Tag Archive for ‘media release’ at PRactical Relations

Tag Archive for 'media release'

Must-Have PR Book - A Perfect Press Release

Published

on June 19, 2008

. 4 Comments

Almost every PR person comes across this problem at some stage or another: their client wants every major national media to cover their little ribbon-cutting ceremony; or they insist on adding their own flowery adjectives and industry jargon to your neatly-crafted news releases. This book will help.

A Perfect Press Release…Or Not? by Jennigay Coetzer is a highly practical book, which jumps straight into useful advice right from the first paragraph. Although it’s mostly a “how-to” type of guide, it also offers some strategic advice to senior PR practitioners. Importantly, it is written so that any CEO or business person can understand what a press release should be, what it should never be and why.

I highly recommend that PR consultants and agency owners give a copy of this book to each of their clients as part of some essential media training. It will go a long way to streamline the press release approval process and possibly prevent a lot of frustration (and no, I’m not being paid a cent for saying this).

This book should also be prescribed reading for all PR interns and junior staff as a quick way to cover all the basics and best-practices, along with Encyclomedia’s free Media Pitching Tips Revealed email series.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Marketingweb’s Tips To Get Your Press Release Published

Published

Robynn

on June 10, 2008

in Media Relations Tips

. 2 Comments

The editorial staff at Marketingweb receive over a thousand press releases each week. In order to make sure that your media release stands out, they’ve very kindly published their top nine guidelines on how to get your story published.

These simple guidelines and tips can be applied to any journalist you plan to contact, although certain journalists will have their own pitching tips and preferences regarding email attachments and follow-up calls. Nonetheless, it’s a very good summary of some of the best practices in pitching your PR stories.

Also have a look at Encyclomedia’s Media Pitching Tips Revealed series. It’s a free email series with tips and advice straight from South African journalists on what works best and what PR tactics to avoid.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Email Subject Line Tip - Get Noticed

Published

Robynn

on April 25, 2008

in Media Relations Tips

. 0 Comments

My resident media expert at Encyclomedia, Chantal, was speaking to a radio producer yesterday about his contact preferences and pitching tips and he gave a great tip that I’d like to share with you. It’s simple, perhaps it’s even really obvious, but I can guarantee you that very few PR practitioners practice this.

After pitching your idea to a journalist over the phone, when you then email your media release, write the following in your subject line: [Journalist’s name], we’ve just spoken - [concise headline].

For example: Thabo, we’ve just spoken - Purple pumpkin discovered in Potgietersrus.

According to this Kaya FM producer, he receives so many emails that even though you have discussed the idea with him, he may still miss your email. But by using his suggestion above, while scanning through the subject lines, he’ll be able to spot your email and media release straight away.

Popularity: 8% [?]

First South African Social Media Release

Published

Robynn

on April 11, 2008

in WebPR

. 3 Comments

This week saw South Africa’s first online Social Media Press Release for the 2008 Standard Bank Pro20 cricket series - or at least that’s what the website says. I’m not 100% sure that it’s the first (there are several very smart webPR companies doing great behind-the-scenes work), but it’s certainly the first that I’ve come across. Perhaps it’s because this is the first local media release about a social media release.

I can’t help but wonder though, why did they call it a social media press release? The words “press release” really refer to the traditional way of gaining publicity through the printed press; whereas the words “media release” or “news release” are more inclusive and relevant for broadcast and online media. Perhaps “social media news release” or just simply “social media release” would work. But the terminology is a minor point, overall I feel that this is fantastic work by Standard Bank and all those who worked on this concept, including Cerebra, Brandsh and Melissa Attree.

All the information that a journalist or blogger would need is gathered in one place, from the quick facts at the top, to photos, video clips, quotes, match fixtures and contact details. If you want to see the updates to the release, you simply sign up for the RSS feed and you’ll always be able to access the freshest news around the Pro20.

Congrats to the marketers and the PR team for putting it all together in a simple way. I’m not sure how some of the traditional journalists will perceive this web2.0 thingamajig, but the easy-to-navigate, uncluttered layout will certainly help to convert the newbies. (This particular release was targeted at online journalists, bloggers, podcasters and videocasters.)

With the deadlines that some journalists suffer, they might moan about having to first click a link and wait for the page to load to see if the information is relevant to them or not. In this case, being able to quickly scan through the text in an email is easier. Or perhaps it’s just a habit, which means that it’s simpler to stick with the old ways of doing things? There will always be resistance to change and a social media release like this is certainly a big change from the usual press releases.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” - Charles Darwin

I hope to see many more media releases like this one.

Popularity: 11% [?]

The Back and Forth Journey of a Newspaper Story

Published

Robynn

on March 17, 2008

in Media Relations Tips

. 1 Comment

You write a great media release and the newspaper journalist you’re pitching the story to decides to use it. You celebrate and feel very chuffed with yourself, excitedly tell your colleagues and possibly even call up your client. The next morning you rush out to the shop and get your copy of the newspaper and enthusiastically page through to find your article. You reach the end and realise that you must’ve missed it in your haste, so you page through again…and again…

Suddenly the shattering realisation hits that your wonderful article simply wasn’t printed.

For those of you nodding and remembering the excitement and disappointment of your early PR days, you know that there are various factors that affect the longevity of your media release - irrespective of whether the journalist liked it or not. But for the benefit of those who still climb the emotional roller-coaster with every daily newspaper, here are just a few things to keep in mind.

The news editor controls what stories the journalists work on. It’s fine to pitch your idea to a journalist directly (news editors are in any case pretty busy people), but just understand that it needs to get the nod from the news editor too before the journalist invests any more time in the article.
In the case of Die Burger’s newsroom, your story needs to survive six daily meetings where the placement of each and every article gets discussed.
Once the article leaves the journalist’s desktop, it will pass through about nine other people before finally going to print. If any one of these people find fault with something in your article, it will quickly get edited or simply get cut altogether.
Important breaking news or hard news will always replace the softer news stories. If you’ve pitched your newly-formulated-fool-proof-muffin-mix minutes before the onset of a national crisis, hard luck. Of course, if you’ve pitched your idea after the journalists start scrambling to cover the big news, then perhaps you should consider a more appropriate career.

Don’t ask me why the odd press release (in its exact original form) finds its way through to the printed paper from time to time. Count yourself lucky when this happens, very, very lucky.

Popularity: 6% [?]

The Do’s and Don’ts of PR Follow-Up Calls

Published

Robynn

on March 13, 2008

in Media Relations Tips

. 3 Comments

Follow-up calls can either build relationships or build frustration. The majority of journalists surveyed by Encyclomedia on this topic have experienced the latter, far too often than they’d like. So let’s take a quick look at some of the mistakes that PR practitioners make when following up on the media releases they’ve sent.

Don’t expect journalists to have a memory like an elephant
An editor shared her frustration with me yesterday. She had just received a call from a PR person who was following up on a press release sent in August last year. No jokes. “I wish I had the kind of memory that could recall detail from that far back,” the editor said. “I get a lot of phone calls asking me if I used a press release, and often it is months after the release was sent.”

Don’t expect journalists to be clairvoyant
A phone call that starts with “Hi, did you get my email?” can only ever receive a frustrated response. Here’s an example of a conversation I received from another journalist recently:

PRO: Hi, I’m phoning to see if you got my email I sent on Friday?
Journalist: Well, let’s start with who you are and what was the email about…

Journalists receive hundreds of emails every day. De Waal Steyn told me earlier this week that he receives between 500 and 800 emails a day, across eight different mailboxes. He’s not alone in this.

So if you need to follow up on a specific email, start by stating the day and time it was sent, the subject line and the overall topic of the media release. The more specific you can be, the easier it is to enter into a productive conversation with the journalist.

Don’t ask questions when you can find the answer yourself
If you sent a media release to an online journalist, there is absolutely no need for you to call and ask if the journalist ever used the release. Simply search their website using your keywords and you’ll have your answer in seconds.

Don’t hound a journalist
Some PR companies have apparently developed the habit of calling to ask if they can send a media release, calling to ask if the journalist received it, calling to say that they are sending more pics, calling to ask if the journalist will use it, and so on.

A quick, clear and direct call to follow-up on an email is fine, but the “are you going to use it?” type of call every few days is not helping you to build a relationship, instead, you’ve become a nag. If your media release was well researched, targeted and relevant for the target audience, the journalist will contact you for more details.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Good PR Case Study - Vuka in Die Burger

Published

Robynn

on March 12, 2008

in Media Relations Tips

. 0 Comments

A feature article appeared yesterday in the Buite supplement of Die Burger, where a group of people (including Die Burger journalists) took a trip into Die Hel in the Gamkaskloof on their bright and eager Vuka Scutas. To Hell and back on a scooter!

It was a great PR idea - something fun, a little different and a great fit for Buite. But more importantly, according to De Waal Steyn, multimedia editor of Die Burger, Vuka’s PR people made the most of the good idea and maximised their coverage across the print and online platforms.

This is, in fact, exactly what an online or multimedia editor needs to do. He needs to link the content in the print newspaper to the online content and vice versa, without duplicating content and needing to continually add more value. Not an easy task.

De Waal explained that when it comes to hard news, the breaking news stories appear on the website as it happens, covering the 5 W’s and H. They then refer the online readers to tomorrow’s newspaper to read more about the story. The newspaper then refers readers back to the website to find more photos, videos and blog comments.

In order to leverage a soft news story or feature, the newspaper needs to direct their readers to the website to find further insights into the story, along with a photo gallery, video content and links for further information.

What Vuka did right is that they didn’t stop at simply discussing the idea with the editor of the Buite supplement, they made contact with De Waal too. They found out what type of multimedia content and other stories around the theme he would need to make it work. Which he did. You can read the story here.

This isn’t a groundbreaking or particularly remarkable case study, but rather one that simply illustrates that if you take the time to find out what a journalist needs and then work to give him what he needs, you will be building far better relationships and ultimately gain more coverage.

Popularity: 8% [?]

You want to send a fax?

Published

Robynn

on March 11, 2008

in Media Relations Tips

. 1 Comment

I met with De Waal Steyn, the multimedia editor of Die Burger, earlier today and I was completely shocked when he told me that he still receives media releases via fax. What? I almost fell over my chair - well, actually I was standing at the time, going through a tour of the beautiful, but busy Media24 offices (plasma screens everywhere you look). But I was seriously surprised that someone would consider a fax (a useless piece of uneditable text) useful to a journalist, let alone a multimedia editor.

When I asked De Waal if he had any examples of these endangered items (partly because of my disbelief and partly to help these poor PR people realise what century the rest of the world has moved into), he promptly replied that he deletes the faxes the moment they arrive. Naturally, they are “fax to email” and of course, they serve no purpose so they do not even warrant a further look.

For those of you savvy enough to find this blog, you certainly don’t fall into the group that still faxes their media releases. But I thought that this would bring you some comic relief, because although we can all make mistakes in the way we get our messages across, it could always get worse.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Email Tip - Keep it Professional

Published

Robynn

on March 4, 2008

in Media Relations Tips

. 0 Comments

There is nothing wrong with being friendly in your emails, friendly people are far more approachable and memorable. However, beware of pretending that the journalist you are emailing is suddenly your best mate.

A good example of a bad attempt to build rapport
Here is an example of an over-familiar PR pitch that an editor forwarded to me yesterday:

Greetings [editor’s name], I hope you had a great weekend - [partner’s name] and I certainly did! We had no commitments and just lazed away - a one in a million break.

The following [client] release is for your consideration, some pics are attached,

Regards, [name]

This sounds like a brief and friendly email, something that you would expect to receive from a friend. The only problem is that the editor does not know this PR practitioner and the ice-breaker introduction - the personalised little note about the PR person’s weekend - comes across as insincere. To make it worse, the editor’s colleague received the same email, with the same “personalised” note.

I’m sure that the intention of this PR person was to genuinely build rapport, but unfortunately it was perceived very differently. Here’s what the editor felt about it:

“Why don’t PRs just cut the nonsense and get down to business? Do they really think we are stupid enough to feel special with a note like this.”

Building relationships
If your aim is to build a relationship with a journalist (which it should be), don’t send her the same message that you send to every other journalist on your list. You build a relationship with one person at a time.

The best way to build a relationship though, is to do your research and send the journalist something that is truly useful and relevant to him or her. If you continue to do that, you will build a relationship on trust, which is far stronger than a relationship based on chatting about what you did over the weekend.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Instant Media Turnoff

Published

Robynn

on February 29, 2008

in Media Relations Tips

. 1 Comment

I’ve just finished a phone call with an editor covering the marketing and media industry in South Africa. She received a press release this week from a PR practitioner where 60 email addresses were included in the recipient list, for all to see. 60! Naturally, the editor said that she didn’t bother to read any further, it was simply deleted without remorse.

Think of this from a journalist’s perspective. If you see that a media release has been sent to 20, 30 or 60 (gasp!) other people covering your beat and industry, what thoughts would possibly be going through your mind? Probably something like this: “if Sally, Susan and Peter are covering this, then why should I bother?”

Personalised and exclusive
A journalist will not use your media release if there is a chance that another competing magazine or newspaper will cover the same story, or at least the same angle of the story. That’s why journalists love exclusives. It gives them a chance to give their readers something unique, something that their target audience can’t read, hear or view anywhere else.

Many PR companies aim to get as much coverage as possible and will send the media release to as many people as possible (including those who left the publication two years ago). But if you’re employing the “spray-and-pray” method to achieve this, then you’re probably wondering why you get no coverage at all.

Well, now you know.

And don’t try the BCC tactic. Journalists receive enough emails every day to spot the personalised emails from the … well, let’s just call it what it is: PR spam.

Popularity: 7% [?]