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By Mace Usher
Before you pitch your stories to writers you'll need to build a media list and determine which journos to make contact with. In this posting we'll talk about why focusing your PR endeavours is crucial and ideally make the prospect of approaching the press much less overbearing.
The very idea of "the media" can be scary but it's also misleading. It's much better to think of the media as a service with many different branches, each reaching out to a different target market. You'll want to choose the branch or branches that are best for you.
The list is lengthy and distinguished. As well as others you will find:
- National and local newspapers - National and local / regional magazines - Trade publications (commonly known as the Business2Business or B2B press). These are typically magazines and web pages created specifically to concentrate on specific markets. There exists one for almost everything - from poultry farmers to injection welders, city planners, accountants and lawyers. - National / local radio - National / regional TV - Internet publications and opinion formers - right down to important bloggers within your sector
Who you target depends on who you want to reach.
If you remember little else as part of your PR efforts, always consider the audience you are going after. Neglecting this is the cardinal PR sin and is an offense that many, many public relations professionals are regularly guilty of.
Consider your audience a lot more than you think about the journalist. Of course, you've got to have interactions with writers, but writers are only a vehicle. They're just a conduit to the clients.
You might not love a person's breakfast show, or you don't even like the way in which the reporter writes. It doesn't matter. What we appreciate is their audience. Without an audience a journo may as well not exist.
Don't assume every report you send out should go to every single outlet. There is absolutely no point mailing a lads' mag something about make-up. It's very unlikely that they will be interested in that. There may be not much point mailing certain regional papers or BBC regional radio programmes something about a revolutionary nightclub when the audience is over 55 years old (unless, naturally, you're leading a demonstration in opposition to it!)
However, if you need to focus on arranging wills or if you've got exciting research on hobbies for retirement, then BBC local radio and community press will be a wonderful way to go.
It's fairly easy to know if those who you want to reach are likely to browse the magazine or watch the show you are focusing on. Have a listen to the shows or look at the reports. Could they be the type of thing your target audience will be interested in?
Performing these checks will allow you to target your energy carefully based on your knowledge of your firm. What's more, it usually means you waste considerably less time distributing your reports to correspondents who simply won't be interested.
Most people automatically think getting coverage within the leading press outlets - like national magazines - automatically leads to the finest results. However, whilst it may well be a boost to the ego, it won't always be the best for your business. (Additionally it is hard to pull off unless you have something particularly interesting or uncommon to scream about.)
Getting on the front page of the FT may be impressive but if you're attempting to reach new moms with an all new type of baby bottle it will probably be a complete waste of time. On the other hand, if you wish to be recognised as a leading economist this is actually the place to go.
You'll want to go where your business is. Your understanding of your own trade will assist you to choose. But simply reading a paper or paying attention to a radio programme will give you a very good idea of who's interested in that outlet. And, if you're not certain, phone the journos working there and enquire; they will much rather you do that than be bombarded by irrelevant stories.
There's a giant world of media out there, with huge amounts of people wanting to watch, read, or listen. Yet firms quite often don't think of one audience significantly closer to home - their very own team members. Don't ever overlook internal communications as prior to going out there and begin conversing with the press in general you'll want to make sure your staff is quite clear about where you're going as well as why you're doing it.
The very last thing you want to be doing is announcing something really significant to a local newspaper or local radio station without your own workforce knowing about it. This will make them very upset.
About the Author:
About the author: Mace Usher blogs about PR and the media. He writes about how to PR your business, and ways you can do your own PR.
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