Some Basic Steps in Mounting Your PR Campaign
By Tina L. Pugliese, APR, Pugliese Public Relations
Make personal contact with media outlets. Don’t just e-mail or fax your news release into the oblivion of a newsroom. It is important to locate the reporters whose job it is to cover your area of interest.
Call the assignment editor to find out who is on your beat. Get direct phone numbers and call them. Keep them well informed. Give them plenty of notice for events. Keep in touch with your contacts, but do not expect that each time you call them they will write a story. And do not overwhelm your contacts with too much exposure to you or your organization. You will burn them out.
Space/broadcast time is precious. Your organization is in direct competition with other businesses and organizations for a limited amount of media space. Your approach to the media must be professional, well planned and organized. You must do the fundamentals well. Your measure of success will be if a story about your organization is in the news instead of someone else’s. Always be prepared to answer questions and have details available.
Is it newsworthy to others? In many cases we feel that because we are part of a great organization working on a project that it is newsworthy, that others will feel the same way. Such is not always the case. Read your local newspaper and online media, watch TV and listen to the radio. Does your news fit into the kind of story that they cover? Learn how your local media evaluates news items. How do you find this out? Ask them.
Be creative. Something out of the ordinary will attract the media’s attention. That annual project can be newsworthy if an exciting, different PR component is built in. The only limits are your imagination.
Do it right the first time. Do not tell the media that you will provide them with information and then not follow through. You will get a reputation for not following up on your commitments. It will be very difficult to dispel that image.
Do not take it personally. Sometimes a contact will not be able to attend your event, or write the story you were hoping for. Some days, they will not even have the time to talk to you. Do not forget that your media contacts are human beings at work. They are under a lot of stress and are doing the best they can.
To leak or not to leak — providing an exclusive. Reporters are always looking for exclusives — to get the scoop ahead of ot her media outlets. If you offer an exclusive, you may get better coverage, but you could also pay a price — other media outlets may not cover your story after their competition has run it first.
Tina L. Pugliese, APR is an executive coach and counselor for Pugliese Public Relations, a communications firm in Boynton Beach, Florida. Pugliese is an accredited member of the Public Relations Society of America, and is the author of the book, Public Relations for Pharmacists, and e-books, Marketing Your Business for Success, How To Work With The Media, Public Relations Manual — A Guide for Entrepreneurs, and the PR Survival Kit. She can be reached at (561) 889-3575 and by email at Tina@PugliesePR.com. Her web site is www.PugliesePR.com.
Article excerpted from e-book, PR Survival Kit, by Tina L. Pugliese, APR.
