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