Don’t Block Your Own Shot

Tweet

With newsrooms downsizing and the subsequent workload being shouldered by journalists lucky enough to retain their job, knowing a reporter's pet peeve could mean the difference between your news being covered or disregarded.

Here are a few journo pet peeves that you’ll want to be conscious of.

Sending a press release as an email attachment

As a PR professional, you have to assume every pitch you send is just one of over 250 emails a reporter receives per day. With this volume of emails, the two seconds it takes to open the attachment is two seconds too long and you can bet the house your email will be deleted. What’s more, attachments are known vehicles for viruses and phishing scams. They pose a real threat to everyone, but especially journalists. To increase the odds that your press release will get read, take the minute and a half to copy the text of your press release into the body of an email and format the accompanying image; it’s the golden rule when pitching.

Typos

Typos happen. However, make sure they don’t happen when initiating dialogue with literary professionals. These people spent countless hours, and big bucks, studying and perfecting their use of the English language. Overlooking simple rules – using “then” instead of “than” or mixing up “there” and “they’re,” for example – can be interpreted as careless. If you don’t care enough to get your press release right, why should a journo care to read it? Try thinking of all journalists as the fictional author Hank Moody from Californication, an individual whose personal mission it is to protect the written word. Proofread after you proofread.

Lengthy subject lines

Crafting your subject line can be a real balancing act. The key is to grab a reporter’s attention without your subject line getting cut off in their inbox by their email server. Typically, subject lines should be about 40 characters, including spaces. Write subject lines using the inverted pyramid model, placing less meaningful words, which may be cut off, toward the end. Emphasize the most important information, the attention-grabber, at the beginning of the subject line.

Late Friday pitching

Some argue that there is no best day to pitch journalists. With that said, journalists are people, too, and unless they’re weekend assignment editors for a news station, their weekend starts Friday at 5:01 p.m. It’s easy for journalists to disregard information over the weekend and when they’re cleaning up their inbox Monday morning, including your pitch in the list of highlighted emails destined for the trash folder is even easier. Unless you’re sending your news to a weekend assignment editor or a nightclub’s VIP manager, pitching on a late Friday afternoon should be reserved for breaking news necessitating an immediate release. Do yourself and your client a favor: get the news out earlier in the week and in the morning whenever possible.

Acknowledging these pet peeves won’t guarantee your press releases will get read, but ignoring them pretty much guarantees they won’t.

What's your idea of a good story?

Tweet

The media's idea of a good story and the client's idea of a good story are rarely in perfect sync.

That's the job of a good PR team: to find the client's news value (e.g. what the media wants) while crafting key messages that the coverage can deliver (e.g. what the client wants).

"Man bites dog" is the quintessential news hook because it's out of the ordinary. It also conveys many news values such as peril, conflict, controversy and human interest. These factors contribute to a good story. (If the dog is particularly cute, even better.)

By contrast, "dog bites man" is not a story unless its Paris Hilton's chihuahua biting David Letterman. The notion of celebrity is another important news value. If it's a name that everyone knows, then it's news (or gossip masquerading as news). This is why the 'red carpet' is a go-to feature at every club opening. Celebrities create news value where there otherwise isn't any--e.g. appearances at fundraisers, being 'spotted' at a restaurant, or being the spokesperson for a cause. How long until celebrity appearances become "dog bites man?" Or are we there already--particularly with reality TV pumping out celebrities faster than the Octomom?

In the world of business communications, "entrepreneur starts and grows successful business" is not a news hook. That's exactly what enterpreneurs are supposed to do--so it's a "dog bites man" pitch.

Did the enterpreneur overcome some adversity to achieve success? What makes this enterpreneur or company's success extraordinary? Is there some peril that threatens the hard-won success?

Just this morning, I read this post from a business magazine feature writer which perfectly illustrates the point: "I look for pitches about intriguing, controversial characters who are challenging the status quo. If you're going to pitch these people, I expect to get access to them for several days—over a period of time. Pitches should be thoughtful. There also has to be some tension. The best pitches make the client a little uncomfortable." [Emphasis added.]

When a great story comes together with strong messaging and a client that understands what it takes to earn the media's attention, it's a heavenly match and one of the real joys of our profession.

Five tips for a great agency relationship in 2010

Tweet

In the spirit of the season, here are five back-to-basics resolutions for organizations working with agencies. We hope these are common sense to most people, but sometimes the easiest things are the first to be forgotten.

Please feel free to contribute your suggestions. And it goes both ways. Resolutions for agencies are welcome too!

1. Communicate

If you expect a busy quarter ahead or will be consumed with a project, let your agency partners know. Please don't go dark for weeks and even months at a time in the middle of projects. And avoid following such periods of silence with firedrills where everything is now needed all at once. Your agency prides itself on being responsive and making the impossible happen for you, but it can be done better and for less money with a little planning and communication. That's how everybody wins!

2. Don't box people in

Boxes are made for moving and jewelry (though I like the latter best). Neither is meant for people. The more you box in a person or team, the less you get from them. Stay open to ideas. Containing people contains results. 'Nuff said.

3. Help us help you

Think of your agency as an extension of your team. The same way you would tell internal employees of a new venture, product or hire, tell the agency. Even if it's just a quick FYI email or a simple cc or bcc. It will help the agency better understand and manage your communications needs and reach your goals. It will also save you time (a.k.a budget) down the road.

4. Choose the appropriate contact person

Designate a primary contact for your agency representative but be sure that individual is given at least some responsibility for decision making and accountability for agency communications and the PR program. If the designated contact is not made accountable or is not qualified to be so, we guarantee that items 1 through 3 above are not happening either.

5. Make time for face time

Your agency wants to meet with you. Email is an interim solution for agency-client communications and not the permanent solution. Your agency also wants to see the technology demonstrated, taste the new menu, and experience the new service. If you want the agency to sell the concept to your stakeholders, allow time for in-person and hands-on meetings.

Remember, a good agency is here to help you achieve your goals and help identify ones that you might not have thought of yet.

(W)right On goes to 11!

Tweet

Grant Wright sent the (W)right On team this message today, on Nov. 11, to remind our group of its accomplishments in achieving 11 years of growth. But also to inspire the (W)right On team to adapt to the demands in this new era of communications and business as we move forward. It's a universal message and worth sharing beyond our walls.

Today we recognize this auspicious day for several reasons:

In the USA for Veteran’s Day we celebrate veterans who have sacrificed so much to defend our freedom, and in Canada where it’s Remembrance Day we remember the lessons of history so as to never have to repeat them.

And at (W)right On, we celebrate a different meaning on this 11-11… We have our own celebration of 11 years going strong!

For any business, what does 11 years mean? Well, a quick review of business survival rates indicates the vast majority of businesses (something like 90%) that start out do not survive to 11 years. (W)right On has. And maybe it’s worth noting that the statistics for the past decade really don’t incorporate the past 24 month recession period, the most severe since the Great Depression. So I wonder what the stats will look like a decade from now when this period is taken into account.

But ‘surviving’ and ‘thriving’ are very different things. It may be that many companies eking it through over the past 24 months redefine surviving as the new thriving, understandably so. But overall, I think by adhering to the fundamentals that are the foundation of our success (W)right On thrives.

We’re not only here after 11 years putting us in the elite ‘less than one in 10’ category, but our foundation leaves us poised for continued growth and a bright future. The ‘asset’ pieces of the foundation are numerous and remarkable, and I’ll save a review of them for a separate discussion if anyone would like to chat about it. But my view is also that ‘what got us here won’t get us where we need to go’. Meaning we need to never stray from the non-negotiable standards at the core of (W)right On’s success, but leave behind other old behaviors and increasingly adopt new behaviors fitted to a larger enterprise and a future business and communications world for which there's no precedent. Not an easy thing to do, and it means an even greater risk tolerance and stretching our personal and collective comfort zones. But if I know one team that can do it, it’s this one. And I’m very proud to be part of this team, that extends to our external team members, vendors and great clients, celebrating (W)right On’s 11th anniversary on 11/11.

THANK YOU, everybody!

Grant