6 Stories Your Organization Should Be Telling

Tweet

By Rebecca Chappell, Account Executive

“Even if you have reams of evidence on your side, remember: numbers numb, jargon jars, and nobody ever marched on Washington because of a pie chart. If you want to connect with your audience, tell a story.” – Andy Goodman

As professional communicators, one of the biggest challenges we have when collaborating with both nonprofit and for-profit clients is getting them to see that what they think is news may not be what the general population views as news. While smaller media outlets are typically supportive of community-based events and announcements, if you’re seeking attention from the likes of the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal or holy grails such as the “Today” show, you’d better be able to answer the question: so what?   

The “so what?” is where the heart of the story resides.

Whether your company is a small business or large corporation, think about all those facts, figures and acronyms listed in your annual report. Impressive? Sure. But why should anyone outside of your company care? It’s simply not enough to say your company exceeded profit margins or goals for the year. What were the challenges the company faced and how did it overcome them? Is your company’s successful performance the result of a group of employees that went above and beyond expectations? What does this year’s success mean in terms of the company’s future? How does your company’s success benefit the community at large?

If you’re a nonprofit, it’s even more important to resist the urge to weigh people down with a laundry list of programs, statistics and financials. Yes, those things are necessary to be transparent, but if you want media to pay attention and potential donors to contribute their hard-earned dollars or time to your organization, you have to also be personal.

In her book “Corporate Legends and Lore: The Power of Storytelling as a Management Tool,” Peg Neuhauser draws a parallel between nomadic Indian tribes of the American Plains and today’s modern organizations. As tribes moved from place to place, Neuhauser writes, they each carried a bundle containing significant artifacts from the tribe’s past. At campfires and rituals, this “sacred bundle” would be opened and the tribal elders would recount the stories behind each artifact.

Every organization has its own sacred bundle. In PR we often help clients to identify the artifacts for their bundle – the newsworthy stories that set their organization apart. We then package these stories as press materials, marketing collateral, website content, personalized annual reports and more.

Perhaps now you’re thinking to yourself that your organization doesn’t have any good stories for a sacred bundle. To help you out of this predicament, Neuhauser recommends identifying basic narratives such as:

How We Started

This is the story of how your organization was founded – who started it, and why. This often captures the need for your work to exist as well as the approach your group has taken to address this need.

Emblematic Victories

These demonstrate your group’s effectiveness. Instead of just saying “we made a difference!” this is your chance to demonstrate how that difference was made.

What We Learned in Defeat

Everyone falls off the proverbial horse from time to time. The trick is to get back up and ride again. Lessons learned in the course of defeat should be embraced for what they can teach you, and others.

Nature of Our Challenge

Stories about the fundamental nature of the issues your organization is tackling remind staff and community the reason their time, attention and energy are needed. They also serve to connect to the media and public with individuals and/or families in need versus numbers and statistics.

Performance Stories

Employee performance stories show the exemplary levels of professionalism, creativity and commitment your people bring to the organization or challenge at hand.

Where We Are Going

Look ahead five, 10, even 20 years from now. What would the world look like if your company did its job, met its goals, adhered to its vision? Paint a big picture that evokes a feeling of the future that staff, media and the community at large can invest in emotionally.

Now that the creative juices are flowing, the only thing left to do is capture your thoughts and look for regular opportunities to share your sacred bundle with media and the community. Happy storytelling!

PR: One Part Legwork, One Part Arm-Twisting and a Dash of Brilliance

Tweet

By Julie Wright, President

Albert Einstein quipped that genius is one percent inspiration and 99% perspiration. My formula for PR genius is very similar; however, it includes equal parts sweat and influence. Or, as I like to put it: one part legwork, one part arm-twisting and a dash of brilliance.

With advertising or direct mail, you can control who sees your message, where they see it and when. You can apply metrics to gauge how many times an ad needs to run before the target really notices it, or how many thousands of recipients need to receive an offer before the desired number take action.

But PR pros are in the business of ‘earning’ media coverage and generating positive word of mouth. Let’s just say that a lot of things have to align in the time and space continuum to achieve PR success. Therefore, we sweat the details, probably more so than most other marketing specialties!

Whether the campaign bombs or soars in the end will come down to how well all of our messaging, storytelling, pitching and spokespeople worked to influence the opinions and actions of others.

And here’s another old saw: “you can control everything but the weather and other people.”

Our creativity (that dash of brilliance) can set our client’s message apart and ensure a compelling story that captures attention and generates interest.

But we can’t be truly successful unless we sufficiently influence the client to endorse our approach, the campaign spokesperson to adopt the right messages and get the story across, the targeted reporters to cover it and, ultimately, the readers or viewers who must connect with the content in a way that changes their perceptions or prompts an action.

When we get the formula right and our ideas, effort and influence come together, the return on investment is tremendous with people often amplifying our client’s message through shares, likes, Tweets and yet more media coverage, invitations to speak and positive word of mouth.

With so much riding on our ability to influence other people’s behaviors and actions, what are some of the ways we work to influence our clients, campaign spokespeople, media and our target audiences?

Communicate with Clients

Clients may be the toughest to influence. Start by clarifying their objectives for the campaign or project. What would they consider ‘success’? Next, manage their expectations. They need to know what it will take to achieve their idea of success with a timeline, budget and strategies. Keep clients informed of project status – they should never have to come to you for an update. If you’ve managed expectations, are moving ahead with the project in a manner consistent with the expectations you set for the client and are proactively communicating with them, you are building a platform of trust. And, ultimately, you can only influence your client if you have their trust.

Understand the Role of a Spokesperson

Campaign spokespeople need to be provided with messaging that is short, easy to recall and relevant. When everyone agrees to the key messages in advance, all press materials, interviews and presentations can flow efficiently and consistently from that point forward. For inexperienced spokespeople, media training and ongoing coaching and feedback helps them improve. For members of the agency team that do not have experience in a spokesperson role or as media having interviewed numerous spokespeople to know what’s effective and what’s not, it’s recommended they seek out volunteer opportunities either by joining a nonprofit’s committee or freelancing for news outlets. Expert spokespeople like scientists or technologists, who are unable to speak in layman’s terms, pose a unique challenge. Pre-interview them and ask “what does that mean?” every time they use jargon, and when they make a point ask “why is that important to people?” Eventually, they’ll start telling their story in a manner that’s accessible to people outside of the lab. There are many resources where you can study and read about media interview and presentation best practices.

Get to Know the Media

Knowing how reporters work, what kinds of stories they’ve covered in the past (hint: read their stuff) and plan to cover in the future (hint: ask them), and how to be responsive and accurate in fulfilling any of their requests for information, will go a long way to building your influence with this group. Knowing your client’s business sufficiently well so that you can answer background questions reporters might need answered before they’ll commit to a story is also essential. In today’s electronic era, also know how to write a short email subject line that contains the pitch’s news hook. Be able to set up your client’s story in one sentence and back it up with a few key details. And use hyperlinks rather than long scrolling messages.   

The subject of influencing these three groups – clients, spokespeople and reporters – are blog posts in their own right, but the tips offered here should help. Ultimately, influencing target audiences is as close to a three-word definition of the entire public relations profession as you’re ever going to get, so I would need to write a book to expand on that topic. And I’m too busy sweating, arm-twisting and thinking about client projects for that!

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.