has been shown to have a much greater impact – it consists, effectively, of endorsements from independent third parties, normally whose opinions are trusted on the subject matter at hand (like an entertainment journalist giving a particular club a great review).
Case studies are the very essence of PR. A case study consists of an existing customer explaining the benefits of working with you or using your service. They have a great impact with potential new customers as they demonstrate that, not only are your customers happy, but they are so happy that they’ve actually told the media about it! Not to mention the fact that the media is itself also a trusted source of information. This is a PR double whammy for your business!
So, the first thing you need to do is find a customer who is happy, and happy to help out. Don’t ask somebody who has had any issues with your service – not only will they not be a suitable case study, but they make take it as an insult too far that you’ve had the nerve to ask. All the better if you can find someone with a great story to tell, i.e. whose life, business, health, or whatever, has been completely changed for the positive. This could be somebody who you have helped to lose an incredible amount of weight, overcome a crippling phobia, or, for businesses, to increase turnover, efficiency, reduce sick days, etc.
A case study will be published with photos and full name, so whoever you find needs to be happy for these to appear. They’ll be doing it for you as a favour, but you might like to thank them with a bottle of wine, box of chocolates or something similar. Agree a time to have a chat so that you can get all the information you need. It will only take 10 minutes or so.
Preparation
Prepare by putting together some questions for your case study. These will vary depending on your business (I will give some examples in a minute), but essentially you are trying to find out what was wrong, how you helped to fix it, and how things are better now. The things you need to know can be summarised as:
- Name, business name (where relevant), age (for non-business customers), location.
- What was the need? What was wrong with his or her life/business before coming to you? What effect did this have?
- How did they find out about you?
- What services did you provide them with? How did you help them? What processes were implemented? Who did they deal with – yourself or another employee?
- What impact has your service had? You need to get hard facts here if possible, e.g. turnover increased by X per cent, lost 30 lbs, been on 10 dates in last two months and met love of my life, as well as how they felt about them.
- What was their overall experience of working with you? Is there anything else they’d like to add?
I promised an example set of questions, so here are some questions I put together for a house builder client case study:
- Full name, age, location, house type bought?
- Are you married? Children? Family’s names and ages?
- Why were you looking to move?
- Why did you choose this particular development?
- What attracted you to this property?
- Which sales representative did you deal with? How did you find dealing with him/her?
- What was the moving process like? How did house builder X help you to make this as smooth as possible?
- What was your overall experience of dealing with house builder X?
- When did you move in? How have you and your family settled in?
Photography
Photos of a case study improve your chances of it getting picked up. If you have a good camera, and a dab hand, you might just take a head and shoulders shot yourself. This quality should be ok for most local media, but glossy magazines tend to need images which are 300 DPI (dots per inch), RGB format and around 1MB in size, and to be on the safe side I would use this as the standard for all media. You can check this information in your computer’s picture editor in one of the drop down menus – on mine it is in Tools>Get info, but it will vary.
A nice touch is to get a snap of the case study in a situation which is relevant to the subject. For instance, for the above house builder, the case study was snapped with her family on the new home’s luxurious sofa. For the fishmonger example which I keep on using (I can see it from the window), the customer might be snapped tucking into a tasty fish-based dinner, or being sold some fish in the shop. If you get something which is a bit funny, or wacky, it is more likely to be picked up (where appropriate, of course).
For those who don’t feel their camera skills are quite up to media standards, a good photographer will normally cost between £75 – £150 for an hour, and you will get a really nice set of images, in the right quality and format.
Pitching in
Now that you have all the information (leave this open ended in case you need to come back for more – “Can I come back to you with any further questions I might have?”), and photos, you need to decide how you’re going to deliver your case study to the media.
One way to do this is to write it up and distribute it in the same way as a press release (see post: ‘press releases’, below). You may get some hits from this. But to guarantee coverage, and the way I would normally deal with case studies, is to offer them to key media exclusively.
Pick a couple of your key targets (see ‘dealing with the media’, below). Phone the first, explain who you are and ask if they are interested in case studies. If they are, tell them in one or two sentences about yours, making sure to tell them they’d have it exclusively, ask if you can send it over, and, if they are interested, what format they would like it in – would they like it all written up and ready to go in, or do they interview case studies themselves? If the latter, just send them some bullet points with the key bits of information that make this an interesting story for them.
If you’re asked to write it up, see press releases, below. It should take the same format as this, but much more quote-heavy. If you do lots of these you’ll get used to a more chatty style.
Here is a case study which a colleague of mine secured with the Daily Mirror, as an example: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2008/12/07/man-loses-30-stone-after-being-told-to-plan-funeral-115875-20953661/
Send over your information in the format requested with a couple of the best images, and then give it a couple of days. If your contact hasn’t got back to you, follow up with a call to see if they’d like to use it. If so, ask if they have an idea when it might go in, so that you can get a copy of the coverage. if not, repeat the process with your next target publication until it sticks.
The media love a good case study, so if you’re having trouble making it stick, you might be pitching it in at the wrong level. If you’re a local shoe shop, national newspapers aren’t going to be interested in your customer who found the perfectly fitting loafer at your store. Local papers are the wrong target for a manufacturing client customer revealing his increased profit – this would need to pitched to a trade magazine. So have a read about target audience and media in my other posts and consider carefully where to start pitching your case study.
If you would like help with case studies or any other PR, please email me at missmirataylor@yahoo.com, or post questions on here.
Next time: grab their attention with freebies, samples and gimmicks.
Dealing with the media
Posted by: Mira on: March 24, 2009
Once you have a press release ready (see below: press releases), the next step is to let the media know about it. You can just send it to a bunch of Bcc’d emails if you want, and some might read it, some might junk it, but you’ll get a lot more success if you put in a handful of calls.
Media lists
The first thing to do is to compile a list. There are some media databases which you can sign up to, such as Vocus, Mediatlas, Gorkana or Media Disk, but these are quite costly and, unless you’re going to be doing really regular media relations it’s perfectly feasible to make your own database.
Think back to your target audience (first post), and use this to determine your media list. If you are a local business, you’ll want local newspapers, websites and lifestyle magazines. For tradesmen, you’ll need to target their relevant trade magazines, which are usually the easiest for getting coverage in (and there’s a magazine for literally EVERYTHING – believe me. There’s even a Biscuit World magazine, so there’s one for you!). If your story befits, go national with it and contact national newspapers, magazines and TV. But be warned: ring up national journalists with a story that isn’t relevant, and you will feel their wrath.
You can normally get contact details from websites. Try to get the most relevant contact, like the health editor if yours is a wellbeing story, and so on. If these aren’t listed, don’t worry, you can just ring the switchboard and ask who the best person is. Put your media contacts into a spreadsheet with publication name, contact name, contact job, phone number and email address. If you have a really long list you may choose to pick out 20-30 key contacts and send a Bcc email to the rest (always Bcc these, you don’t want the journalists to see that you have sent the same story to all of their competitors).
Pitching in
Pitching in a story is essentially cold calling, which, if you’re running your own business is probably something which you’ve done before. The difference is that when pitching a story to journalists you need to be a lot less pushy than in other sales.
Before calling, get the email ready. Start with a little intro explaining who you are and what you’re doing, and one or two sentences about why your offering is good or different. Then let them know what they have in this email and include contact details for any further queries. Here is an example:
Hi Karen,
I’m launching a private chef company in Manchester, to offer the affluent residents of the North West the chance to enjoy restaurant-standard cuisine in their own homes.
We’re offering chefs for dinner parties, yachts and chalets and on short term contracts for those that have family visiting or are in town on business. Full details are in the release, below, and an image is attached.
If you would like any further information please contact me on (01234) 567 890 or email …..
Kind regards,
Mira
Then put the press release.
The call
Now you’re ready to make some calls. Get your pitch straight beforehand – you might like to practice what you’ll say out loud. After a few it will become more polished. I always ring one of the less important contacts first, as the first call is like the first pancake: it never comes out quite right.
Ring the contact direct if you have the number, or otherwise just go through switchboard, where, if you don’t have a name just ask to speak to the person who looks after [insert your topic here] stories.
If they aren’t available, ask to take an email address, send over your email and follow it up later with a call.
If you get the right person on the phone, explain who you are, what you’re doing, and ask if now is a good time to tell them about it. If they say that now is not a good time, take an email address, send it over and follow up in a day or two.
if they are happy to talk, give them the top line about your business or product, and then ask if it’s something they’d be interested in. Some might ask you to just send over some information by email (this is 95 per cent of the time), others might ask you a few more questions.
The important thing to remember here is that journalists couldn’t do their job if people didn’t ring them up with stories, so don’t feel intimidated or as if they are doing you a huge favour just by talking to you. Make a note of all feedback on your media list, so that you can remember who you’ve spoken to, who was interested and so on, to help you with following up and also so that you can make sure your next story goes to the right people.
Where you have just sent an email and not spoken to a contact, follow up with a call at a later time. Say “I just wanted to check that you have received my email and see whether it’s something which you’re interested in.” They’ll probably say that they’ll come back to you if they can use it, but you’ve drawn their attention to it now, and that’s all you’re aiming to do.
If you build up a good rapport with a particular individual, why not invite him or her for a drink to chat in more detail? Once you’ve met with a person face to face a relationship is established and you’ll always be able to go to him or her with your stories.
That’s it for media lists. The important things to remember are not to worry about cold calling, but not to be pushy at all. Be concise and don’t waffle, and be enthusiastic.
If you would like any further help with media lists or pitching in please email me at missmirataylor@yahoo.com.
Press releases
Posted by: Mira on: March 20, 2009
Press releases are the bread and butter of PR. Any campaign, no matter what it’s for or who it’s aimed at will require a press release, letting your key media and customers know what you’re doing. Don’t even think about phoning the press until you have a release to send to them. I can guarantee that 99 per cent of the time they’ll ask you to “just send over some information.”
The good thing about press releases is that they conform to a set template. The style and content varies, but the template is always the same. But before you start, think about your audience and key messages (see my last post for this), and use this to determine what your style should be. If you are targeting business people, your style will be quite highbrow and formal. If you’re trying to appeal to women who love to shop, it should be fun and lighthearted. If it’s tradespeople you’re after, you can be quite technical, and so on.
Another thing you might like to consider is events which tie in with your offering. Is your product cheap? Then tie it in with the credit crunch. Will it help people to get in shape? It’s nearly summer holiday time, so use that.
So, this is how a press release goes:
1. Title
You might like to think of something catchy here, if you are aiming at consumers. Alliteration (GET MORE FOR YOUR MONEY WITH A MINI) or little puns are a good way to do this. Think of the kinds of things you might see in The Sun for guidance (this isn’t the last time I’ll be referring you to that particular paper!).
But if you need a more serious tone, just do a ‘Ronseal’ – does exactly what it says on the tin. For example, ‘GRANGE HOTEL RELAUNCHES AFTER £100K REFURBISHMENT’.
Put the title in capital letters and bold. If you feel it needs a little more explanation, add a sub-title underneath, in bold and italic, something like ‘Hotel now offers full business facilities, gym and spa’.
2. The date
Somewhere near the top of your release should be the date it is sent out. I normally put it in the top left hand corner, but if you want to be formal put a date line, which goes on the first line of the text, before the text begins, and goes like this, in bold: Friday 20th March 2009, Manchester:- (location is optional).
3. First paragraph
A reader (journalist) should be able to read only the first paragraph to know all he or she needs to know. All the important information should be in this part, with everything else just filling in the details.
There are a couple of different protocols for this. The easiest one to remember is the five W’s: Who, What, When, Where and Why.
Who? You or your business. You might like to include a brief description, so ‘Easy Fish, the leading supplier of sustainably sourced fish and seafood,…’ Think back to your key messages for this (last post).
What? Your product or service. ‘Is launching a new range of underwear’, ‘is holding a charity event’, etc.
When?Today, next week, June 25th.
Where? Where are you based? Or, where is your event happening?
Why? How does your offering help its audience? ‘To bring cost-effective printing to local businesses’, ‘To raise money for endangered species’.
It doesn’t matter what order these go in, but they must all be covered. For examples see my client press releases section or (as promised) look up stories in the Sun.
Here is an opening paragraph from a story in that newspaper today:
AUSSIE tourists could soon be allowed to partake in an unusual pastime – KILLING CROCS.
Many Australian government ministers are in favour of crocodile safaris to reduce numbers after the populaton of the water beasts was estimated at more then 80,000.
Who? Aussie tourists. What? Killing crocodiles. When? Soon. Where? Australia. Why? To reduce numbers of more than 80,000.
The Sun has a tacky reputation, but in terms of readability it leads the pack and many young PRs are given it to read to help with their own writing skills.
4. The details
In the next couple of paragraphs you can fill out with your messages and details about your business, services or products. Keep it all factual, don’t say ‘World’s first’ or ‘unique’ unless you can substantiate it (which is never, nothing is unique for press release purposes).
5. The quote
Every press release needs a quote. This is something which journalists can lift straight out and put into their piece so it looks like they’ve spoken to you. Use the quote to put some opinion, something which is maybe not quite factual and therefore couldn’t go in the main bulk. Something like this:
‘Quick Print managing director Joe Bloggs commented: “We have always strivedto offer customers the best possible service, with an affordable price tag, and moving to this new, high-tech location means that we’ll be able to provide an even more efficient turnaround on design and print in the months and years to come.”‘
You can make the quote a bit more chatty if you prefer – again, see my client press releases for a couple of examples.
5. For more information…
…Please visit www.mywebsite.com or call (01234) 567 890. Just put this in. Then put:
–ENDS–
6. The boilerplate
This is a paragraph about your company. A little history, the main players and what it does. For instance:
About The Villa Co
The Villa Co was founded in 1999 by husband and wife team George and Jane Smith. Based in Chester, it offers luxurious self-catering apartments in the Balaerics to residents of the North West. Now employing more than 20 staff at its offices in Broughton, the company aims to provide an attentive service coupled with fabulous destinations. Visit www.mywebsite.com for more details.
That’s pretty much it. Just one more thing – add contact details.
For further information please contact:
[Your name]
[Your phone number]
[Your email address]
Always get someone to proof read your release, to check that it all makes sense, reads well, has no errors and maybe advise you on any improvements.
Press release no-nos:
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‘Unique’- nothing is unique. Or ‘unparalleled’.
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‘Solution’ – this is usually meaningless, only put it if it really is a solution.
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Too many superlatives – ‘excellent’, ‘fabulous’, ‘exquisite’. Use only qualifyable adjectives where possible.
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Any spelling mistakes.
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Long paragraphs.
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Endless pages – keep the main body of text to roughly one page.
Next time, media lists. If you’d like any help with press releases, or any other PR matters, please email me at missmirataylor@yahoo.com.
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