6 Ways to Sell in Your Story: a PR cheat sheet

The PR vs Journalist debate is so old these days, it’s about as interesting as Season 10 of Australian Idol.

Journalists: ‘PR people are either stalking us with their crap stories, or shielding us from their real, juicy stories. So annoying!’. (‘Plus, they get paid so much more than us!)

PR Peeps: ‘Journalists are cranky and rude and disorganised, and could never do their job without us spoon-feeding them’.

As with most generalisations, there is a kernel of truth in both arguments. But God it’s boring.

Good PR people will make themselves useful and helpful to journalists, and good journalists will realise the important role PR plays in giving them access to information and people. And I’m going to make a call here: journalists like us to give them ideas for stories. And not just ideas, but facts, materials, spokespeople and everything else that goes into building a good news story or feature article.

It comes down to empathy really: if you put yourself in a journalist’s shoes, what is going to make their life easier? In my experience, PR people are most valued and respected when they think about what journalists want and need, not simply what their client wants or needs. The client may want their ‘exciting’ announcement to run in the paper tomorrow, but the journalist wants a strong news story that’s relevant to their readers.

And if you really want to hit the lights out in your PR career, you need those two agendas to align.

So here is my cheat sheet for giving journalists what they want, to encourage them to run your story. Consider providing:

1. A context: don’t assume the journalist knows why your story is topical – if it’s related to a broader theme or trend, point it out, early in your pitch. Or point them to another story or some recent data.
2. A case study: you’ve painted the big picture, now show how it’s playing out in the real world. Journalists need to personalise stories, so don’t just say ‘Aussies are being hurt by petrol price rises’; find a family who drives a lot and has seen petrol prices eat into their budget.
3. Another point of view: journalists need to balance their stories, so if you have another contact who’s not a competitor but knows the topic, pass on their details or point out their work.
4. A graphic: I’d love to use the buzzword ‘Infographic’ here, but that implies a complex, fancy thing done by an expensive designer. It can be as simple as a graph you made in Excel (ok, that you asked a team member to make because you are completely incapable of that), or simply a nice image. Visualising a story with photos or graphs is another way to get the attention of a busy journo.
5. A reason/excuse to follow up: journalists hate getting a call that says, ‘I’m just ringing to see if you received my release’. And who wouldn’t? Unfortunately, we poor PR folk still need to call, because we know that journalist hasn’t looked at his inbox properly. So why not say, ‘I’ve sent you a release about the impact of petrol prices on family budgets, and I wanted to let you know we have a spokesperson available from 10am today’. Or you have some graphics you could send, some other commentators who could contribute, a possible case study… You get the picture.
6. An exclusive: ok, this isn’t right for every story, but recently, I’ve observed the Australian media focusing more on exclusives as they battle it out for falling readerships. If you think one really good article may be better than pushing shit uphill to get a bunch of random clips; or if you think your client would appreciate one nice daily news story followed by some longer-lead trade coverage, then an exclusive may just work.

I know some PR people love sending quirky shmooze gifts to grab journalists’ attention (geez, they seem to get a lot of cupcakes), but I’m a purist.

If you have a good story – no, if you have crafted a good story – then it will run, cupcakes or no. And I’m all for relationship building, but really, journalists would prefer to have a quick cappuccino and a bloody good story, than a three course lunch and a big ol’ bunch of corporate waffle. If you don’t believe me, just ask one!

Hat tip to Clementine for suggesting this topic.

Like this post? Share the love! Or subscribe, with that little button on the top right hand side.

4 Reasons for Saying ‘No’

I often say that the No. 1 skill of consulting is knowing which deadlines you can move. But I realised recently what my No. 2 Rule is: knowing when to push back.

The defining aspect of being a PR consultant is being asked to do lots of stuff. Whether the request is from a client or a colleague, a consultant’s To-Do List can grow relentlessly and without limit. Keeping that beast under control is a constant challenge (and I’m not claiming I’ve cracked that one).

However, some requests should be denied. You know which ones they are, because you start swearing about the timeframe/complexity/uselessness of the task when the request comes in.

But guess what –  you can say ‘no’ … sometimes. Perhaps you can’t say ‘no’ outright, but you can change the parameters of it, in order to meet the exigencies of life.

So let’s look at 4 reasons to push back on a request:

1) The deadline is crazy. Sure, some things have an inbuilt deadline – a media inquiry for a daily news outlet comes to mind: you drop everything for that. But a client asking for a media release at midday on the Thursday before Easter, when the CEO won’t be around to approve it, and the media won’t be around to run it. ‘How about we get that to you next Tuesday?’…

2) The task is too complex. The problem with pretending to being an amazing expert on everything your client does is that they start to believe you are an expert. So when you get a request to write an article on corporate financing models, for example, you know the content will be crazy technical. ‘How about your subject matter expert writes a rough first draft, and we work on it from there?’…

3) The task is useless. Sometimes we do our jobs so well, we make it look easy to our clients; they think we can get media coverage on any old thing. So when they suggest writing a media release on survey data that’s the same as data from six months ago, they think we can sell that in to media. Um, no. ‘How about we do a one-page document with the key findings, and send it as an FYI?’…

4) The task is way harder than it looks. This one often comes up with reporting and analysis. A client asks if we ‘can just run a quick report on share of voice compared to our competitors’, or some such data that they neither ask nor pay us to collect. It’s hard to explain why you can’t do it, or that if they want it, they’ll need to invest more in reporting. The key here is understand why they want that data, and then see if you can rewrite the brief into something simpler, that still serves their purposes.

The thing to remember with all this is you don’t just say ‘no’ – you say ‘no, how about we do it this way?’. If you want to push back on something, you need to offer an alternative, or at the very least, a bloody good reason.

Get it right, however, and you have some chance of taming that terrifying To-Do List.

Like this post? Share or subscribe!

Guest post: A journo’s rant about pitches

I’m very excited to feature the work of the wonderful Jo Knox, editor of HR Daily. We both spoke at a conference recently - to great acclaim, of course. Here is a snapshot of what Jo said… 

After giving a conference presentation to a room full of recruiters on the topic of media pitches, specifically in relation to sharing stories with an HR audience (i.e. their prospective clients), the lovely owner of this blog suggested that my tips might be useful to PR people, as well. So here’s a brief summary of what I said, adapted for PR.

The Fine Art of Knowing What to Share

Your goal when pitching to media should be to help that publication’s audience. So if you’re pitching to an HR publication like mine, for example, the information being provided should help my readers do their job (more easily, more cost effectively, more efficiently, less stressfully… and so on).

If you keep that in mind, and only contact an editor with news that is truly going to be helpful, then you vastly increase your chances of getting published. (Journalists receive far more pitches than we can actually work with – it’s a total myth that we’re all dependent on PR for news.)

But if you contact us hoping to promote your company, service, or product, you’re not going to get anywhere.

Also, please, please read the publications you’re pitching to. Religiously. Understand whether they’re hard news-focused, or if they report on fluffier things like new appointments, or if they like to provide commentary and analysis and practical tips. And tailor your pitch accordingly.

My do’s and don’ts for PR

Do provide context for your pitch. It might not be immediately apparent to a journalist why the topic you’ve chosen is a good one, so to avoid just getting deleted, your email should explain things like: What is the issue? Who does it affect? How much does it affect them? 

Do make sure your client is available to talk about the pitch. What is with PR people sending media releases quoting people who’ve just headed overseas for three weeks? Are you deliberately trying to drive us mad? Get your client to clear some diary space for interviews, or even better, say “My client is available on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning on this number”, etc.

Do think about the timing of your pitch. If I quoted your client last week I don’t want to hear from them again just yet! Find out from your target journalists how often they are happy to quote someone.

Do tell your client not to ask to approve the story before it goes out. Please explain that journalists take very seriously our responsibility to get quotes right and not misrepresent what was said. But ultimately it is up to us to decide what angle to take with the article, because we know best what our audience want to read.

Don’t let your client go to the trouble of writing an article before checking whether we might use it.

Don’t request a coffee or meeting to talk about something simple. Phone interviews are so much more convenient.

Don’t send a vague “My client can speak about recruitment” message. That tells us nothing. Talk about specific topics they’re an expert on and pitch some actual story ideas.

Don’t ask about follow-up stories. Please don’t say: “I read your recent article about Company X doing its awesome thing, and my client does that, too! Can you write something?”

(You are, however, welcome to let us know when your client strongly disagrees with something we’ve published. At the very least it will be interesting to hear and might position them as a critical thinker who we want to speak to another time.)

Don’t use “corporate speak” in your press releases. Big, vague words don’t make you sound smarter. Write like a normal person would speak.

Really, my biggest tip for PR is just to understand what your target journalists want, so you can deliver it. We’re not actually as fussy and hard to get along with as I might make us sound – but you can’t take a one-size-fits-all approach when dealing with us.

Jo Knox is the editor of HR Daily and manages the HR Daily Community of bloggers. She also has a cartoon blog: More than a trace of nuts.

Like this post? Share the love!

When good advice sucks

We all know the saying, ‘be careful what you wish for’.

Well, I propose a twist on that gem: ‘be careful what advice you give’. Because there is a high likelihood you will have to suck it up yourself at some point.

Being in a leadership role is, after all, quite conducive to a bit of good old-fashioned hubris (Just ask K Rudd!).

People look to leaders for guidance; we’re responsible for helping others develop, and in the end, we end up dispensing a fair bit of advice.

Sometimes, it’s hard to tell where the advice ends, and the preaching starts. I’m sure there are moments when my team members watch me roll out the metaphorical soap box, and sigh as they watch me mount it. (There’s often some grammatical instruction involved).

Anyway, I gave a bit of advice this week that came back to bite me in the arse.

I was asked to give a speech at my high school, to give the HSC students some insight into the big wide corporate world. One of the gems of wisdom to fall from my lips was to ‘take negative feedback constructively’. Because it’s tough when you get into the workforce and realise you know two parts of bugger-all about what really goes on at work.

It’s particularly crushing for overachievers who have killed it all through high school and uni, and been told they’re fantastic. (I should know, because I had to eat a lot of shit sandwiches when I first started working!).

As you get better and master things, the shit sandwich menu shrinks, and you’re good at stuff again. Yay!

But just in case that hubris starts creeping up, we have a wonderful thing called family. For example, there’s only one person in the world who tells me I’ve put on weight, and it’s my brother.

Similarly, when I practised my ‘fantastic’ motivational speech on my husband, he tore it to shreds. Told me it was boring, delivered with no conviction, and that I was reading it off the page.

I’d like to say I took that negative feedback constructively, and I did, to an extent. I ditched my text, made some dot points and revised the content.

But that doesn’t mean I was gracious about it! I put my cranky pants on and retired to the lounge to sulk on Twitter. I did get over it, and I think the speech went ok.

But taking negative feedback doesn’t actually get easier – hopefully it becomes less frequent.

So my advice is: be wary of giving advice, lest you have to take it.

In defence of shameless self-promotion

I was talking to a journalist the other day, and pointed him towards my blog. I admitted that it was shameless self-promotion.

To which he agreed! But he admitted to the same crime himself, and we got to musing on the fact that self-promotion is almost a professional responsibility these days.

Maybe I’m just rationalising my own behaviour, but at least let me make the case.

There are two key reasons to  build your ‘personal brand’ – and while I don’t like that expression, it’s a good reference point.

Firstly, to boost your credentials with clients. Secondly, to enhance your employability. (Not necessarily in that order).

The power of being an ‘expert’

We’ve all written a media release where we call someone an ‘expert’ (haven’t we?). Fortunately, it’s rarely questioned or scrutinised. Besides which, there is no list of criteria to prove it or otherwise!

But the message we’re conveying is that ‘here’s a person who knows what the hell they’re talking about’. And that gives the editor, journalist, reader, client or customer a level of comfort. Even if the person isn’t explicitly called an expert, the tone is one of imparting expertise.

Now, if I want my clients or prospects to think I’m one of the best in the business, then I need to give them some evidence. The fact that I talk about PR and communication on a blog, and others even seem to agree – by commenting or sharing – surely raises my credibility. (Ok, maybe not ‘surely’  – maybe ‘hopefully’).

Anyway, pretty much all due diligence is now done via Google -  whether you’re checking out a potential date, employee or supplier. So it makes sense to boost your credibility online. Let’s give those Googlebots something more to find than a bad photo on a public Facebook album.

Then there’s the employability factor. I don’t want a new job anytime soon, so it’s not a big motivator for me. (But then, it never hurts to be in demand.)

And while I’m not headhunted due to my blog, it’s both satisfying and useful to have a network of people who read my work, know what I’m about and have a connection with me.

Also, I’m quite lucky in my relative job security – there are plenty of people out there subject to the whims of the market and the powers-that-be, who never know when they’ll be back in the job market. For many people, employability and a strong profile provide a good Plan B.

So I’m not suggesting everyone needs a blog – god help us if that were the case. But developing a profile – both online and in the real world – makes good sense both personally and professionally.

After all, most of us don’t have an awesome PR person working on our behalf.  We have to do it all ourselves!

Like the blog? Subscribe or share!

Does your work feed your soul?

I think I’m getting old.

Well, old for this PR gig, maybe. I find myself getting a bit reflective; bestowing my wisdom on the young(er) – often when it’s unsolicited. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion I’m getting a bit pompous.

Which is not to say I’ll stop it, or anything crazy like that.

And today, I would like to proselytise about: the importance of doing something. Like something that’s not work. Or maybe you don’t even have to do it as such, maybe just care about it.

What I mean is, something that’s not work, and that’s not hanging out. As much as people love putting it on their CV under ‘interests’, I deny that ‘hanging out with friends’, ‘meeting new people’ or ‘socialising’ counts as an interest. It’s just life.

So, anyway, it worries me to see people put their heart and soul into work, and build their identity around it. Because you know what, work’s still just work. It may feed your ego, but it doesn’t feed your soul.

And in fact, it’s just as likely to batter your ego. Meeting someone’s else’s expectations can be disheartening at times. Learning is often hard and slow, and sometimes you feel like  you’re never going to be any good at this game (whatever that game is). So it’s better not to put too many eggs in that proverbial basket.

I read something a while back about spending more of your time doing what you enjoy. It sounds pretty simple – obvious even -  but it made me think.

For instance, it’s easy to get home after a long day and veg out in front of the TV. Except I don’t really like what I watch most of the time (my husband is a remote control nazi, and has a terror of anything on ABC or SBS). So I have actually been ditching him and the remote, a bit more often.

I think the word ‘passion’ is totally overused, so I’m not advocating that we all spend hours ‘following our passion’. But I think there’s something valuable in thinking about what you really love doing. What are you interested in? What do you wish you did more, and what stops you from doing it?

My own interests are pretty pedestrian. I like weight-training. I like learning about biochemistry and nutrition. I like cruising the internet for stories about politics, economics and various nerdy topics. I like reading literary fiction, Victorian-era novels and Cary Tennis’ column in Salon. I like writing my blogs (yeah, I have two of them).

Thing is, I like these things outside of work. Probably not enough to make them my work – I’ve racked my brains about how to monetise my penchant for reading stuff and talking shit, and am yet to crack that nut.

But it gives me a level of balance that I think actually makes me better at my job. Not to mention the usefulness of having hundreds of pieces of internet-knowledge stuffed away in my head, for bringing out in client meetings.

So, no PR tips today. Just a slightly preachy reflection on the importance of doing stuff; and loving stuff; and making time for stuff; and not being fooled into thinking that work is where the important stuff begins and ends.

Like the blog? You can subscribe – check out the box on the top right hand side. 

4 signs that your PR campaign is doomed

One of the hardest things in life is saying no. And it’s no different in business: when you have a chance to build revenue or grow your business, you want to say yes to every opportunity.

When it comes to PR, however, there really are times when you need to say no. I’m all for optimism, but the fact is, not every company or campaign will benefit from a media push, social media campaign or fancy event.

Realising that early on, saves tears and sorrow later. Like… after you’ve gone nuts trying to pitch a rubbish media release that no sane journalist would run. Or a client is freaking out that nobody wants to come to their event. Or your Facebook page is so empty there are tumbleweeds blowing across the screen.

Anyway, there is a fine line between being all gung-ho and ‘yes-we-can’, and just setting yourself up for failure. (Just look how the ‘yes-we-can’ approach is working for Obama).

So, here are some clear signs a PR campaign is going to flop:

1. You have nothing new to say – It’s called news because it’s new. Unfortunately, talking about your ‘innovative’, ‘groundbreaking’ or ‘cutting-edge’ product doesn’t cut it. Unless you can say something genuinely insightful, or provide a kick-arse case study, then it’s not a story, it’s a sales pitch.
2. You don’t have time – Even the best PR wizard can’t work by magic alone. If a company won’t devote time, input and resources to developing ideas and content, then PR is a lost cause. I know a lot about my clients’ businesses, but I will never be an expert  - that’s their job. And if they don’t have time to share it with me – and their audience – then it’s a recipe for failure.
3. You can’t commit – PR is a long-haul gig. Getting an article in the newspaper or a bunch of ‘Likes’ on Facebook doesn’t mean a flood of calls the next day. It’s about building awareness and credibility over time. So unless a company is in it for at least six-month period, it’s really just pissing in the wind.
4. You’re a control freak – If a client asks ‘can I see that article before it goes to print?’, it’s a bad sign. Sorry, no, I don’t ask journalists to run their work by me to ensure it meets your corporate agenda. Anyone who gets nervous about how their material will be interpreted, or who changes every tiny word on a media release just for the hell of it, is going to be a PR nightmare. If you want to control your messages, buy some advertising.

Which brings me to the next point: if not PR, then what? Well, sometimes good ol’ fashioned marketing is the best option for a company. Maybe a direct mail campaign, some well-targeted advertising, a strong frontline sales push, or some nice advertorial space.

PR sounds fun and glamorous and cool to a lot of people (I blame Ab Fab for that), but in reality, it’s pretty tough, sometimes disappointing and often expensive. When it works, PR an awesome way to build a business. When it flops, there’s nothing left to do but drown your sorrows in a nice bottle of Bollinger, just like Patsy and Edina would.

Like this post? Share it! Like this blog? Subscribe!