The Flipside by Alternative Strategies

Relating To The Public Through The Media

Obviously, relating to the public is point behind "public relations," but it comes easier for some people than others.

Public speaking ranks high on lists of biggest fears so many people who do want media attention still get nervous when the media actually wants to give them that attention.

Part of the problem is due to the media itself. Film footage of celebrities being treated rudely by paparazzi photographers leads some people to feel that, they too, will be hounded by cameras should they appear on TV to talk about their dry cleaning business.

To be honest, the odds are unlikely that will happen. For that to happen, you will have needed to something seriously bizarre, like say, such as dating a guy whose 17 years older than you and has a hit cable show featuring his wife and 8 kids (and what are the odds of THAT happening?)

On the other hand, it's natural to get nervous at the thought that hundreds, thousands even millions of people are listening, watching or reading about you and there is the natural tendency to be nervous.

But the key to overcoming that is by being natural.

Back in the old days of radio, the announcers would often address the listeners as if they were a mass group, "My friends," they might say.

But, some folks started realizing that if they thought of the audience as a unique listener and talk to the mic as if it were just one person, they were more effective in reaching their goal.

That's the key to media interviews. Each one is done by a single person, not a huge group. Granted, you still should be cognizant of what you're saying and who you're saying it to.

A media person can ask probing questions in a calm, soothing manner and is looking for that quote that makes the story -- the more outrageous the better. If you can come up with one in advance that promotes your goals, so much the better. If you can't, then be careful that you don't say one by accident.

But whatever you say, try and speak to the interviewer (and, by extension, his or her audience) as a friend, not as an anonymous mass. This will go a long way to keeping their attention and, hopefully, their business one person at a time.

Reputation Is Everything

Success does not happen overnight but failure often does.

Critical moments for business and other organizations will never go away, thus the effort to control negative situations continues to become more sophisticated. “Reputation management” is the newest buzz phrase in the public relations field and for those of us long involved in crisis management, this new phrase seems likely to stick.

In fact, among those who maintain a practice in crisis management, it appears that what we have been doing all along is really reputation management.

The reason for this new and more intensive focus is simple: A good image is a terrible thing to lose! It has been said that 30 years of hard work can be destroyed in just 30 seconds. And while that might seem melodramatic, don’t try soft-selling its meaning to Enron, Arthur Andersen or Exxon, just to name a few.

While at first glance campaigns and corporations don't have much in common, you will find that the analogy of corporate reputation management is surprisingly appropriate.

Is it possible that within the next year or so reputation management will be the dominant force in public relations? Crisis management is evolving into reputation management for a number of reasons.

First, this new phase should attract more attention from top management.  Presidents and CEOs don’t often want to think about potential crisis situations.

For many executives, a crisis is something that happens to someone else. It is a distant thought that can quickly be referred to the back of the mind, replaced by concern for profit and productivity.

So, the phrase “crisis management” may not sell well at the top. Every executive must be concerned about the reputation of the company or organization. Reputation management will become a major focus of public relations because it speaks more clearly to the higher echelon.

Second, more and more organizations are facing situations that have real potential for harming their reputations. We need only think about Enron, Andersen and the Catholic Church. Crisis management first became hot after the Exxon oil spill in 1989, dozens of product tamperings and a plethora of corporate embarrassments at the executive level.

Today, we have a “crisis” almost every day. And they have become much more bizarre and unexpected than the 80s oil spills, drug tamperings or management disputes. Your reputation can be on the line through no fault of your own. How would you handle your end of a crisis such as 9/11 if your organization were directly affected?

What happens when “60 Minutes” calls following your anthrax or security scare? What happens when your company turns up with an AIDS-infected employee in the cafeteria and most employees refuse to come to work? Or, perhaps you operate a Catholic hospital which is opposed to abortion and one of your young doctors performs one anyway.  

Crisis management is a plan of action to be implemented quickly once a negative situation occurs. Reputation management is a strategy that is used all year long, utilizing a proactive approach and not concentrating only on crisis.

Finally, and probably most importantly, the media are concentrating more on these types of stories. Most medium and large-market TV news departments now have special teams to dig into consumer complaints and expose business foul-ups. They salivate when stories like Enron, Andersen and the Catholic mess show up. Just listen to the 10 second news “teasers” that run before the evening news and you will get a feel for the new media focus on business scandal.

Perception is truth. Even though most executives do not like it, the media establishes the perception of your organization. So, in this new public relations discipline of reputation management – dealing with the media in an organized, aggressive and timely fashion is mandatory.

All of my research indicates that reputation management is a trend – and not a fad – in the public relations arena. The reasons have been set out above but the philosophy is rather simple: Your image was not built in a day but it can be destroyed in one.

PR Vs. Advertising

The public relations and advertising industries are two very different fields, even though they're commonly confused as being one and the same. Here are 10 differences I found with the help of one of my PR books from college. Personally, I think these just scratch the surface of the many differences between advertising and public relations.

1. Paid Space or Free Coverage

• Public Relations: The job is to get free publicity for the company. From news conferences to press releases, you're focused on getting free media exposure for the company along with the products and or services.

• Advertising: The company pays for ad space. You know exactly when that ad will air or be published in either a magazine or newspaper.

2. Creative Control vs. No Control

• Public Relations: There’s control over how the media presents your information. If they decide not to use your info at all, they simply won’t. The media is not obligated to cover your event or publish a press release just because you sent something to them.

• Advertising: Since you're paying for the space, you have creative control on what goes into the ad.

3. Shelf Life

• Public Relations: You only submit a press release about a new product or news conference once. The PR exposure the company receives is only circulated once. An editor won't publish your same press release three or four times in their magazine.

• Advertising: Again, you paid for the space meaning you can run your ads over and over for as long as your budget allows.

4. Wise Consumers
 
• Public Relations: When someone reads a third-party article written about a product or views coverage of an event on TV, they're seeing something that wasn’t paid for with ad dollars and view it differently than they do paid advertising.

• Advertising: Consumers know when they're reading an advertisement they're trying to be sold a product or service.

5. Creativity or a ‘Nose for News’

• Public Relations: In public relations, it necessary to have a nose for news and be able to generate buzz. Exercising creativity is needed to search for fresh news to release to the media.

• Advertising: In advertising, creativity is used in creating new ad campaigns and materials.

6. In-House or Out on the Town

• Public Relations: Part of the job is to interact with the media and deliver a relationship with them. Not limited to in-house communications, PR professionals need to be in constant touch with contacts at the print publications and broadcast media.

• Advertising: In an ad agency, the main contacts are your co-workers and the agency's clients. If you buy and plan ad space on behalf of the client like Media Director Barry Lowenthal, then you'll also interact with media sales people.

7. Target Audience or Hooked Editor

• Public Relations: An angle is a MUST. You need to hook editors and get them to run a press release, write an article, or to cover your event.

• Advertising: Look for a target audience and advertising accordingly. You wouldn't advertise a women's TV network in a male-oriented sports magazine.

8. Limited or Unlimited Contact

Public Relations: In public relations, you are very visible to the media. You may work within community relations to show your company is actively they are. Representing your company as a spokesperson at an event is another possibility. Beware though; PR pros aren't always called on for good news.

• Advertising:  Some industry pros, like Alternative Strategies account executive Nicole Lazar, have contact with the clients. Copywriters or graphic designers in an ad agency may not meet with the client at all.

9. Special Events

• Public Relations: When it comes to sponsoring an event, you need to out a press release and the media and would hopefully pick it up and publish the info or cover the event.

• Advertising: If your company sponsors an event, there’s no need to take out an ad giving yourself a pat on the back for being such a great company.

10. Writing Style

• Public Relations: In PR, it is strictly writing in a no-nonsense news format. Any blatant commercial messages in a communications are disregarded by the media.

• Advertising: Buy this product! Act now! Call today! These are all things said in an advertisement. Use of those and other buzz words help motivate people to buy your product.

There you have it. The 10 basic scratch of the surface differences between PR and Advertising. Of course, the best marketing strategy has both PR and Advertising elements. They compliment each other and reinforce the message of the client.

Improve Your PR With Partnerships

From a PR ego standpoint, nothing is better than a huge article about how great your client is.

However, that's not always easy to do. Skeptical media types pride themselves are focusing on the news and not "puff pieces" promoting a person or business.

Some businesses are harder to promote than others as well.

That's where partnerships can be a real leg up on the competition.

For instance, I recently was trying to figure out how to get press for my client, a great dog kennel out in San Diego's East County.

Despite being a really great kennel, it hasn't been easy getting the media to do a story (and crazy little stories like the economy tanking and Michael Jackson's have a bad habit of stealing the focus away from stories about kennels).

Did I let the facts get me down? Heck no. I just got creative.

I started thinking about businesses near the kennel that might benefit from a partnership and I asked the owner her ideas.

She mentioned the casino a few miles away and mentioned that one of their guests had put their dog at her kennel while staying at the resort.

Immediately,I got a brainstorm (always a scary thing, according to my co-workers) and decided to see if I could get the casino to officially declare my client its "officially doggie concierge."

To make this work, I called the publicist and explained my idea, making sure to let her know that I was willing to work with her client to make sure any press release or partnership hit their target messages.

To her credit, the publicist liked the idea and realized how it could make her client stick out in a crowded market. However, she had to run it by her client first.

Once they got the word back, everything went smoothly. I drafted a press release and, in the best publicist fashion, crafted quotes from each partnering business where they praised the other.

When you're working with another business, you have to take extra steps to make sure to hit their goals while making sure your clients don't get ignored, but not all partnerships are equal.

In this case, my client, the kennel, wasn't as well known as the casino so they had a little bit more leverage. On the other hand, I was offering them something that they gave them a little niche that the competition didn't have.

So we write the press release, making sure to put in lots of gambling and doggie puns, such as "casino takes a gamble on kennel" and "It's the cat's meow for dogs" and it gets approved.

Now comes the next stage of the partnership: figuring out which PR person pitches which member of the media. We decide that I will pitch local media and my counterpart will pitch gaming media and the national media.

So we go off to our prospective corners and start pitching and immediately we hear from two big local outlets who want to do a story. One of them is a TV outlet.

Now we have to coordinate schedules and make sure that the timing works for everyone and that each partner will have an equal say in front of the cameras. Because my client is basically one person, I have an easier job doing that than my counterpart.

Still, she brings up some excellent questions that help us give the TV outlets a segment that works for them and for us.

Anyway, the point of this is that by partnering with another business, we were able to offer the media a better story than if we each tried to pitch them on their own. Remember that when you're trying to get press for a client.

Ways NOT To Pitch The Media

Even though the initials "P" and "R" are short for public relations, the way to reach the public is still through the media.

Yes, we all know that media is changing and, as a result, producers and editors don't hold the same "gatekeeping" power they once had, but, to be honest, the key to PR success is acting like nothing has changed and let the old guard still operate under the assumption that they are influential power brokers.

That said, there are certain things you shouldn't do (not if you want to help your client).

1. Sending out a pitch to multiple outlets without changing the tone of the letter to fit each producer or editor.

When sending an e-mail pitch, it's always a good idea to personalize it to the editor or producer. Chances are, if it's a good pitch, you may send it out to various media outlets. However, nothing is worse than sending out a pitch that says "This would be a great story for the readers of the New York Times" when you're sending it to the editor of the New York Post.

Keeping the pitch somewhat generic can help prevent this mistake.

2. Have no clue what the media's target audience is

This happens a lot more than it should. A PR person calls up a PR person without realizing the target audience and pitches a story completely inappropriate. It's like calling up a men's mag like Maxim with a story about purses.

There is no excuse for not doing the research. If you make this mistake and the editor calls you on it, apoligize with your tail between your legs. Some publicists try and cover their mistake by saying something like, "Well, maybe your readers are male, but I think they get bored of just reading about manly things and would love a change-of-pace story about these handbags."

Nothing ticks off an editor more than a clueless publicist who acts like they know more about the publication.

3. Read from a script.

A lot of interns are guilty of this. They have no clue about what they're pitching so they read from a script -- badly. Journalists call the people that do this "Jonasas" because the people who make this mistake all seem to be known as "Jonas."

4. Assume all the members of the media can be bought for free stuff.

Yes, there is a joke among the media and the PR industry that if the booze is free, your media event will be well attended. But just because you got the media there and they drank your liquor doesn't mean they'll write nice things about you.

That's not the case. Many journalists pride themselves on their ability to have a great time drinking free booze at an event and then write a nasty article under the excuse that they're unbiased and can't be bought.

And the bigger the media person (or their publication), the more likely they are to follow this rule.

5. Get offended when the media doesn't like your pitch.

Rejection is a big part of PR. Some people say that 1 placement for every 10 pitches isn't bad. Producers and editors have different reasons for picking stories and you have to accept that.

It always pays to ask why or what kind of stories they're looking for, but sometimes you need to admit to yourself a story is a dog and come up with something else. However, remember that what goes around comes around and sometimes the story that was rejected a few weeks ago either becomes the private joke that helps you become better friends with the producer or it becomes their top story on a slow news day.

What They Don't Teach You In PR School

Although you learn many useful skills and pieces of knowledge when you major  in PR in college, there are some lessons only the real world can teach you.

The act of balancing, dealing with numerous personality types of clients and coping with the ups and downs in your career are just a few of the many life lessons that a college text book can’t teach you.

For instance, when you do PR plans in college, the teachers never explain that half of the job is how to deal with the many different types of clients you have.

Yep, there are as many different types of clients as there are people and, no, there isn’t a college course that explains in detail how to handle them.

Some clients have no idea what they want -- just what they don’t want. Others are convinced that the folks at Oprah are waiting to put them on the air.

Sadly, learning the patience and obtaining the skills needed to deal with each client’s unique personality only comes from experience and it can’t be taught in books.

A friend of mine – actually a mentor --  is filled with brilliant, new and creative ideas and has enough experience in the business to know the turnout and success of different techniques.

However, she occasionally has clients who have an idea or image in their mind of exactly what they want and refuse to alter it even if it’s unrealistic.

Even worse: even though my friend is a recognized expert in PR, some of her clients insist they know more than she does.

Also, she often finds herself with an idea that she knows will be successful and effective that the client is reluctant for some reason.

Dealing with conflicting views and opinions can easily become frustrating. However, most clients are extremely cooperative and establishing the connection needed to do a great job is relatively effortless.

Either way, it is crucial to keep business and friendships separate – another thing they don’t teach in PR school.

In every business, at every job, you will have some form of success and some form of failure. Dealing with failure, accepting it as a part of life and not taking it too personally is the tricky part.

On the other hand, learning to use each opportunity as a way to grow and improve is something that comes with time.

But they don’t teach that in school either.

How To Pitch An ‘All-Hitter’

It's difficult for an unknown company to get coverage in national business publications. PR pitches help a business grow and expand.

It’s a competitive world where everyone is vying for spots in TV, radio, and magazine. A well-aimed pitch can open the door to local and regional newspapers. Clips from those newspapers, in turn, can be used as collateral when approaching bigger papers and magazines.

With the right combination, a pitch can make a company stand out amongst the rest of the pack.

Here are some tips to write a PR pitch that will knock it out of the park:

• If you can’t get the basic idea across in one page, you don’t understand what you’re pitching. A journalist can always ask for more information. This also keeps a pitch from droning on.

• Know the audience. Ideally, there should be a different letter - with a different story angle - for every publication. In today’s business world, mass marketing is out.

• Try to put yourself in the journalist’s shoes and consider what is actually newsworthy, not what the client thinks is newsworthy. Yes, you work for the client, but you have to interest the reporter. An angle is a must in every pitch. If there’s no well defined angle, then you’re wasting your time. An effective news hook is to be all about the audience, not the sponsor.

• Cut the buzzwords. They’re unnecessary. Period.

• While you’re at it, cut out the jargon.

• Only pitch when there’s something to pitch. Don’t ask a newspaper or a magazine to read a release that was created only as a billing exercise such as “John Jones Wins Award Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence.”

• Don’t send big attachments without asking first.

• When writing a release, use the old inverted pyramid construction from traditional newspaper and wire reporting. First paragraph has the basic news. Additional ones expand off the first. Don’t try to come up with an enticing lead and leave the journalist in suspense for the rest of the release.

• If sending out something cold, quite frankly, don’t expect a response.

A pitch is not a work of literature. It is you selling a story. Simplify and never be boring.