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The how-to-do-it e-newsletter for PR and marketing
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10 ways to spot PR winners in 2010
Here’s a worrying little fact. When I keyed “how PR can solve business problems in 2010” into Google, guess how many responses came back?
None. That’s right. Zilch.
Now I know it’s quite a long search phrase, and I know slightly different wording might generate some hits, but it’s a bit concerning that nobody out there in the big wide world of PR has yet thought to get that phrase SEO’d (search engine optimised, to you) into their websites. That’s why we kick off this issue with a look at 10 fresh ideas for PR in 2010.
The recession has changed the business landscape – as recessions usually do – and PR needs to take on board the lessons. But what this recession has underscored in heavy black ink is that unless PR can prove that it helps to solve business problems it’s not going to get taken seriously in the boardroom.
Even though my Googling didn’t turn up any hits, PR already is making a serious business contribution in many organisations. Yet, in the light of the economic Armageddon of the past year, PR pros need to assess where they are and how they can deliver more business value next year. Perhaps our 10 fresh ideas can help.
If you’re one of those in-house PR professionals who play a part in hiring a PR agency for your organisation, this is the time of year when you might be thinking about which one to use in 2010. To help you, we include six brief pitches from very different agencies in the PR 2010 item in our “Worth Knowing” section in the right-hand column. Click on their names to visit their own websites.
Before the New Year, we have Christmas on the horizon. And Christmas comes early in PR land because you have to hit all those deadlines for the Christmas-based features. So further down the page, you’ll find 10 PR ideas for Christmas story themes which might help to get your seasonal creative juices flowing.
Richard Willsher is one of the sturdy battalion of freelance financial journalists who has been charting the twists and turns of the economy during the recession (and before). In our “Five Minutes With…” slot, he tells us what he’s looking for from PR professionals.
Finally, I will be holding one of my Writing for Publication Masterclasses in London on the afternoon of Thursday 12th November. If you haven’t already been to one – nearly 100 of you have – just click on the weblink in this paragraph to find out all about the full programme and book online.
Peter Bartram
Editor
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10 fresh ideas for PR in 2010
Peter Bartram looks at what will mark out the winners from the also-rans in PR next year
If Britain’s economy does start to turn skywards next year (and there’s still plenty to worry about in that “if”), PR could have a big role to play as companies seek to regrow their markets.
But watch out! A recession tends to shake things up. Old ideas become obsolete. New competitors with fresh ideas emerge. So what marks out the winners from the also-rans when those fabled green shoots appear is the ability to think creatively and challenge old assumptions with new ideas.
Here are 10 things for PR people in companies and agencies to think about as the new year approaches.
1. Become a strategic adviser. PR should have a strategic role to play in most organisations. PRs who score in the upturn will be those who position themselves as strategic thinkers. Tip: talk to the decision-makers in your own (or clients’) organisations about PR’s role in strategic issues such as developing new markets, improving customer loyalty, developing brand value.
2. Revisit business objectives. When an economy shrinks by six per cent (as Britain’s has done since the recession started) firms need to rethink their objectives. PR should be involved in the process. Tip: ask your board (or clients) what their objectives are for 2010, then demonstrate how PR can aid each one.
3. Conduct a reality check. It’s not enough to make sure that PR is aligned with business objectives. Senior managers need a reality check on what PR can (and cannot) realistically contribute to achieving those objectives. Tip: hold a PR briefing session for top managers (or clients) and ask a relevant editor/journalist from your industry sector to explain what grabs their attention (and doesn’t).
4. Prepare for growth. And that means delivering some hard news to the boardroom. More activity means more money. Most PRs can squeeze a little extra from a budget but any significant new activity requires the funding to make it happen. Tip: break the PR campaign into discrete activities and assign a dedicated budget to each activity so decision-makers can see what the money buys.
5. Measure effectiveness. You’ve heard Lord Leverhulme’s crack about half of his ad spending being wasted (but he didn’t know which half). The same waste takes place in some PR campaigns. Tip: Measure what worked this year (and didn’t) – then focus more effort next year on the activity that gets results.
6. Develop a PR calendar. Many organisations have a seasonal pattern to their activity. If you’re not sure what it is, just look at when the organisation books most of its revenue or signs up most members and so on. Tip: plan heavier PR support for those periods, but allow enough lead-time to ensure coverage appears when it’s needed.
7. Look for new ideas. Any self-respecting PR professional does that already. But it pays to draw more people into thinking of new ideas. Use techniques for generating ideas such as brainstorming sessions or Edward de Bono’s lateral thinking. Tip: start a PR ideas blog on your secure intranet and encourage staff members to contribute by offering a modest prize for ideas that get taken up.
8. Conduct a skills audit. PR is changing fast. For example, new media is becoming more important. In 2010, great PR professionals will excel on two fronts – in professional PR skills and in being able to understand and interpret broader business issues in PR terms. Tip: Ensure core PR skills are up to speed but also focus on skills such as negotiating, business analysis, communicating and team work.
9. Raise your game in new media. One area where new skills are needed in spades. But some PR firms are already making mistakes. The winners are not the nerds that understand every nook and cranny of the technologies, but the business thinkers who recognise the technologies’ PR potential. Tip: avoid being obsessed with marginal and trivial activities and measure the business benefit of new media PR as rigorously as conventional activity.
10. Focus on quality. In a media universe deluged with PR material, only the best stands out. And if you ask most editors – and I’ve spoken to around 150 of them about this – most will tell you that much of the PR material they receive doesn’t hit the spot. So raising standards ought to be a top priority for 2010. Tip: ask a small panel of relevant journalists to critique a sample of your PR output and suggest areas for improvement.
Freshen up your PR skills. Whether you’re new to PR or more experienced, the Perfect Public Relations Masterclass in London on Wednesday 17th February has tailored workshop sessions especially designed to help you discover new ideas for PR in your own (or your clients’) organisations.
Five minutes with... Richard Willsher
Richard Willsher is a financial writer with a background in investment banking. He has written for more than 80 publications as well as writing corporate material and ad copy for a range of financial institutions and other businesses.
1. What I want from PR people is…
…facts, figures, research, great contacts with great commentators. I’d like PR people to take the trouble to understand what I’m writing about. Please give me straight answers – if you or your client can or can’t help me, tell me quickly please.
2. The best way to get my attention is…
…show me new and interesting facts, figures, research and original comment from people who really know their subject.
3. But please don’t…
…promise me stuff you can’t deliver; send me material that is not relevant to the things I write about; waste my time.
4. When pitching a story to me…
…please remember I love numbers, facts, real new detailed research, the more technical and financial the better. Also please send me a backgrounder on your client, weblinks, etc.
5. If you’re sending a press release, I want…
…only e-mail please – no paper, no calls. Real news, no fabricated PR puff. No material about internal staff promotions at your client’s company unless it’s a really significant top-level event that is going to change the business.
6. The most successful PR people…
…are ones who give me great material every time; who understand that I am a specialist financial writer; who try harder to hook me up with interviewees; who understand their clients’ businesses and what they can and can’t do on their clients’ behalf. These people are worth their weight in gold to me.
Pitch perfect! The Perfect Pitch Masterclass in London on December 2nd is an intensive half-day session which shows you how to pitch ideas to journalists successfully by e-mail or telephone. The course is based on what 75 editors and senior journalists say they want from PR.
Christmas comes early in PR land
Richard Murray suggests 10 themes that could generate plenty of seasonal column inches
Every year Santa brings a sackful of story opportunities for PR people. Those Christmas stories have already started to appear in newspapers and magazines. But there are thousands of media opportunities still out there – especially in weeklies and daily newspapers. And don’t forget news websites, either. Here are 10 ideas to get your seasonal creative juices flowing (alongside the bubbly).
1. Focus on the cost. With the recession biting into seasonal fun, Scrooge is back. Expect to see plenty of stories this year about “Christmas on a budget”. Tip: Look for stories about cheaper alternatives – like making your own Christmas decorations or a budget way to hold a party.
2. Promote the treats. Even though there’s less money to go round this year, people will still like to have their Christmas treats, such as that bottle of vintage port or box of hand-made chocolates. So there’s never a better time to promote luxury products. Tip: good quality creative photography is often a clincher when getting selected to appear in product-based features.
3. Remember the children. It’s a season for the kiddies. So look for stories that feature children - or that involve doing something for children. Tip: The BBC’s Children in Need programme - this year on Friday 20th November – provides an excellent opportunity for organisations to raise some funds for a good cause and help themselves to useful PR mileage as a result.
4. Help the less fortunate. And besides children, Christmas is a time when it’s good for organisations to offer a helping hand to others. That “community social responsibility” (CSR) agenda the MD is talking about ought to swing into practical action. Tip: Look for a good cause which seems a “natural fit” – perhaps because of its purpose or location - for your organisation’s charitable aid.
5. Reward your staff. Christmas is the time when staff get their bonuses (which bankers have turned into a rude word). But there’s no reason why rewarding staff in thoughtful ways shouldn’t be turned into positive PR – as well as thanking them in a tangible way for their hard work during the year. Tip: apart from the boost to their pay cheques consider presenting key staff with a framed certificate and using the presentation ceremony as a picture op for the local or trade press.
6. Get festive online. Christmas takes place in cyberspace and in social media. So consider ways in which you can use online PR to spread the goodwill message about your own organisation. Tip: Include some seasonal material on your website from early December onwards.
7. Consider Christmas alternatives. In multi-faith Britain, many people will be approaching the festive season in different ways. What they’re doing, why they’re doing it and how they’re doing it could be the source of interesting story material. Tip: Ask staff of other faiths how they approach Christmas and think about how what they tell you could spark some story ideas.
8. Dream of a green Christmas. The United Nations Climate Change conference closes in Copenhagen on December 18th. So there will be heightened interest in environmental issues immediately before Christmas. Tip: look for ways in which your organisation (or clients) are making Christmas greener for themselves or others this year – and publicise them.
9. Look back on 2009. The Christmas/New Year period is when all those “reviews of the year” get published. If your organisation has done something significant in its industry this year, now’s the time to remind the journalists who will be writing those cuttings-based pieces. Tip: Journalists will also be looking for expert comment on the key issues of 2009 – so line up your spokesperson with something original to say.
10. Exploit the seasonal “black hole”. Daily and weekly newspapers fall into a kind of journalistic black hole between Christmas and New Year when nothing much seems to be happening. (And, anyway, they’re running on skeleton staffs while the journos party.) Tip: Save a strong seasonal story to pitch to a target publication for use during this period – the chances of it being picked up are higher than usual.
Then in 2010… Why not take a fresh look at how you can make press releases work better for you? The Perfect Press Release Masterclass in London on Wednesday 27th January draws on advice from 87 editors and senior journalists about what works (and what doesn’t) in press releases.
Press release clinic: hit the headlines
Peter Bartram provides a simple formula to help you write winning headlines on press releases
A press release headline has to do two jobs. First, it has to summarise the main point of the release. Secondly, it has to arouse the interest of editors. Many release headlines achieve the first of those objectives but not the second.
The key to hitting both of the targets is to look at the job of writing the headline as a two-step process. The first is to write a headline which summarises the main point of the story. Do that and you might come up with something like these:
Boggins launches shampoo
MassiveCo announces profit
Amalgamated appoints CEO
Each of these signals clearly what the story is about. But each also signals that the story might not have much to offer. This is because none of them provides an “angle” on the story. So the second step is to introduce into the headline a piece of information that provides an angle. Often this will be a single fact which is central to the release’s angle. So the headlines above would then become:
Boggins launches chemical-free shampoo
MassiveCo announces record £50m profit
Amalgamated appoints first woman CEO
None of these headlines goes out of its way to be clever, but each makes it clear what the story is all about. That’s about as much as a journalist is looking for from a headline. Remember that the headline you put on your press release will rarely be picked up and used unchanged in the newspaper or magazine. The sub-editors will write their own headline based on how they plan to use the story and the space available.
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Contents
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Diary dates:
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To see full details and a programme of any of these courses – together with online booking – just click on the course title.
Thursday 12th November: Writing for Publication Masterclass , London.
How to write news stories and feature articles that editors want to publish
“I write for a wide variety of reasons as part of my work as a campaigner in the voluntary sector. This includes articles for internal and external publications, web content, promotional materials and information sheets. I found Peter’s straightforward and practical approach to writing very useful, the background materials have helped me greatly since the training day, and Peter’s offer of feedback on a piece of writing was invaluable. Thank you for a great course!” - Lee Webster, senior campaigns officer, Leonard Cheshire Disability
Wednesday 2nd December: Perfect Pitch Masterclass , London.
How to devise article and interview pitches that journalists really want to hear
"I really enjoyed the course - it felt like a breath of fresh air." - Ruth Palmer, Indigo Pink Communications.
Wednesday 27th January 2010: Perfect Press Release Masterclass , London.
A journalist’s eye view on how to write releases that make it into print
"Just to let you know I am very grateful for your Perfect Press Release Masterclass. When I sent off my last press release, on the lack of ethics in the restaurant business, The Guardian picked it up and seem to have copied and pasted it. Apart from a couple of sentences, it really was my press release that they had made into an article. You bet I was well surprised as they didn't even contact us for more detailed information." - Hanna Backman, writer/researcher, Ethical Consumer
Wednesday 17th February: Perfect Public Relations Masterclass , London.
Key skills for winning press, broadcast and online PR coverage that deliver more business value
"I wanted to e-mail and say thank you very much to you [Peter Bartram] and Lizz [Clarke, the course presenters] for the inspirational course last Friday. It was really helpful and positive, I appreciated the ‘can do’ approach, and the books will no doubt be of great use in the months to come." - Bryony Hitchcock, marketing co-ordinator, Evolving Systems Ltd
Wednesday 3rd March 2010: Perfect Proposals & Presentations Masterclass . London.
How PR and marketing consultancies can improve pitches to win more business
"I thought Jo [Lynn, the course presenter] was brilliant and, as a fellow woman working in PR, albeit a relative newcomer in comparison, extremely inspiring." - Lyndsey Hunt, Word Association
Thursday 18th March 2010: Writing for Publication Masterclass , London.
How to write news stories and feature articles that editors want to publish
“My colleague and I both found that the Writing for Publication Masterclass was an efficient solution to our writing needs. We received a very comprehensive list of ideas with which to improve the articles we write and copy edit for our internal magazine and on our intranet site. We were able to measure our understanding along the way with some quick tests, but no time was wasted and we accumulated knowledge and technique apace. Three hours after arriving we felt empowered and enthusiastic about writing for publication: this was money well spent!” - Bryony Ulyett, Internal Communications Executive, Corporate Communications, Halcrow Group
Wednesday 14th April 2010: Perfect Pitch Masterclass , London.
How to devise article and interview pitches that journalists really want to hear
“Overall, very solid course, with lots of real-life examples from editors. Very well structured Workbook, which will be valuable for my colleagues. Thank you.” Nick Vellacott, director, Highlight PR
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PR Success Monthly:
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Make sure you receive PR Success Monthly
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Sponsored links:
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Just click on the title of each link and it will take you to the appropriate website.
BNI
Business Network International provides a structured business environment where all members find work for other members.
Business book writing
Discover how to write a business book and win marketing and PR benefit from it at The Business Book Workshop.
Business Wire
From press release distribution to SEO services to multimedia – the complete selection of PR services and tools you’ll ever need.
Caroline Duffy Graphic Design
Looks count! Good graphic design ensures you're making the best of your marketing budget. Call now for a free consultation.
Helping Hand Books
Books to help PR and marketing professionals communicate more effectively. Read first chapter free online.
Media training
Half-day media training for company or public authority spokespeople by experienced editor and journalist. Can be run at your offices.
Nick Sinclair Photography
Delivering innovative and creative imagery to clients in PR, corporate communications and design companies for 20 years.
Public relations in a day
Training course for PR people who want to develop key skills for winning press, broadcast and online PR coverage that deliver more business value.
Win more business
Finding new business tough? Half-day training course shows PR agencies how to write proposals that win new accounts.
Worldwide Webdesign
Worldwide Webdesign is an advanced web design company, which has designed websites for many clients in the UK, and abroad.
Get your own sponsored link…
If you would like to have a sponsored link in a future issue of PR Success Monthly, which circulates to more than 8,000 PR and marketing professionals in companies and agencies, please e-mail info@newventurepublishing.co.uk for more details.
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Worth knowing:
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PR 2010
This is the time of year when organisations start to think about which agency to use for PR in the coming year. Here six agencies set out their stalls in brief and invite you to visit their websites for more information. Just click on the name of the PR company you want to visit.
BH PR
Press to Impress, the flexible press and PR service from Midlands-based BH PR, provides a cost effective way for businesses to manage their reputations - and make sure they stay in the news.
EvokedSet
EvokedSet is a B2B PR and web marketing consultancy that can turn your PR into lead generation. Our integrated communications campaigns deliver measurable results and maximum return on marketing investment.
NeonDrum
NeonDrum is a targeted online news release distribution service that delivers a guaranteed 40+ pieces of coverage for every news release. Get your news and success seen and heard online.
Six Degrees
Need PR that really drives your business growth? Six Degrees has a 30-year track record of helping technology companies build their reputations and capture market share through effective communications.
The SPA Way
Well established, independently owned, London-based PR agency, The SPA Way is exceptionally skilled in delivering high profile media relations' campaigns with results that are fully guaranteed against the fee.
Vector Marcoms
Vector Marcoms are the media relations specialists with an experienced, hard-working, results driven team. From fashion and beauty to automotive and gadgets, whatever the brief, we'll deliver the coverage.
If you would like your PR company included in the December and January issues of PR Success Monthly, please e-mail info@newventurepublishing.co.uk for details.
Christmas books for PR
You can read a sample chapter from each of these books and buy online by clicking on the name of the book.
How to Write the Perfect Press Release , New Venture Publishing, £12.95.
“This is a book for people who want to get their company, their organisation, their leading personalities or their message into the media more often – and do it in a way that generates coverage which helps them achieve their objectives.”
How to Make Your Case in the Media , New Venture Publishing, £14.95.
“This is a book for people who find they suddenly have to face the media. It’s also a book for people who’ve already had a brush with the media, perhaps weren’t happy with the outcome – and want to perform better next time around.”
How to Write Well at Work , New Venture Publishing, £12.95.
“This is a book for people who want to improve their skills at workplace writing. Good, fluent writing designed to communicate meaning succinctly and effectively is a powerful business skill in its own right.”
How to Build a Winning Bid Team , New Venture Publishing, £12.95.
“We live in a binary world. You are either a winner or a loser. More than that, you win big or you lose big. You scoop the pool or you are left with nothing…”
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Contact details
We hope you find this newsletter of interest. If you have any queries or would like to make a suggestion about future content, please contact New Venture Publishing using the contact details below.
New Venture Publishing Ltd, 29 Tivoli Road, Brighton, East Sussex BN1 5BG, UK.
Tel: +44 1273 565505. E-mail: info@newventurepublishing.co.uk
© New Venture Publishing Ltd 2010. All rights reserved.
New Venture Publishing Ltd is registered in England & Wales, number 5606789
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