The New Rules of Marketing and PR
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subscribe to just-right corporate information from Intel in the same
way that they subscribe to media feeds from major newspaper and
magazine sites and those of independent bloggers? This is just an-
other example of how the main currency of online marketing is ex-
cellent content delivered in the way that people demand.
The online media room is a place where many people congregate,
not just journalists. It is one place on your organization’s Web site
that you can control, without interference, approval processes, and IT
support, so it presents a terrific opportunity for marketing and PR
people to get content out into the marketplace. On the Web, success
equals content. And one of the easiest ways to get content into the
market is via an online media room with RSS feeds.
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The New Rules
for Reaching
the Media
A
s the Web has made communicating with reporters and edi-
tors extremely easy, breaking through using the online meth-
ods everyone else uses has become increasingly difficult. These
days, you can find the e-mail addresses of reporters in seconds, ei-
ther through commercial services that sell subscriptions to their
databases of thousands of journalists or simply by using a search
engine. Unfortunately, way too many PR people are spamming
journalists with unsolicited and unrelenting commercial messages
in the form of news releases and untargeted broadcast pitches. I
hate to say it, but among the many journalists I speak with, the PR
profession has become synonymous with spammers. For years, PR
people have been shotgun-blasting our news releases and blind
pitches to hundreds (or even thousands) of journalists at a time—
without giving any thought to what each reporter actually cov-
ers—just because the media databases we subscribe to make it so
darn simple to do.
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Nontargeted,
Broadcast Pitches Are Spam
As I’ve said, I get dozens of news releases, pitches, and announce-
ments from PR agency staffers and corporate communications people
every business day. Like all journalists, my e-mail address is available
in many places: in the articles I write, on my blog, in my books, and
at the EContent magazine Web site (I’m a contributing editor). That
easy availability means that my address has also been added to vari-
ous databases and lists of journalists. Unfortunately, my e-mail ad-
dress also gets added (without my permission) to many press lists
that PR agencies and companies compile and maintain; whenever
they have a new announcement, no matter what the subject, I’m part
of the broadcast message. Ugh. The PR spam approach simply doesn’t
work. Worse, it brands your organization as one of the “bad guys.”
Okay, that’s the depressing news. The good news is that there are
effective “new rules” approaches that work very well to get your
messages into the hands (and onto the screens) of reporters so they
will be more likely to write about you. Don’t forget that reporters are
always looking for interesting companies, products, and ideas to
write about. They want to find you. If you have great content on
your Web site and your online media room, reporters will find you via
search engines.
Try to think about ways to reach journalists that aren’t just one-
way spam. Pay attention to what individual reporters write about by
reading their stories (and, better yet, their blogs) and write specific
and targeted pitches crafted especially for them. Or start a real rela-
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Action Plan for Harnessing the Power of the New Rules
Barraging large groups of journalists with indiscriminate PR
materials is not a good strategy to get reporters and editors to
pay attention to you.
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tionship with reporters by commenting on their blogs or sending
them information that is not just a blatant pitch for your company.
Become part of their network of sources, rather than simply a shill
for one company’s message. If you or someone in your organization
writes a blog in the space that a reporter covers, let them know about
it, because what you blog about may become prime fodder for the re-
porter’s future stories. Don’t forget to pitch bloggers. Not only does a
mention in a widely read blog reach your buyers, reporters and edi-
tors read these blogs for story ideas and to understand early market
trends.
The New Rules of Media Relations
The Web has changed the rules. If you’re still following the tradi-
tional PR techniques, I’m sure you’re finding that they are ineffec-
tive. To be much more successful, consider The New Rules of Media
Relations:
•
Nontargeted, broadcast pitches are spam.
•
News releases sent to reporters in subject areas they do not
cover are spam.
•
Reporters who don’t know you yet are looking for organiza-
tions like yours and products like yours—make sure they will
find you on sites such as Google and Technorati.
•
If you blog, reporters who cover the space will find you.
•
Pitch bloggers, because being covered in important blogs will
get you noticed by mainstream media.
•
When was the last news release you sent? Make sure your or-
ganization is “busy.”
•
Journalists want a great online media room!
•
Some (but not all) reporters love RSS feeds.
•
Personal relationships with reporters are important.
•
Don’t tell journalists what your product does. Tell them how
you solve customer problems.
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•
Does the reporter have a blog? Read it. Comment on it. Track
back to it (send a message whenever you blog on a subject
that the reporter blogged about first).
•
Before you pitch, read (or listen to or watch) the publication
(or radio program or TV show) you’ll be pitching to!
•
Once you know what a reporter is interested in, send her an
individualized pitch crafted especially for her needs.
Blogs and Media Relations
Getting your organization visible on blogs is an increasingly impor-
tant way not only to reach your buyers, but also to reach the main-
stream media that cover your industry, because reporters and editors
read blogs for story ideas. Treat influential bloggers exactly as you
treat influential reporters—read their stuff and send them specifi-
cally targeted information that might be useful to them. Offer them
interviews with your executives and demonstrations or samples of
your products. Offer to take them to lunch.
“For a company or product that sells into a niche, you’ll never get
noticed by editors at major publications like the Wall Street Journal,
but you will get niche bloggers to be interested in you,” says Larry
Schwartz, president of Newstex,
1
a company that syndicates blogs
for distribution to millions of people in corporations, financial insti-
tutions, and government agencies. “For example, if you are in the
consumer technology business, getting your product mentioned in
Gizmodo
2
and getting a link back to your site from Gizmodo are
probably more important than even a mention in the Wall Street
Journal. Increasingly, the way for people to find out about products is
through blogs, and you often get a link to your Web site, too. It used
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1
http://www.newstex.com/
2
http://www.gizmodo.com/
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to be that the moment of truth was when somebody went to the
store to find your product. Now the moment of truth is a link to
your site from a blog.”
Pitching influential bloggers as you would pitch mainstream me-
dia is an important way to get noticed in the crowded marketplace of
ideas. But even more effective is having your own blog so that blog-
gers and reporters find you. “Blogging gives me a place in the media
community to stand out,” says John Blossom, president of Shore
Communications Inc.,
3
a research and analysis company. Blossom
has been blogging since March 2003 and writes about enterprise
publishing and media markets. “In ways that I didn’t expect, my blog
has allowed me to become a bit of a media personality. I’ve been
picked up by some big bloggers, and that makes me aware that blog-
ging is a terrific way to get exposure, because the rate of pickup and
amplification is remarkable. The press reads my blog and reaches out
to me for quotes. Sometimes I’m quoted in the media by a reporter
who doesn’t even speak with me. For example, a reporter from the
Financial Times recently picked up a quote and used it in a story—
based on my blog alone.”
How to Pitch the Media
As marketers know, having your company, product, or executive ap-
pear in an appropriate publication is great marketing. That’s why bil-
lions of dollars are spent on PR each year (though much of it’s
wasted, I’m afraid). When your organization appears in a story, not
only do you reach the publication’s audience directly, you also can
point your prospects to the piece later, using reprints or Web links.
Media coverage means legitimacy. As I’ve said, broadcast spamming
of the media doesn’t work. But sometimes you really want to target a
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3
http://www.shore.com/
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specific publication (your hometown paper, perhaps). So, what
should you do?
•
Target one reporter at a time. Taking the time to read a publica-
tion and then crafting a unique pitch to a particular journalist
can work wonders. Mention a specific article he wrote and
then explain why your company or product would be inter-
esting for the journalist to look at. Make certain to target the
subject line of the e-mail to help ensure that it gets opened.
Recently I got a perfectly positioned pitch crafted especially
for me from a company that provides a Web-based sales-lead
qualification and management system. The PR person had
read my blog and knew what I was interested in, so I e-mailed
back within minutes to set up an interview with the com-
pany’s CEO.
•
Help the journalist to understand the big picture. Often it’s diffi-
cult to understand how some widget or service or organiza-
tion actually fits into a wider trend. You make a journalist’s
job much easier if you describe the big picture of why your
particular product or service is interesting. Often this helps
you get mentioned in the reporter’s future articles or columns
about trends in your space.
•
Explain how customers use your product or work with your organ-
ization. Reporters hear hundreds of pitches from company
spokespeople about how products work. But it’s much more
useful to hear about a product in action from someone who ac-
tually uses it. If you can set up interviews with customers or
provide written case studies of your products or services, it will
be much easier for journalists to write about your company.
•
Don’t send e-mail attachments unless asked. These days, it is a
rare journalist indeed who opens an unexpected e-mail at-
tachment, even from a recognized company. Yet many PR
people still distribute news releases as e-mail attachments.
Don’t do it. Send plain-text e-mails instead. If you’re asked for
other information, you can follow up with attachments, but
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be sure to clearly reference in the e-mail what you’re sending
and why, so the journalist will remember asking for it.
•
Follow up promptly with potential contacts. Recently I agreed to
interview a senior executive at a large company. An eager PR
person set it up, and we agreed on date and time. But I never
got the promised follow-up information via e-mail, which was
supposed to include the telephone number to reach the exec-
utive. Needless to say, the interview didn’t happen. Make cer-
tain you follow up as promised.
•
Don’t forget, it’s a two-way street—journalists need you to pitch
them! The bottom line is that reporters want to know what you
have to say. It is unfortunate that the spam problem in PR is as
big as it is, because it makes journalists’ jobs more difficult.
As an illustration of this last point, recently a company executive I
met at a conference made a comment on a new trend that gave me a
brilliant idea for my column. I was delighted, because it made my
life easier. Thinking of column subjects is hard work, and I need all
the help I can get. The executive’s company fit in perfectly with the
column idea, and I’ll use his product as the example of the trend he
told me about. Without the conversation, the column would never
have been written—but a straight product pitch wouldn’t have
worked. We reporters need smart ideas to do our job. Please.
“The single most effective thing PR people do is read what I write
and send me personalized, smart pitches for stories that I am actu-
ally likely to write,” says Peter J. Howe, a business reporter for the
Boston Globe.
4
Howe has been at the Globe for 20 years and spent the
last 7 years covering telecommunications, the Internet, energy, and,
most recently, airline companies. Howe prefers to be pitched by e-
mail, with a subject line that helps him to know it’s not spam. “‘PR
pitch for Boston Globe Reporter Peter Howe’ is actually a very effec-
tive way to get my attention. If you’re getting literally four or five
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4
http://boston.com/
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hundred e-mails a day like I am, cute subject lines aren’t going to
work and in fact will likely appear to be spam.”
Howe’s biggest beef with how PR people operate is that so many
have no idea what he writes about before they send him a pitch. “If
you simply put ‘Boston Globe Peter Howe’ into a Google.com/news
search and read the first ten things that pop up, you would have
done more work than 98 percent of the PR people who pitch me,” he
says. “It’s maddening how many people in PR have absolutely no
sense of the difference between what the Boston Globe covers and
what, say, Network World or RCR Wireless News or the Nitwitville
Weekly News covers. And I don’t mean to sound like a whining diva;
the bigger issue is that if you’re not figuring out what I cover and
how before you pitch me, you are really wasting your own time.”
Howe also encourages people to try to think big. “If you have a
small thing to pitch, pitch it. But try to also think of the bigger story
that it can fit into a page-one or a Sunday section front story,” he
says. “That could even wind up meaning your company is men-
tioned alongside three or four of your competitors, but wouldn’t you
rather be mentioned in a page-one story than in a one-hundred-
twenty-word news brief?”
There is no doubt that mainstream media are still vital as a chan-
nel for your buyers to learn about your products. Besides all the peo-
ple who will see your company, product, or executive’s name, a
mention in a major publication lends you legitimacy. Reporters have
a job to do, and they need the help that PR people can provide to
them. But the rules have changed. To get noticed, you need to be
smart about how you tell your story on the Web—and about how
you tell your story to journalists.
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Blogging to Reach
Your Buyers
B
logs are now a mainstream vehicle for organizations to get their
ideas into the marketplace. The readers of blogs view the infor-
mation shared by smart bloggers as one of the few forms of real,
authentic communication. Audiences consume advertising with
skepticism and consider pronouncements by CEOs to be out of
touch with reality. But a good blog written by someone within a large
or small company, a nonprofit, a church, or a political campaign
commands attention.
At the same time, blogs have seen a lot of hype in recent years.
Business magazines regularly include breathless enthusiasm about
how blogs and blogging hold the power to transform your business.
While I absolutely agree that blogs can change your business and
your life (as my blog has changed mine), there is still some mystery
to blogging if you haven’t done it before. This chapter will set out the
basics of how to establish your own blog. But I recommend that, be-
fore you begin to write, you first monitor blogs in your market space
and that you step into the blogosphere by commenting on a few
blogs before you write your own. You might want to reread Chap-
ter 4, where I introduced blogs and provided some case studies of
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