Thinking about adding PR to the mix? Ask yourself first if you’re in it for the long haul.

Entrepreneurs and small business owners often come to me because they want
immediate consumer media coverage for their products or service. They are
particularly eager to know how their product can make it immediately on TODAY, or
in various ‘Top 10 Best Products’ lists. Garnering this type of coverage on its
own – without a rushed timeline – is challenging enough to accomplish, but
throw in some serious chomping at the bit, and it can be nearly
impossible to achieve on a short deadline.

To be clear, I’m not talking about breaking news that a company needs to
disseminate because it is in the immediate interest of public safety or health
(food recalls), or sudden events affecting a company (building fire or death of
a CEO) and its shareholders. That news will get immediate media pickup. I’m
referring to brands that, throughout the year, will have news and announcements
to relay to their constituents and prospects, while competing with competitors
for editorial space.

While I wish we PR folks could snap our fingers and get immediate TODAY
coverage or inclusion in a Top 10 list, that’s typically not how public
relations works. Yes, I have managed to get many clients on TODAY as well as on
coveted Top 10 lists, but it’s not something that happens quickly. Rather, it
takes planning, deliberation, good timing, and a commitment to the long haul.

It takes understanding the client’s overall objective of getting this
coverage (is it for awareness, to drive traffic somewhere, sales support, or education?)
and having an understanding of the product or services I’m promoting. It also
takes an awareness of the media outlet I’m pitching  and the type of content they are looking for
as well as when they are looking for it.

For instance, if my Libman client has a new cleaning product that could be
considered as part of an April spring cleaning article in Real Simple or
Better Homes and Gardens, I know to get editors the info and samples well
before April to meet their deadlines. Some products have seasonality and
others are evergreen, so it’s important to pitch the former in plenty of time to
meet deadlines. Top 10 lists are often created around seasonality – for example,
you’ll see Top 10 Sunscreen lists come out in May/June, just in time for
summer. The same holds true for my client Guardian Technologies – their air
purifiers and humidifiers often make the Top 10 lists during allergy seasons and
cold and flu season, respectively.

As a conscientious PR pro, I’m more focused on building long-term
relationships with relevant media contacts on behalf of my client, so that
those media contacts become more and more receptive when I do come to them with
more news; additionally, the idea is that they will also come to us to see if
my client has any new products or services or would like to contribute their
point of view to an article – or a Top 10 round-up article.

Patience is our friend in PR. Just because I didn’t hear back from a
particular editor on the spot doesn’t mean they haven’t filed my news release
away to use for a later date, as part of a broader article with more
appropriate timing (this has happened many times). Media relations is like
sales in that building credibility and trust are key components of successful
sales outcomes.

Every bit of groundwork laid in PR and media relations is never in vain.

But if you’re looking for something quick, I suggest you buy an ad.

Media pitching during COVID-19 – it’s not all doom and gloom

What a year this one has been. We’ve been on a constant news cycle of COVID-19 updates and information and 2020 Election coverage. When the national quarantine began in March, many PR folks, including myself, were reticent to reach out to media. I thought anything I would pitch would be considered trivial and insensitive when people were losing their lives.

On the flip side, I learned through media friends that they and their employers were getting their footing on the virus. Many broadcast and newspapers pulled their beat reporters to cover the pandemic at every angle and we were deluged with COVID-19 coverage. One TV reporter friend told me if I could somehow create my pitch to be related to COVID-19, the higher ups might consider it.  That was hard to do with a bank client, but easier with a nonprofit feel-good client for which we received local TV coverage (thanks, Vic!).

One area that wasn’t really too badly affected by sweeping pandemic only news were long-lead consumer and trade magazines. The home editors I typically work with at magazines like Real Simple, Better Homes & Gardens and Martha Stewart Living were still looking for tips and products related to their section. Moreover, because many of the magazines have lead times up to 6 months in some cases, they needed information that would have a longer shelf life. I was successfully able to pitch one client’s new pet care and pet grooming products, which led to coverage in Martha Stewart Living online and another client’s products on Popular Science’s website.

Later in the summer, when I felt the time was right, I pitched an op ed article for my banking client to one of the city’s business journals that wasn’t related to COVID-19 at all. It turned out to be a great article.

I guess the point I’m driving home is don’t throw in the towel for trying to earn media coverage right now and into 2021. If you try to wait it out for news cycles to die down or finish, you’ll always be waiting since new news cycles pop up constantly.  The key is to be relevant to the reporter and outlet you are going after.

Be deliberate and thoughtful in your pitch. Understand the outlet, it’s target audience and the reporter you’ll be reaching out to. This enables you to put a super targeted pitch together that will resonate with the recipient.

Speaking of the pitch itself, be concise and keep it short as best you can. Use links when possible rather than attaching news releases (some reporters can’t open external attachments). Also, there’s an art to getting a reporter to open your email in the first place – a succinct and direct subject line.  Maybe lead with the benefit of something you’re pitching. Play around with different subject lines if you are pitching multiple outlets and you can see which email reporters are opening.

Most of all, be patient and be diligent in your outreach. Sometimes it takes more than just one email or phone call to secure that media hit. Best of luck!

And here’s to a better 2021!

Are you really ready to hire an agency? 4 Questions to ask yourself.

You’re an entrepreneur or a small business that hasn’t had the funds up until now to hire outside marketing or PR services. Fortunately for you, business is looking good and you can now consider spending some marketing dollars.

Before you even narrow down your short list of possible agencies you’d like to work with, you need to ask yourself the following questions. If you can’t answer “yes” to all of these questions, you may want to consider holding off your decision until you can.

1) Am I ready to trust someone else with my business goals? Trust issues and entrepreneurism often go hand in hand. Your can-do spirit, hard work and laser vision have brought you where you are today, but realize that even the best leaders can’t do it all alone. You need to go into a new partnership with optimism and a certain level of trust.

2) Am I ready for a partnership, or do I just want an order taker? Agency-client relationships are doomed from the start if you are just looking for “yes” men. If you care about your business, isn’t it best to hear out and respect other points of view that could possibly lead to a great insight and subsequent break though for your business?

3) Can my ego take it if someone has better ideas than me? Yes, it’s great that you have landed where you are by working your fingers to the bone and making great business decisions for yourself and your company. Moving forward with marketing experts on board, can you be objective enough to hear them out if one of your ideas isn’t considered the best approach or will you take your marbles and run?

4) Am I patient enough to give a partnership time to grow and settle in? Or is your attitude, “what have you done for me today?” As with any type of relationship, business relationships work best when both parties are committed to shared goals and a common outcome. Sure there will be bumps along the way as you both get accustomed to each other, but only a partnership that’s in it for the long haul can achieve the results you want.

5 Ways to Make Your Internship Program a Win-win for You and Your Intern

You’ve hired your summer interns, but are you doing your best to ensure that they and your organization are getting the most out of the experience?

There is no doubt that internships should be a mutually beneficial experience for the employer and the intern. Too often, I hear about disappointing internships where an intern’s primary responsibilities were relegated solely to making copies, answering phones, organizing online files or making frequent coffee runs.

While students should embark onto an internship experience knowing there will be a fair amount of clerical (aka grunt) work, the point of an internship is that it provides a real educational opportunity for students to receive hands-on, real-life training in the field of their major. Many former interns will admit that their internship experience was far more valuable in their decision to pursue their career than anything they learned from textbooks and classroom lectures.

I understand that you are a busy executive and that you don’t have the time (and possibly the patience) to hover over an intern all day. I don’t think you should have to, but I do firmly believe that as well-established experts in our field, we have an obligation to guide our industry’s future leaders, just as our mentors did for us.

In order to prevent any daily hand-holding sessions, employers can adhere to a few tricks of the trade I’ve acquired over my years overseeing various agency internship programs.

What Employers Can Do

1. Make a job description and stick to it
Doing this lets the intern understand the required duties but also lets your team know the boundaries of what they can and can’t ask of an intern. Once you get to know your intern’s capabilities and skill set, you may be able to add some specific tasks to the job description.

2. Have a program/timeline in place
Interns need structure. Don’t expect your intern to wait enthusiastically each day for you to decide what projects to give him or her. Understanding that you can’t anticipate every scenario, at lease have some structure and consistency in the program/schedule (e.g., Every Thursday is a “Lunch and Learn” session where the intern(s) brown bag their lunch and listen to company experts talk about their job and provide career advice)

3. Make the internship an enriching experience.
It’s typically understood that interns will be given a fair amount of grunt work, but make sure you allow them to have access to real business experiences. A client conference call may not seem like an exciting activity for you, but it can be a great learning experience for an intern.

4. Be a mentor
I know you are a very busy person, but as I stated earlier, I believe we professionals owe it to those interested in our field to provide them with an accurate glimpse into the field they would like to enter and the skill set needed. Make it a weekly habit to monitor your intern and give them feedback – whether it’s positive or negative – since it’s part of the learning process that lectures and textbooks can’t teach. Lead by example.

5. Don’t’ burn bridges.
Let’s face it, we’ve all been burned by a bad intern experience. As much as you’re ready to boot them out the door or vow never to have another one again, remember that the interns are still very young and don’t have much finesse in professional settings. And, though it’s hard to imagine, you never know how your paths might meet again (your intern’s aunt might be the contact you’ve been wooing for new business for years).

Best wishes for a great internship partnership this summer. If you have any additional tips to how you make internships an all-around success, please feel free to share them.

A few grammar tips

Just some clarification on a few grammar errors I’ve been seeing lately, including one mistake made by a major U.S. newspaper.

immigrate vs. emigrate

One immigrates TO somewhere; one emigrates FROM somewhere

“My grandfather emigrated from Poland”

“My grandfather immigrated to the United States.”

 

should have, not should of

“I should have brought my umbrella with me”

or as a contraction: “I should’ve brought my umbrella with me.”

 

more than, not more then

“George is more than likely to show up early.”

 

My Top 3 Picks for the Next GOP Debate Format

family fuedAs a PR practitioner, I’m looking forward to tonight’s debate. I always find it interesting and insightful to study candidates’ brand messaging and presentation skills. I’m also looking forward to the debate because it’s being held in Cleveland, my hometown.

However, the biggest reason I’m looking forward to the debate tonight is that – I have to admit – with Trump in the mix, I believe it’s actually going to be a lot more entertaining than the average presidential debate.  Entertainment, after all, is what presidential debates are missing.

Most TV viewers and folks in general are not debate watchers (I have no statistic to back this up with, but it seems pretty logical, right?). If viewers could choose between America’s Got Talent and a typical political debate, which one do you think they would choose to watch? Right.So, Shouldn’t we play at the people’s level?

It’s actually already happening – viewers are trying to make the debate more fun by devising drinking games for tonight’s match up. That sounds fun but I have to work tomorrow.

I say we marry the sobriety of the average presidential debate with the entertainment value of some sort of reality TV or game show.

My top picks:

1) Real World

2) Family-Feud

3) Jeopardy.

Are you in?

138045-realworld

Another Social Media Fail – Brought to you (Again) by Malaysia Airlines

It’s a given that 2014 has been a very bad year for Malaysia Airlines. Just about as bad as it can get in the airline industry. In two separate incidents – the crash of flight MH17 in Ukraine and the disappearance of flight MH370 – 510 passengers lost their lives.

In addition to the tragic human loss, the company is now riddled with financial losses that began even before the ML370 “crash” in March. Of course the two tragedies caused an even larger snowball effect as the company is currently faced with insurance payouts, lost planes and crews and a not surprisingly decline in bookings (in the 2nd quarter, average weekly bookings declined 33%).

But heck, thank God they have a marketing and social media team to take passengers’ minds off of things as well as to take the brand to new heights. Right?

Well…not so much.

Just last week, the social media team for Malaysia Airlines had to apologize after sending a very bizarre tweet that was an attempt to promote last-minute holiday travel deals. There’s no need for further set up – here’s the post:

“Want to go somewhere, but don’t know where? Our Year-End Specials might just help.”Malaysia Airline Tweet

Oh dear. Probably not the best slogan if only 8 months ago, you lost a plane that just disappeared without a trace.   Well, one could chalk it up to a possible loss in translation I suppose. But that certainly doesn’t explain another big faux pas that occurred just in September.

Brilliantly trying to devise ways to inspire and incentivize consumers, the marketing department created a dialogue and contest where it asked folks what types of things and destinations are on their “bucket list.”

Oh yes they did. Not as obviously offensive as the most recent Tweet, but this one is pretty inappropriate too.

I am going to take the high road and blame it on another poor translation. But if that is the case, I would strongly advise Malaysia Airlines, and all global brands, to ensure that they use only native speakers as community managers for their social media channels. I know doing so can be costly, but it can greatly help to reduce these types of incidents from happening.

However, this still wouldn’t necessarily get rid of careless and poorly thought out marketing strategies, would it?

What do you think?

 

 

 

When the Media Kept Presidential Secrets

270px-Rooseveltinwheelchair

One of only a few photos of FDR in his wheelchair.

As I watched Ken Burns’ marvelous documentary, “The Roosevelts,” I couldn’t help but notice just how different the role of the national media was at the time. As a public relations practitioner, I am fascinated in particular by the fact that the media entered into and honored a gentlemen’s agreement with Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and his staff to never publish a photograph of the president in his wheelchair or leg braces.

While most Americans at the time knew that FDR had been afflicted by polio at age 39, few actually realized that as a result he was left paralyzed. This was due in large part to the media not publishing those types of photos, but also to FDR’s dogged commitment to hiding his disability when campaigning.

FDR was worried that his disability would make him appear weak in the eyes of the American public. He was known to arrive so early at events and speeches, that crowds rarely ever saw him being lifted out of cars or ‘walking’ up to a microphone. Clearly, the lack of television and social media also helped keep FDR’s secret.

FDR managed to win four presidential campaigns and he led a weary America out of the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression. His leadership played a critical role in the Allies’ victory in World War II while his New Deal legislation, according to many, helped build up the American middle class, establishing a baseline for the “American Dream.”

He was anything but weak. But could he have stayed in office to accomplish so much had his disability been exposed early on?

The White House press corps acted similarly during John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s presidency. Though it was common knowledge among the media that President Kennedy had many romantic dalliances, the American public didn’t come to know about them until decades later.

So when did things change? When did the media stop adhering to the concept that politicians had a public life and a private life, and that the latter was thought to be inconsequential to the former?

Today, it seems that the media can’t do enough to expose politicians, athletes, celebrities and business leaders at their most vulnerable and weakest times. This is not a criticism.

No one can escape the media’s magnifying glass, yet there are still plenty of folks who say that the media is not uncovering enough. I’d say Anthony Weiner, Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson would disagree.

So just how much do we need to know about today’s political leaders or about our favorite celebrities and athletes? Are we somehow expecting complete perfection? Where is the balance between knowing too much and not knowing enough; and what is the media’s role in delivering this?

These are questions that I’m not certain of the answer. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

P.S. One final thought: do you think today’s media would have ever have agreed to FDR’s request?

3 Grammar Rules I Cannot Adhere to (and yes, I ended this with a preposition – see point #2)

Photo by Jesse Wojdylo

Photo by Jesse Wojdylo

There is no doubt that I have had many visits from the grammar police over the years. Most times I am guilty because of an oversight or error. Then there are other times when I just don’t agree with some of the rules as they apply to language and the way we communicate today.   The following grammar rules are the ones I violate the most often, and here’s why.

1.  Single space after a period
I suppose this is more of a punctuation rule. Nonetheless, I don’t stick to it, mainly because I am physically unable to. I’m told the double-spacing rule was originally made for the typewriter in order to mimic the style used by traditional typesetters. But as my friend, Charlene, likes to point out often, the double space rule is dead. I guess I’m just in denial. No matter how hard I try, it’s a reflex for me to type two spaces. After all, I did learn to type on a typewriter in typing class (when it was called that and not ‘keyboarding’). As to why this post seems to be only single-spaced, I believe WordPress automatically adjusted it.


2. Ending a sentence with a proposition

I think this rule was created by a bunch of tea-drinking British linguists from centuries gone by – back when the written and spoken words were much more formal. In any formal writing I do I try to abide by this rule if it doesn’t sound too unnatural, but in everyday emails and conversations, I don’t worry about it. Again, no one talks like that anymore. For instance:

Scenario 1 – my way

“Good morning, Stacey.”
“Good morning, Clovis.”
“You sure are in a hurry. Where are you running to?”
“I am. I have another meeting to go to.” (I stub my toe on a box in the kitchen) “Oww, I just stubbed my toe.”
“Oh no, what did you stub it on?”
“This dumb box.”

That’s typical conversational American English, no? Here’s the same interaction going by the rule:

Scenario 2 – By the rule

“Good morning, Stacey.”
“Good morning, Clovis.”
“You sure are in a hurry. To where are you running?
“I am. I have another meeting to attend. (I stub my toe on a box in the kitchen) “Oww, I just stubbed my toe.”
“Oh no, on what did you stub your toe?”
“A box, alright? Stop sounding like such a snob, Clovis!!”

My case is rested.

3.  Never write a one-sentence paragraph
Oh poppycock. Sometimes using just one sentence is needed to underscore a point. I occasionally use it – even in an occasional news release (gasp!) – For emphasis. There’s no point in writing another sentence just because there should be two, and especially if it only detracts from the point being made in the first sentence. Novelists do it all the time. I don’t have a specific example from the book itself, but I’m sure Colleen McCullough used this technique in her risqué and tantalizing novel, The Thorn Birds, which I read many, many years ago.

Are there grammar rules that you don’t follow or that you disagree with? What are they?

Any PR is better than none, right? Wrong.

There’s been some controversy over an event that happened over the weekend. A professional golfer, Alastair Forsyth of Scotland, was playing in the Madeira Islands Open when his caddy suddenly collapsed on the fairway of the ninth hole which was Forsyth’s final hole of the event.

Caddies react to the sudden death of a fellow caddy who died on the fairway during a tournament.

Caddies react to the sudden death of a fellow caddy who died on the fairway during a tournament.

Frantic efforts were made on the course to resuscitate the 52-year old caddy, Ian MacGregor, but unfortunately he was pronounced dead at the scene from an apparent heart attack. MacGregor was well-loved among the caddies, and they, along with other players and fans, were stunned over what had happened.

What happens next is a bit bizarre.   For one, the tournament officials didn’t call the tournament right then and there. But what appears to be even more disturbing is that Forsyth decided to keep playing.

Yes, Forsyth’s caddy literally dropped dead on the final hole of the tournament and he felt it best to play through. Bad decision? Well, it would have seemed completely understandable for him to drop out of the tournament and give a heartfelt speech about the tragic loss of his dear friend and caddy. In doing so he would surely lose the tournament, but he would have gained much sympathy and respect from fans and the media for his noble gesture.

Instead he’s received much notoriety.  His fans, the media and people around the world are portraying him as callous and heartless.

Oh, and he didn’t win the tournament.

What do you think about it?