Tag: communications

3 Tips For A Killer Media Tour

Posted on by Ilana Weinberger

The media tour has been around for nearly as long as the PR industry. It helps build relationships between a brand spokesperson and multiple journalists over a short period of time. The term is a little misleading, however. It dates back to the days when authors would travel from city to city to promote a new book in a blitz of media interviews, or when celebrities push a film to 20 cities in an afternoon of local TV chats via satellite. Today most media tours aren’t exactly like that. They happen when we set up back-to-back in-person meetings between an expert and carefully selected reporters who find his story particularly relevant.

There are many reasons why media tours have survived so long. Maybe an executive is based overseas but will be in the U.S. for a short time. Or perhaps a spokesperson with unique expertise is available on a limited basis. Often these meetings serve more of an introduction than a formal interview, but the tour may also be centered around specific industry news, like a new product or executive change. Here are some tips to keep in mind to ensure a successful media tour, whether in-person or virtually.

Manage expectations on both sides

Make sure the nature of each meeting is clear – whether it will be a casual background conversation or a formal, on-the-record interview for a specific story angle. There should be no confusion between the reporter and the spokesperson, who should be prepared with sample questions and background on the journalist (see below). During the meeting, individual PR reps may operate in different ways, but in general, the PR person is there to observe, occasionally steer the conversation, but not to have an active role in the discussion. Of course, we need to be prepared to jump in if things go off-course, or if the spokesperson needs help in reponsing or obtaining data.

Put thought into scheduling

Be sure to schedule meetings with attention to detail. If the tour’s goal is to introduce a brand executive from overseas to U.S. media, be mindful of jet lag and cultural differences — even on Zoom. Don’t plan meetings too closely together unless the spokesperson is very experienced or the schedule requires it. Be discreet when arranging interviews with publications that compete with one another to avoid awkward moments. Also, remember that no matter how much thought you put into prep for a schedule of meetings, things will go wrong in small ways. Journalists will run late or cancel, security lines for office buildings may be long, technology will fail, or Ubers may not show. Be flexible, build in extra time, and make sure your phone is charged and its address book holds the contact information for all relevant parties. 

Overprepare

Although some media tours are set up as a general introduction, all spokespersons should be prepared with the full background of the journalist involved, the media outlet’s orientation and history, and the interviewer’s goals. A sample Q&A is always advisable, even if the two already know one another. We typically prepare a full briefing doc beforehand.  In addition to helping the conversation flow, it’s useful to keep certain topics top-of-mind so the interviewee won’t be caught off-guard. The most successful media meetings occur when there’s a dynamic conversation and flow between the spokesperson and reporter.

After a successful media meeting, the reporter is far more likely to have the organization and spokesperson on their radar and to reach out for future stories. In this way, in-person chats are invaluable. We can’t wait to return to that old-fashioned way to meet!

Crenshaw Nominated For 2020 PRSA-NY Big Apple Awards

Posted on by Colleen O'Connor

The Crenshaw  team is delighted to be nominated for a 2020 PRSA Big Apple award. The Big Apples are the gold standard of excellence for PR practitioners in the New York metro area and celebrate the best work of PR agencies, companies, governmental bodies, and not-for-profit organizations during the prior year. 

This year, we have been nominated in the  B2B PR category for our campaign on behalf of event management software company Bizzabo. “EMPOWERing Gender Diversity in Events” helped Bizzabo build brand visibility and align with diversity-conscious event and marketing decision-makers. Winners will be announced September 30 during a virtual awards ceremony. Good luck to all who are nominated!   

5 Ways to Build Better Journalist Relationships

Posted on by Ron Stein

For PR people, few things are more important than media relationships. Ties with journalists don’t guarantee results, but they’re an important entree to getting out the stories we tell for clients. Good relations with reporters and producers usually means your pitch will get a hearing at the very least. Often it means you’ll get valuable feedback even if every offer doesn’t turn into a quick story.

With that in mind, here are five ways to stay on the good side of journalists to ensure that you build — and maintain — strong relationships. 

Always make it relevant 

When approaching media, it’s critical that the news you’re sharing is relevant to their specific beat and the types of stories they cover. The way to ensure this is to do your research. This can be something as simple as a Google search on a reporter, or browsing the publication’s website. Familiarizing yourself with their work will allow you to bring them stories that fit their beat and interests. That, combined with keeping a close eye on breaking news, can give you a serious advantage over others. Jumping on breaking news is a relatively easy way to get your client covered. The key is timing and making sure you’re not late to the game.If you wait even a few hours to reach out to a reporter, you could miss the boat entirely. 

Schedule face time 

Today, the bulk of media correspondence takes place through email and phone. And while this is convenient for day-to-day, when possible, it helps to put a face to a name and meet with a reporter in person. This can be anything from post-work drinks to a quick bite — even something like group karaoke. Getting together can help humanize you outside of a professional setting and help build trust with the reporter. Since COVID-19, in-person meetings aren’t possible, so Zoom happy hours have filled the gap. They’ve become a common networking tool that plays a similar role to build relationships between PR pros and journalists.  

Don’t be a nag

Journalists are often juggling multiple stories and tasks, and their job requires undivided attention. As a result, they may not respond to emails right away. This shouldn’t be a reason to constantly follow up. It’s best to spread out any follow-up emails or calls so that you’re respecting their time. Bugging reporters too much also comes across as desperate. Further, they could be even more likely to ignore you and not consider your ideas for future stories.

Use social media..but thoughtfully 

There’s no denying the importance of social media in today’s culture. And most journalists are active on various platforms, particularly Twitter. They use social platforms to share their stories and to comment on current events in the industries they cover. For PR pros, commenting, retweeting and interacting with their posts in any way shows that you’re interested and knowledgeable about the topics they cover. Connecting with journalists on social media is also a less formal — but definitely effective — way to get their attention before sending them a formal pitch on email. But preferences about social media approaches to journalists vary, and they should be made only when you know the reporter. 

Be yourself

When sending pitches or emails in a professional environment, it’s easy to abandon your true personality for something that’s more formal, or even robotic. In PR, however, it’s more acceptable to be yourself. Keeping things human can strengthen your relationships with media. For example, I like to keep pitches casual. If journalists feel like they’re getting an automated email instead of an approach from a real person, they’ll be less likely to respond and take it seriously. In addition, it’s always good to be transparent about what you want from a reporter. Don’t beat around the bush. If they feel like you’re leading them on or have some sort of ulterior motive, it’ll turn them off and they likely won’t cover. So when communicating with reporters, treat them in a similar (but, of course, appropriate) way as you would a friend.

How To Get Media Coverage When You Have No News

Posted on by Erica Schain

When big things are happening at your organization, it makes the PR roadmap fairly clear. But what if you have no news? What happens when your big story from last quarter has run its course? Media relations can be a lot like that Ariana Grande song, “Thank U, Next.”  You’re only as good as your last story. 

One skill of a great PR team is in generating opportunities to keep an organization relevant and visible, even in the absence of hard news like a new product launch or a CEO change. Here are three ways to get media coverage when your company has no news. 

Chase a breaking story

With credit to David Meerman Scott for the name, “newsjacking” by any label has been around for decades. It can be an excellent way to generate visibility in between announcements. Newsjacking involves injecting your brand into a breaking news story that isn’t generated by your organization. When done correctly, it can generate extensive media coverage and reinforce expertise or even leadership. 

In my experience, the best way to newsjack is to offer a select number of reporters a quote relevant to a breaking story through email, shortly after the news hits. This way, reporters working under tight deadlines can use and attribute the quote in their reporting. Those who have a bit more time may respond with questions or ask for a briefing, which is ideal. But in many cases journalists covering a breaking story don’t have time to chase quotes or do interviews. So sharing a timely comment will increase the chance of your company making it into the piece.  

For example, when we saw reports that President Trump would sign an executive order to boost research and development for artificial intelligence (AI) in the U.S., the Crenshaw team offered select journalists expert commentary from executive leadership at Fractal, the world’s leading AI-provider for Fortune 500 companies. The news gained plenty of coverage, and Fractal’s CEO Pranay Agrawal was quoted in many of the resulting articles, from The Wall Street Journal to TechTarget. 

There are other ways to take advantage of breaking news stories, especially those that stay in the news cycle for several days or weeks. A company blog post on a newsworthy topic will often help media and influencers link a subject-matter expert with a breaking story. So will joining social media conversations about the news. If all else fails, the calendar is filled with predictable occasions and events that editors and producers tend to cover regularly, like seasonal items, or live events like the Super Bowl or the presidential election. 

Create your own news with research data

Another way to create buzz when you have no news is to make your own news through a well-designed survey. Timely research can spark coverage where there would otherwise be none. And for B2B companies, a survey can strengthen a brand’s positioning as the first port-of-call for relevant data in a given industry. 

Surveys are relatively inexpensive when conducted through a respected third-party research partner. Often the responses can be packaged into a press release or news nuggets for sharing with key media. A recent example is a survey we designed for Lotame, a leading unstacked data solutions company that works with marketers, ad agencies and publishers. 

Our team built a research report around the state of data quality with the goal of communicating Lotame’s credibility and leadership around those issues, which are paramount in the ad tech category. We pulled the most intriguing insights and offered them on an exclusive basis to Adweek. The exclusive was published in advance of a wider outreach, setting the stage for additional media conversations. The survey generated 11 stories that reinforced the company’s standing in its sector, and the data was useful for sales, marketing and analyst relations as well as PR.

Branded content pays long-term dividends

Bylines or longer-form content can be very useful for communicating a brand’s point of view or mission. And as a bonus, a well-written byline can be searchable for months or even years, adding brand visibility and promoting media requests for interviews when news does break.

Our team is very active when it comes to content creation, because it works particularly well for companies with deep expertise and insights who may be hampered in sharing news due to customer confidentiality. One recent example is a piece our team helped generate for Qure.ai, a leading healthcare startup, about the promise of smart intelligence for trauma caregivers. It’s an important topic, yet a specialized one where branded content that offers education and insight can work even harder than product news.  

When offering a bylined piece, bear in mind that each publication has different guidelines for contributed content. Their preferences for inquiries also vary from wanting a short pitch to asking for the complete piece. Also, some publications are seeking regular contributions while others are fine with one-off articles. 

It’s also important to target content thoughtfully. For QURE.ai example, we targeted a publication that reaches leading medical professionals and healthcare decision-makers for the trauma care piece, and it found a home with DOTMed. A strong bylined piece will generate coverage in between announcements, while also reinforcing brand expertise and leadership at the top to the right audience.

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Media can have short memories. If you want to be on their radar, look beyond the obvious news stories or devise ways to create your own. 

Why Your First PR Job Should Be At A PR Agency

Posted on by Dorothy Crenshaw

 

It’s inspiring to meet newly minted public relations or communications grads looking to crack that first job in their chosen field. And though the first break is rarely easy, for anyone set on a career in PR there are likely to be forks in the road at the beginning of the career journey. I often speak to new graduates who ask advice about how to start their career. They might be looking to join a large international company as the newest corporate communications hire, or want to break into PR at a nonprofit group. Here in New York, some set their sights on a media or fashion brand to learn those businesses while also gaining experience in external communications.

Let’s face it, any of the above would be a win for a recent graduate, but — barring a rich equity offer from a high-flying tech startup — I’d strongly advise jobseekers to take a position at a PR agency as opposed to a corporate or nonprofit gig. PR firms offer new professionals an excellent training ground and the right kind of experience for making future career decisions. My personal bias is for a small or midsize agency, but it’s really more about the classic agency structure and what it offers for team members. Here’s why:

You’ll learn the business of public relations

PR is PR no matter where you are, right? Not necessarily. On the corporate side, staff learn public relations as it serves the organization, but at an agency, it’s the core business. Usually it’s the only business. That translates into a deeper commitment to training and greater mastery of the PR discipline and a far greater breadth of experience through working for different clients. The agency environment helps those new to the workforce find out what they like, where they excel, and what the range of opportunities truly is. And you’ll benefit from layers of experiences professionals who can teach you.

Agencies offer a path to promotion

A successful agency offers extraordinary upward mobility for anyone with the right skills and a drive to succeed. Will you reach a ceiling at some point in an agency? Almost certainly, yes. But for a professional with good skills and less than a decade of experience, almost any road at a thriving agency will lead to advancement. This comes in contrast to the corporate communications world, where you’re typically dealing with a narrower path to growth.

You’ll learn what you love

Juggling multiple clients in different industries or sectors may not be for everyone. But the chance to participate in account management for clients within different industries, from B2B technology to food and beverage PR, will help anyone figure out where their passion lies and help focus career plans for the future. This is a great benefit even if you don’t plan on an agency career.

You’ll learn to produce

Or not, in which case your agency experience will be short. This is the good news-bad news side of life at a PR agency. Like nearly any creative services business, a PR firm earns its keep nearly every day. The agency has to deliver against its plan quickly and well. Those exigencies force you  to learn how to be productive and efficient, or they force you to look for a different environment for your particular skills.

You’ll learn salesmanship

For the most part, agency life is about selling. And while it varies with the type of firm, even junior staffers are exposed to the business development process. You may not be in the room where the presentation happens, but you’re likely to be a team member and observer at a minimum. And ongoing account management is a bit of a selling situation as well. Merchandising the agency’s value to clients is a part of the daily life at a PR firm. It’s experience that you can apply to your own contribution and career.

You’ll learn showmanship

From packaging dazzling content, to C-level boardroom presentations, this is also a skill that’s highly translatable to just about anything else you may do in life or work.

You’ll rarely be bored

Because it typically offers a wide breadth of work – though not as much depth as a long-term role on the client side –  the agency life is ideal for multitaskers. If you thrive on change and challenge, you may love life at a PR agency. But even if you end up running corporate communications at a large brand, the agency experience will pay off over an entire career.

To Be A Better Communicator, Listen

Posted on by Dorothy Crenshaw

One of the overlooked  skills of PR practitioners and other communicators is listening – both literally (as any good manager or colleague should), and more broadly, as in hearing and interpreting the opinions and feedback of high-priority audiences.

These days, even with terrific social tools, listening can be a challenge.  There’s the speed of digital communication, the sheer amount of information we’re expected to manage, and the nearly universal tendency to multitask.

In fact, a study based on the responses of 1000 corporate executives at top companies found that workers send and receive 1800 messages each day. That’s daunting enough for a typical manager, but it’s even worse for a professional communicator, where active listening is both a critical managerial skill and an important part of the PR professional’s role.

The bottom line is this: better communications technology doesn’t necessarily result in better communication. Here are some things to bear in mind that may.

Cultivate diverse sources. We’re so tied up in information monitoring for clients and industries that it’s easy to overlook simple give-and-take conversations with stakeholders who live in the “real world” – people like customers, employees, or distributors. Nobody knows more about a given brand or business than those on the front lines in functions like sales, customer service, and retail. An hour over lunch or a phone call listening to a partner’s perspective on a product or business is worth a thousand white papers.

Pay attention to the silence. From an employee, silence may not mean everything’s hunky dory. When it comes to a key constituency like the press, it can be deafening… and dangerous. Rather than make assumptions, ask questions.

Be attuned to non-verbal cues. When meeting someone in person, pay attention to body language, facial expressions, cadence, hesitation, and word choice. Become a master of the easy, open-ended question. Don’t fear the silence; often that old reporter’s trick of pausing for a moment or two after someone speaks will encourage them to keep talking.

Don’t interrupt. This one’s tough for most of us, particularly within business cultures that reward proactive communication and fast answers. But it pays to yield the floor.

Focus on your goals. We in public relations spend so much time and energy on message development and delivery that naturally we think what we have to say is the paramount goal. But that’s not always true. As a wise boss once said to me, “What you want to accomplish is more important than what you want to say.”

Are Better Client-Agency Relations the Key to Better Public Relations?

Posted on by Marijane Funess

At our New York public relations agency, we can never be accused of under-communicating with clients. Beyond daily e-mails and weekly status calls, we manage to achieve maximum “touchpoints” throughout the week. If you ask anyone in our firm, they will agree that better client agency relations are, if not THE key, certainly one key to better PR outcomes. This isn’t brain surgery or touchy feely shrink-speak; it’s simply true that better communication breeds success. Here are some examples of how this manifests itself in the PR world.

Go right to the source. If all you’ve ever done is read about the company’s latest and greatest on the website or in an RFP, get your client to tell you about it. Actually get the individual closest to the product’s creation to talk about it. You will glean untold facts, learn to better “sell” the story to the press in the client’s language, and increase your client’s good perception of you!

Let no misunderstandings linger. The minute something goes south – someone has blown a deadline, that phrase in the press release didn’t get changed, the reporter you prepared for starts asking crazy questions – nip it in the bud with a conversation. First of all, it is more direct and greatly appreciated. Second of all, there are some things that are better left “unsent” and best handled by talking.

Confirm. And confirm again. Even if you risk cluttering the in-box, when there are important deadlines on both the client and agency side, your emailed confirmation/s may be the most effective arrow in the quiver with a busy or impossible-to-reach client. And when the deadline is passed and the result is a great one, they may thank you for your hyper-efficiency.

Temperature check, often. If you get the feeling that you aren’t getting enough input to do your work well, have a candid chat with your client that can be as simple as saying, “What’s new?” and meaning it! If that doesn’t get your client talking, prepare a brief memo titled something like “In Preparation for Press Interviews” with some open-ended questions and see if that can get the ball rolling.

Get on the same rhythm.  After even a short amount of time with a client, you will learn who likes to be contacted on their cell vs. office line, who is a morning person or a night owl and who replies to email with terse one-word responses. Once you have deciphered this client code, you will communicate better with each contact and they will come to appreciate that about you. This “greases the skids” for more personal interaction and a better overall relationship.

Communications Lessons From Martin Luther King, Jr.

Posted on by Dorothy Crenshaw

In the half-century since Martin Luther King delivered his final speech, many social movement leaders and politicians have walked in his footsteps, but few have matched his gift for leadership and, yes, public relations. Like most great leaders, King was a natural communicator. Here are some of the timeless communications techniques that King used to catalyze change on a grand scale.

Take the high road. Despite the ugliest possible insults and threats, King never stooped to the level of his opponents. Nor was he too passive, although his non-violent philosophy angered some who advocated for more aggressive tactics. King walked the fine line between passivity and combativeness by linking his appeals for racial justice to the very principles that our democracy was founded upon, and to the very best in human nature.

Inspire, don’t incite. Closely linked to his “rise above it” approach was King’s ability to inspire followers, even the unsure or weak. That charisma and courage are summed up in the phrase, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”  He didn’t just talk the talk, he marched the march.

Cultivate allies. King not only developed advocates and allies for his own vision of racial equality and equal opportunity, but he fostered cooperation among various disparate groups as part of the overall civil rights struggle. He has a genius for consensus, which is essential to true leadership.

Talk about ideas. The first rule of thought leadership is to harness your mission not just to tangible goals but to abstract ideas. That’s one reason why the King dream was so compelling, and why it endures today. He invites us in by painting a picture of his vision of racial harmony, and by connecting it to a shared future.

Tap the power of language. Was there ever a more perfect speech than the iconic “I Have a Dream” address of August 1963? It is 17 minutes of flawlessly crafted and impeccably delivered rhetoric that will live forever at the core of the King legacy.

PR Pros: Turn Your Client Into a Subject-Matter Expert (SME)

Posted on by Kaitlyn Kotlowski

Smart PR practitioners know that it’s integral to strategic communications to have a client you can confidently and consistently put forward as a subject-matter expert (SME). Whether you’re trying to pitch a fresh story, “newsjack,” or prep a conference speaker proposal, having a go-to SME with the right background is key to many a PR campaign’s success.

Executives who can demonstrate superior understanding of issues, trends, etc. can earn the profile of a trusted industry insider – which only helps PR pros garner publicity on a client’s behalf. In short, if you’re client isn’t an SME already, it’s time to make him/her one!

Here are some ways to establish your client as an SME:

Home in on a topic and own it. Subject-matter experts are people who know a subject inside and out. Figure out precisely the topic on which your client can shine. Sometimes, the more arcane or obscure, the better. For example, there are a lot of retail marketing experts, but perhaps your client is an online retail marketing expert who specializes in imported footwear? Be as specific as possible.

Encourage continuous learning! Truly great subject-matter experts are eager to amass even more expertise, and good PR pros can help. Set up relevant conversations with other industry folks for your client, share applicable videos to his/her industry, recommend networking events to attend, etc.

Develop authentic, useful content. Subject-matter experts can create more of a name for themselves by publishing timely, useful, in-depth content. Whether this content is shared via a personal blog, the company website or through byline articles in key outlets (ideally a combination of all), it’s important to get it out there.

Don’t be selling. The expertise you’re sharing should be relevant to the brand, with credit to the client company, but it should never come across as a sales pitch. Content that’s overly commercial will hurt your case rather than help.

Take advantage of speaking opportunities. Speaking opportunities on panels and seminars, particularly at major industry conferences, are a great way to get your SME out there and “strut their stuff”! The majority of conferences have reporters in attendance and this is an excellent opportunity for the SME to get the recognition they deserve.

Keep it social and keep it current. As an SME, your client needs to be on company and other social media platforms putting his/her POV out there. Be mindful about keeping it fresh. Nothing says “no thanks” quicker than a stale blog post from last spring. Although time-consuming, it will raise your client’s profile and keep them at the top of the must-have industry source list!

PR Winners And Losers In The Government Shutdown

Posted on by Dorothy Crenshaw

From a public relations, communications, or any other point of view, it’s hard to find much positive in the Congressional wrangling that devolved into a government shutdown last night. A quick overview of traditional media showed plenty of “he-said, she-said” punditry, message-point-stuffed interviews with elected officials, and a few polls showing that the American people were – wait for it – thoroughly disgusted by the shutdown showdown.

The frenzy took over major social platforms, with Twitter’s trending topics featuring dueling hashtags #HarryReidShutdown and #ShutDownTheGOP. Some PR-savvy Representatives tweeted that, when the shutdown caused government workers to be furloughed, they would forgo their own salaries. It was a nice gimmick;  pity Rep. Sean Duffy, the reality-star-turned-congressman. When aggressively and repeatedly questioned on CNN about whether he’d defer his own pay, Rep. Duffy could only stammer out his talking points.

Winners

Republican governors.  Basically, any member of the GOP who was able to remain above the fray probably comes out ahead here. N. J. Governor Chris Christie’s criticism of both parties made him sound like the only adult in the room full of tantruming toddlers.

Senator Ted Cruz.  This one is arguable, but I’d say that Cruz accomplished what he set out to do. Although he was plenty demonized by Democrats and others for his 21-hour faux filibuster on the Senate floor, it earned him enormous visibility, right down to the Dr. Seuss soundbites. For some, he’s the new face of the party, and a 2016 run seems inevitable.

The Affordable Care Act.  President Obama’s centerpiece legislative achievement has not only survived, it might have even benefited from the brouhaha. In fact, some early technical glitches around the opening of the online health exchanges would probably have received far more attention if they hadn’t been eclipsed by partisan squabbling.

Losers

John Boehner.  As was widely reported, Boehner showed that he has absolutely no control over his own caucus. After all, hammering out a consensus IS the Speaker’s job, so this one looks particularly helpless and hapless.

President Obama. POTUS probably belongs on both lists, since he has communicated with consistency and statesmanship around the budget issues, but I’m placing him here for balance, since entities like Congress, the American people, and all government workers are a bit obvious for analysis. Although the President made a resonant speech Monday in which he outlined the reasons he wouldn’t and shouldn’t negotiate on Obamacare, the brinkmanship pointed out the White House’s failure to fully explain the Affordable Care Act and sell its benefits to the public in the months that preceded the shutdown.

The Tea Party. Though it succeeded in triggering the government shutdown that many members had promised since they were elected in 2010, the party may have overplayed its hand. According to a CNN poll ending September 29, 54% of Americans disapprove of it, and Gallup reports that its strong opponents outnumber strong supporters for the first time. The word “extremist” has crept into the majority of news accounts, and when your most common descriptor is the same one used to describe foreign terrorists, it might mean you have a PR problem.