Eric Yaverbaum, Robert Bly, Ilise Benun. Public Relations for Dummies, 2nd Edition

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Also, enter the media person’s name, publication, and other contact informa-

tion (address, phone, and so on) into a card file, your Rolodex, or a computer

database. Whenever you get coverage from a media source that hasn’t writ-

ten about you before, add that name to your database.

In a short time, you will have a contact database of media people who have

covered you or used your PR materials in some way and, therefore, have

some familiarity with you and your company.

Just as in direct mail, sending letters to your house list of existing customers

will almost always produce a greater response than mailing the same letter to

a rented list of cold names. Sending PR materials to your house list of media

contacts will result in greater use of your materials than mailing the same

press releases to a list of editors or program directors taken from one of the

media directories listed in the appendix.

Does this mean that you should send your PR materials only to your house

media contact list and not to other sources? No. Any release you distribute

should go to your house list as well as to all other appropriate publicity out-

lets listed in whatever media directories you’re using.

The purpose of maintaining a media contact database is to ensure that these

people get all your materials and are not accidentally left out. Make sure that

your media contacts get all your PR mailings because these people are most

likely to give you coverage.

To sum up: For the small and part-time PR practitioner, it is not cost-effective

to “court” the press for purposes of making personal connections to increase

the odds of media placement. The better strategy is simply to keep track of

and maintain constant contact with every media source who does cover you,

based on the assumption that any editor or program director who has fea-

tured you once is likely to want to do so again if you present a story or angle

of interest.

Targeting Your PR Efforts

You can target your market in any of several ways (or a combination of

ways). The nine major ways are: industry, company size, location, job func-

tion or title, product application, distribution channels, affinity groups, spe-

cific users, and buying habits. After you select your target market, you must

then seek out, identify, and collect information on the publicity outlets reach-

ing your various market segments.

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Industry

You can target by industry, specifying industry segments by name or by

Standard Industrial Classification (SIC). The SIC system uses a series of eight-

digit codes to organize U.S. businesses into 15,000 categories and subcate-

gories. The definitive reference work to SIC is Dun & Bradstreet’s SIC 2 + 2

Standard Industrial Classification Manual.

Here is an example of targeting by industry for a company that sells plastic

diaphragm pumps: The PR manager creates two different press releases

describing the same product. Why two different releases? Because the users

in different markets are interested in different performance features. Buyers

in the chemical industry are interested primarily in corrosion resistance;

buyers in the pharmaceutical industry are more concerned with purity and

cleanliness. Press releases sent to the editors at top trade journals covering

these markets stress these different themes. The advantage of doing this?

Editors respond better because the press materials they receive talk about

what is of interest to their readers.

Many of the available directories of publicity outlets are organized by indus-

try segment or cross-referenced by industry segment or at least allow you to

specify industry-specific publications when ordering mailing lists. The volume

of Bacon’s Media Directories covering business magazines is especially helpful

when you’re looking for the publications covering a particular industry seg-

ment. For details, contact Bacon’s PR Service, listed in the appendix.

Size of company

Your market can be segmented according to the size of the company. I see

American business divided into three basic markets: small business, medium-

size companies, and large corporations. How you define small, medium, and

large for your marketing and PR purposes is really up to you. But here’s how I

think of it:

! Small companies are generally privately owned and usually family-run

businesses, with anywhere from 1 or 2 employees up to 30, 40, or maybe

50 employees. For a manufacturer, this means sales under $10 million;

for a service firm, sales under $2 million.

The small company is usually run by an owner who keeps a tight rein

over all aspects of the business. Entrepreneurs are skeptical, pressed for

time, not terribly interested in technical details, bottom-line oriented,

and cost conscious.

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Home-based businesses are a distinct submarket within the small-

business market. Many computer, fax, copier, telephone, furniture, and

office supply companies are aggressively targeting this market segment

because of the rising popularity of working at home. The disadvantage

in targeting this market, however, is that home-based businesspeople

are usually frugal and on a limited budget, and they rarely offer opportu-

nities for repeat business or volume sales. They tend to buy only one of

everything, and that only after much deliberation. And they also tend to

require a lot of after-sale support and service.

! Medium-size companies may have from several dozen to several hundred

or more employees, with sales usually above $10 million if a manufacturer

(or above $2 million to $3 million if a service provider) but less than $100

million. Your prospect here is probably not the owner, but he may very

well report to the owner. Some prospects have a lot of autonomy and

authority; others have to check with the boss to spend $50 on office sup-

plies. This market segment is difficult to put neatly into a single category,

because it is so big: There’s a lot of difference, for example, between a firm

with $10 million in sales and a firm with $150 million in sales.

! Large corporations typically include the Fortune 500 firms and those of

similar size: big companies with thousands of employees and annual

sales in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Typically, managers in these firms are part of a chain of authority and

must consult with others in their company to make a purchase decision

of any consequence. Prospects at big corporations frequently are as con-

cerned with making an “acceptable” buying decision (one that pleases

the immediate supervisor or top management committee) as they are

with bottom-line results. Many hesitate to take risks.

What publicity outlets reach businesspeople? These would include the

following:

! General business magazines

! Local and regional business magazines

! Chamber of commerce magazines and newsletters

! Industry-specific trade journals

! Industry-specific newsletters

! Business sections of major daily newspapers

Readership overlaps among these publications, so you can’t strictly target

publicity outlets by the size of the business in your PR mailings. For example,

Business Week is written for corporate executives, but I’m sure that many

small-business owners read it, too.

The best you can do when targeting PR by the size of a company is to give a

little extra attention and focus to those publicity outlets known to concentrate

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on your market segment. For example, I’d probably devote a separate effort

to getting my material into Inc. if targeting small to medium-size businesses;

for reaching top executives in large corporations, I might concentrate on

Across the Board, Forbes, and Fortune.

You can get a good feel for the audience of any business publication simply

by flipping through a recent issue. Or you can read the descriptive listings of

these publications in Writer’s Market, available at your local library and most

bookstores.

Although Writer’s Market is published primarily for freelance writers as a

guide to where they can sell their work, businesspeople seeking publicity

also find it useful: The listings are more detailed than in the standard public-

ity outlet directories, especially concerning the readership of each publica-

tion and the types of articles sought by their editors.

Location

Some marketers target PR geographically; others do not. Most of my clients

in the food business, for example, sell to customers across the country, and

geography does not affect their marketing efforts. Regional or local chains,

on the other hand, might market only in their immediate and surrounding

states because they can offer delivery that is both fast and economical only

to prospects who are nearby.

Many companies selling professional, consulting, and technical services to

businesses are often similarly restricted to serving markets within the imme-

diate geographic area of their headquarters or branch offices. Companies

that sell to businesses from retail outlets — resellers of computer systems,

for example — also serve a market within driving distance of the shop or

store, as do firms that offer on-site repair services.

Even some companies that sell products may do target marketing based on

location. One company, a vitamin chain, finds that marketing efforts do better

in some states than others, and it deletes the poorer states when targeting PR

efforts.

In today’s global marketplace, many U.S. firms are looking to expand into

overseas markets. Most certainly, a separate international campaign will be

developed; larger, more sophisticated marketers may even have separate

campaigns aimed at different regions (Europe versus Asia) or even countries.

To target by location, you can select from Bacon’s Media Directories and many

of the other media directories listed in the appendix those newspapers, busi-

ness magazines, and consumer magazines with circulations limited to a spe-

cific town, region, or state.

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Job function or title of prospect

within the company

Another means of targeting prospects is by job title. By concentrating your

marketing efforts on those people who are responsible for buying, recom-

mending, or specifying your type of product or service, you eliminate the

waste of marketing to people not involved with your product or its purchase.

Although PR mailing lists are not categorized by job title, certain publications

are aimed at people with specific job titles. CEO, for example, is written for

chief executive officers; Purchasing, for purchasing agents. If I want to reach

female consumers, I arrange for the CEO of my client to give a speech at a

women’s group, such as female entrepreneurs. To reach teens, we might offer

a free print or Internet newsletter written specifically for high schoolers.

Consult the publicity directories listed in the appendix to research publica-

tions that are job-title specific.

Application or use of your product

You can target your marketing efforts based on how the prospect uses your

product. Good examples are the pocket planners, daily calendars, time man-

agement systems, and other pocket schedulers and diaries sold to businesses.

Some companies sell them to be used personally by the buyer. Their catalogs

and mailings go into elaborate detail about how the time management sys-

tems work, how they save you time, make your life more efficient, and so on.

Other companies market these items as gifts to be bought by businesses and

given to customers, prospects, and colleagues. When selling these same items

as a gift, rather than for personal use, copy is much shorter and doesn’t

detail how the systems work. Instead, it stresses the high value, elegant look,

leather cover, personal imprint, and other aspects that make the books and

diaries an appealing gift item.

Press releases should be slanted similarly, depending on how you want your

product to be positioned in the marketplace. Example: One client sells a soft-

ware package used by systems analysts to develop applications, but saw that

they needed software to help them generate reports in different formats.

Because the client’s product could handle this function well, a separate

marketing and PR campaign positioned the product as a first-rate “report

generator.”

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Take a look at the Sunday New York Times and how the different sections

reach different readers with different interests. Your releases should be simi-

larly targeted so that people who use a particular product (for example,

computers) for a particular application (for example, a home-based business)

are attracted by your message.

Channels of distribution

You can target different promotions aimed at getting response from different

people in the distribution channel — end users or customers, distributors,

agents, resellers, wholesalers, agents, reps, original equipment manufactur-

ers (OEMs), value-added resellers (VARs), stores, and catalogs.

Campaigns aimed at end users or customers naturally stress the benefits of

using the product, while promotions aimed at the distribution channel tend

to stress how much money or profit the distributor can make by carrying the

item in his line and selling it aggressively.

Marketers sometimes use the term push to describe marketing to the distrib-

ution channel and pull to describe marketing to the end user or customer.

This is because promotion to dealers is aimed at pushing the product on

them and getting them to push it onto their customers, while marketing to

customers creates demand that pulls the product through the distribution

chain from manufacturer to distributor to end user.

PR aimed at pushing the product through the distribution channel by pro-

moting it to the trade should be sent to trade publications, while PR aimed at

pulling the product or service through the distribution channel should be

sent to magazines read by consumers and other end users.

For example, to promote a book such as this one to the trade, press releases

may be sent to Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and other magazines read

by those in the book trade. To promote this book to potential buyers such as

business owners, managers, executives, and marketing professionals, press

releases may be sent to such publications as PR Journal, Advertising Age,

Business Marketing, Inc., and Business Week.

Is it better to concentrate your PR efforts toward end users or the distribu-

tion channel? It depends on the market and the timing. If customers tend to

buy the product directly from the manufacturer and distribution channels

account for only a small percentage of sales, then naturally you concentrate

your PR efforts on the end user.

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In other markets, distribution channels are pretty important. Take books, for

example. If bookstores don’t buy a particular book from a particular pub-

lisher and put it on the shelves, it has very little chance of selling. And with

50,000 new books published each year, most get little or no shelf space in

bookstores. So selling the distribution channel is essential.

A similar situation exists in supermarkets. With too many products compet-

ing for limited shelf space, many packaged goods manufacturers actually pay

the supermarket a fee to stock and display their products.

The same situation affects many PC software packages. Thousands of soft-

ware packages are on the market, yet most computer stores have room on

the shelves for only a few dozen titles. If they don’t carry yours, you either

have low sales or must direct sales through other channels, such as catalogs,

space ads, or direct mail.

How do you overcome this resistance? At first you may think that heavy mar-

keting to the distribution chain is the answer. But suppose that you do this,

and the bookstores carry your book. Readers may see it and snap it up. But

perhaps they’ve never heard of it, so they walk right by it. With no demand

from the end user, the title will be pulled quickly.

Often, creating a heavy customer demand is effective in getting the distribu-

tion channel to buy your product: After all, if your book gets rave reviews and

dozens of people ask for it every hour, the bookstore will naturally want to

carry it and order many copies from you.

For products where the distribution channel is important, then, you will

probably target both the customer and the distribution chain. In most cases,

the bulk of your effort will go toward end-user marketing; a much smaller por-

tion will go toward dealer and distributor promotion. Exceptions? Of course.

If you study the publicity outlets as described in the media directories listed

in the appendix, you will see that many industries have different magazines

aimed at various segments in the distribution channel. In the computer field,

VAR magazine is aimed at value-added resellers who customize, repackage,

and resell software for specific applications, while Dr. Dobb’s Journal is writ-

ten for people who design and write software.

Affinity groups

An affinity group is a group of prospects with similar interests. These might

include classical music buffs, computer gurus, bodybuilders, health and fitness

enthusiasts, and other people who vigorously and enthusiastically pursue

specialized hobbies, interests, or activities.

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When you market a product that appeals to their common interest, you can get

much higher results than with mass marketing of the same product to the gen-

eral population because the people in the affinity group have a demonstrated

interest in your product category or in the benefits your product provides.

This is a good example of marketing made more efficient through targeting.

“Preaching to the converted” is always easier — it makes more sense to

advertise your steaks to beef lovers instead of trying to convince vegetarians

that meat is good for them. Targeting to an affinity group assures that your

audience is already converted before you start preaching to them.

PR lends itself very well to affinity-group marketing, because in today’s publish-

ing industry, the general-interest magazine has given way to the special-interest

magazine. Most successful magazines today cover a niche: They report on a

specific topic for an audience composed of people with a strong interest in the

topic. Examples include bodybuilding magazines, karate magazines, gun maga-

zines, pet magazines, computer hobbyist magazines, car magazines, gourmet

magazines, and home magazines. By selecting these publications from the

media directories listed in the appendix, you can easily build a list of publicity

outlets that reach your affinity-group audience.

Users of specific devices, products,

machines, systems, or technologies

Targeting members of this category is a simple, sensible strategy. Its premise:

If you’re selling fax paper, you’ll do a lot better selling to people who own fax

machines than to those who don’t.

A good example is in the computer field: If you have software that runs only

on a Macintosh, you can go to a source of publicity outlets such as Bacon’s

Media Directories or Media Map and select publications written specifically

for Mac users. This increases the odds for success and eliminates waste; the

editor of a magazine for PC users isn’t going to run a story on your Mac soft-

ware (no matter how great the program) because readers can’t run the soft-

ware because they don’t have the right machine.

Buying habits

Although this is not a major method of targeting the market, there is some

evidence that you can increase marketing results by tailoring your marketing

efforts to fit the buying habits or patterns of the target prospects.

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In consumer direct marketing, for example, results show that mailings using

a sweepstakes do best when mailed to lists of people who have previously

responded to sweepstakes mailings. Apparently, these people enjoy sweep-

stakes and will go through the trouble of entering, more so than the general

population that contains a number of people who do not have patience for

sweepstakes and do not respond to mailings.

So, if your company is running a big contest or sweepstakes as a promotion,

make sure that, in addition to announcing the promotion to all the regular

media, you hit publications such as Contest News and any others that high-

light sweepstakes and contests.

Or, if most of the orders for your product or service are placed with credit

cards, you might contact the person at American Express responsible for pro-

ducing the newsletter mailed with its monthly bill and see whether you can

get a mention in one of its service articles or resource lists.

In recent years, companies have begun targeting customers by the buying

habit of online purchasing. PR campaigns are targeted to Internet surfers

based on their (often) younger age and technical proficiency.

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Chapter 5

Formulating Ideas

In This Chapter

! The two essential ingredients for PR success

! Finding ways to spark your creativity

! Producing great PR ideas

! Keeping an open mind to new ideas

fter spending my entire professional life in public relations, I am con-

vinced that PR — unlike, say, brain surgery or local area network (LAN)

design — does not require special education, knowledge, or background for

success. Anyone can do it. In fact, to succeed in PR, here’s all you need:

" A knowledge of the basics — the formats, techniques, and methods typ-

ically used to communicate with the media. There’s nothing mysterious

or difficult about them, and they’re all in this book.

" The ability to think creatively — to come up with ideas that are clever,

compelling, and relevant to the marketing message.

I hire a lot of creative people at our agency, and yet you may not feel that

you’re strong in this area. I’m often asked, “Can creativity be taught, or is it

something you either have or you don’t?”

The answer is: Although some people are more naturally inclined toward pro-

motion and creative marketing, anyone who tries can come up with good PR

ideas for his business on his own.

Giving New Ideas a Chance

Many businesspeople, especially managerial types, develop their critical fac-

ulties more finely than their creative faculties. If creative engineers and inven-

tors had listened to these people, we would not have personal computers,

cars, airplanes, light bulbs, or electricity.

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