by Lisa Brandli
PR is an essential component of your overall marketing communications program. Successfully implemented, PR delivers your organization’s key messages through the media – a powerful third-party endorsement that, done right, can also help boost your bottom line.
To help ensure the success of your PR program, it’s critical that you put the needs of the press first. In doing so, you can establish a successful relationship with key members of the media that will benefit your organization over the long run.
Following are important tips to keep in mind when engaging the press.
- The journalist’s primary role is to provide newsworthy information to readers, viewers, or listeners. Promoting an organization or its products or services is not a reporter’s job. Most editors and reporters will shun stories they consider blatantly promotional.
- The PR professional’s primary role is to promote the interests of his or her client’s organization. This is accomplished by working to garner positive press coverage, or to quell unfavorable coverage. While the PR goal may appear to directly conflict with the journalist’s mission, it doesn’t have to. An experienced PR pro knows how to provide journalists with the information they need while at the same time, meeting the needs of his/her clients.
- PR professionals can serve both their clients and the media by acting as a source of credible, newsworthy information. Journalists do use PR information, but only when they believe it serves their interests. Successful PR pros know how to marry the needs of each, creating a win-win for all.
- What is credible, newsworthy information? Not all journalists agree, and not all prepare stories for the same audience, which is why some will cover a particular story pitched by a PR specialist and others won’t. A general rule of thumb is that information is newsworthy when it has:
- Significance or consequence to readers, listeners or viewers
- Interest to the public, especially if it’s unusual or entertaining, or taps into an industry trend
- Timeliness — journalists and the public want today’s news today, not tomorrow
- Developing messages for the media requires adherence to some – when possible all – of the elements that constitute a newsworthy story. Giving editors and reporters information they want will greatly increase your success in placing stories.
- Not all media are alike. Different media have different requirements depending on type, frequency, audience and editorial focus. The trade press, for example, has more narrowly focused editorial interests than general-interest newspapers. Story ideas that have little appeal to a mass-audience publication may be eagerly received by certain trade media. Similarly, a certain story idea may interest a particular newspaper’s business editor, but not its city editor, or it may have great visual appeal and be perfect for broadcast.
It’s critical that your PR pro understands what is newsworthy, and how to leverage your business goals and objectives with the needs of the press. A tall order – which is why it’s always best to hire an experienced PR professional.