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"Dear Occupant" Know Me or No Me
By Dean Rotbart
I borrowed the headline for this column, 'Know Me or No Me,' from the March 2002 edition of Continental Airlines' in-flight magazine.
The catchy title caught my attention on a recent speaking trip to New York, where the subject of my remarks, as it often is, was how companies and executives can get more positive news stories written and broadcast about them.
Based on all the money and staff resources that large publicly held companies devote to media relations, you'd think they'd be awash in positive press. Most aren't.
Indeed, getting good press is seldom directly correlated to the size of the wallet you are willing to empty on public relations firms, PR newswires, fancy schmancy press kits or even high-paid media consultants such as me. When it comes right down to it, Know Me or No Me, is really the complete answer to successful media relations.
Companies and PR agencies seldom take the time to really get to know the news organizations and journalists who they are pitching. Communications executives are so busy doing PR the wrong way, they can't make the time to do it right.
But media relationsβ is a misnomer.
Good press, in reality, is built on one-to-one relationships. What the rest of the "media" think doesn't count.
When you have a story you'd like to place with a national news organization, you only have to make two correct decisions to succeed.
-
Which news organization is most likely to WANT this story? (Not which news organizations do I most want to cover my story?)
-
Which reporter at the correct news organization is most likely to WANT this story? (Not which reporter would I most like to have cover this story?)
That is it! Everything you need to know to succeed at media relations. Know Me or No Me. The rest, as they say, is commentary.
So why do companies prefer to mass produce and mass distribute news releases, collectively spending hundreds of millions of dollars annually on verbal diarrhea that no journalist reads?
Putting out a feature idea over PR Newswire is akin to dropping news releases out of a plane over Manhattan, hoping that one will land on the windshield of a receptive reporter.
Well, it could happen.
Yet, even if a news release distributed over a mass-market wire service lands on the right reporter's desk at the right news organization, what impression does it make on the journalist?
Put it this way: Would you rather get a handwritten love note delivered to your home, or a store bought Valentine addressed to you at work as "Occupant?"
Both notes may contain the same message, but they are unlikely to make the same impression.
Rather than wasting your energy and resources churning out generic press releases, I think it is a lot cheaper and more effective to identify the 6 or 12 journalists most predisposed to be interested in your story and mail them a personalized pitch (at 34 cents each); phone them (now about 50 cents each from a pay phone) or transmit an e-mail (almost free).
Compare that to what PR Newswire now charges to distribute a news release nationally. (All that jet fuel over Manhattan is costly!)
It may not be as impressive to tell your boss or a client that "We sent out this important release to 12 journalists" as it is to report, "We've sent out this release to more than 12,000 journalists."
But I'm confident you will get better results.
Cut your PR newswire budget and invest a fraction of the savings on giving your media relations program a major-league boost!
Join me for my next two-day intensive Newsroom Confidential workshop. In less than 15 minutes, I promise to blow to shreds the conventional thinking about journalists and how executives and PR people can best work with them. In less than 48 hours, I'll personally transform you into one of the most media savvy executives in the United States, if not the world.
For more information, call me directly at 303.296.1200, ext. 101 or e-mail me at rotbart@tjfr.com. Let me show you how to harness the great power of the media to grow your business and your professional stature.
March, 2002
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