Author Archive for Linda Forrest

PR frights and hauntings

By Linda Forrestedvard munch the scream PR frights and hauntings

In honour of Halloween, this post is a round-up of the frightful ways that PR can scare away prospects and editors and how bad PR haunts those who neglect to adhere to best practices. Boo!

Frightfully bad PR practices

Last month, I wrote a whole post about bad publicity, but it’s worth scaring you silly again with the key points. At this very moment, there are PR practitioners who can’t write, can’t pitch, who are selling short your opportunity to tell your story, offering all strategy with no implementation or implementing a spray-and-pray program without any strategy to back it up. Frightening, isn’t it?

As a PR practitioner, nothing is scarier than reading about shoddy practitioners bilking clients with often significant fees, lessening, I might add, the esteem of our profession as a whole in the eyes of our future prospects. Reading stories about PR people harassing, disrespecting, bullying or otherwise giving people like us a bad name jeopardizes our ability to do our job. You sure don’t want to be the next PR person to call a reporter who has just had a bad experience with another practitioner; regardless of your approach, there’s a good chance your pitch will fall on deaf, if not disgruntled, ears.

There is no shortage of tech PR horror stories. TechCrunch is rife with them. From the headline from earlier this year, “Seriously, Timothy Johnson, Your Idea of How to do PR for Clients is a Joke,” which says it all, to “Anatomy of a PR Spin (aka How to Lie Like a Pro), this site proves that angering the side which has the attention of the marketplace’s ears and eyes is a dangerous game to play. Perhaps the most famous altercation between the PR industry and the technology media was Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson’s banning of a very long, very public list of PR practitioners who he accused (and probably rightly so) of sending useless and inappropriate emails his way. Huge amounts of digital ink were spilled in the debate back and forth as to whether his actions were warranted and appropriate, but as he later said, “I did this after years of abuse.” Everyone has their breaking point, and he had reached his.

How bad PR can haunt its perpetrators and victims

In my last post, I ended on the note that “while today’s newspaper is tomorrow’s bird-cage lining, things written online live forever.” Because of this fact, bad PR practitioners have nowhere to hide — inclusion on Chris Anderson’s list, for example, is irrevocable. Take for example, Gawker’s ongoing hate-on for Ronn Torossian. It’s safe to assume that Timothy Johnson will never place a story with TechCrunch again. Perhaps it’s time for a career change? If an individual has conducted themselves in a less than professional fashion, they have the option of turning their lives around, switching careers and trying to move on. But when a company commits a PR atrocity, it can be haunted for years to come. Example: when I say British Petroleum, what comes to mind?

There’s a whole cottage industry of websites devoted to outing companies that flub PR and practitioners who give PR a bad name. Scary stuff.

You need look no further than your nearest search engine if you want to read hair raising, terrifying tales of PR gone wrong.

Happy Halloween!

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Posted by: Linda Forrest on October 28, 2011

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Posted in: Public and media relations, Random thoughts — Leave a comment

Thanks to social media, the interview is never really over

By Linda ForrestSeanParker 300x117 Thanks to social media, the interview is never really over

Earlier this week, TechCrunch readers were given a rare treat – the chance to engage in a public forum with a technology icon: Sean Parker. One of the founders of Napster, founder at Plaxo, a former advisor to and the first president of Facebook (who bears little physical resemblance to Justin Timberlake who played an, according to Parker, historically-inaccurate, party animal version of him in last year’s Oscar-nominated film, The Social Network), and now director at Spotify. In short, Sean Parker has been an architect of many of the “large-scale societal shifts” of the last 15 years.

So, it was with great interest that I clicked on (and subsequently retweeted) the following Tweet:

SeanParkerTweet Thanks to social media, the interview is never really over

Our Francis Moran, a seasoned reporter, wrote a post on our blog back in 2008 entitled “The interview’s never over” in which he cautioned readers about the perils of gotcha journalism, how interviewees can stray from approved messaging when the interaction between reporter and subject turns casual.

At the time of his post, Twitter had about 200,000 active users per week, while Facebook had 100 million users. Compare those figures with today, where Twitter now boasts 100 million active users and Facebook touts 800 million users. In other words, the echo chamber of the social web is exponentially more powerful than it was just three years ago. That social media platforms are so very pervasive in our daily lives gives us the ability to interact with one another on a previously unheard of scale. How media is generated, distributed, consumed, passed on… all of these activities have been radically altered by the public’s adoption of social media and its willingness to communicate on these channels.

And so, when TechCrunch posted an article with the (in keeping with good Huffington Post-style tradition) salacious title, Sean Parker On Facebook Privacy: “There Is Good Creepy, And There is Bad Creepy,” the interview subject himself responded in the comments.

In the age of social media the interview is never really over, as evidenced by Parker’s calling out of the editors for naming the article based on a flippant comment.

“This is why business leaders don’t typically joke around about their own products in public. I guess I’ll go back to being serious,” said Parker in a Facebook comment on the article.

As I said at the beginning, Parker engaged with regular folk who commented on the article, providing rare public access to a technology entrepreneur of his renown. His comments ranged from petty name-calling to intelligent discourse on the nature of privacy.

This scenario brings several points to mind:

1. The media doesn’t always get it right

Take it from someone who sends media materials with the right information out to the media, only to have incorrect information reported. This week I had correspondence with an editor who had interviewed my client send me copy for approval that had not only the executive’s name incorrect, but misspelled the company name throughout. Parker himself commented on the inaccuracies – accidental and otherwise – that exist about him in the public realm:

I have a largely fabricated, exaggerated, and distorted version of my life story broadcast to the public. And not by sites like Facebook or Twitter, but by good old-fashioned mass media. If anything social media is my only salvation from the tyranny of media that I don’t control; it’s the only chance I have to tell my own story, lest it be told inaccurately (or worse, maliciously) by others. This is why I’m suddenly engaging so deeply with social media–I want to reclaim control over my life. I would much prefer a “candid version of my life story” to a Hollywood screenwriter’s dramatized version thereof.

2. Social media has democratized editorial coverage

It used to be that if inaccuracies were printed about someone, it was an onerous, elongated, laborious undertaking to correct them. And in most cases, the toothpaste was out of the tube. But, most if not all traditional media do have a mechanism for retracting or correcting wrong or misleading information. In our digital age, edits can be made to text instantaneously. Interview subjects can post comments the moment the publish button is pushed. Most profoundly, no longer is the editor the only one with editorial control over content: whether you’re Joe Blow or a billionaire iconoclast, you have the power to affect editorial content, through social media, self-publishing, or other digital means.

3. You never know who is reading your stuff online

I am willing to bet that the first few John Q. Citizen commenters on the article had no expectation that the article’s subject would be reading – and in some cases responding to – Facebook comments on an online article. This is a good lesson that you never know who is reading material you post online. It could be your childhood friend you haven’t talked to in 20 years, your prospective employer, your mother, your idol, potential customer, business partner… Don’t say anything in a public forum that you wouldn’t want anyone in these categories to read, because they can. And while today’s newspaper is tomorrow’ bird-cage lining, things written online live forever.

Image: TechCrunch

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Posted by: Linda Forrest on October 21, 2011

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Posted in: Public and media relations, Social media, Technology marketing — Leave a comment

PR’s David & Goliath: doing media relations for SMBs vs. large corporations

By Linda Forrestbigdoglittledog 300x222 PRs David & Goliath: doing media relations for SMBs vs. large corporations

Back when I was doing publicity in the music industry, working largely for independent artists, I’d often discuss with my colleagues what it would be like to be the publicist for a major, in-demand, household-name artist, how different the job would be. Rather than spending the majority of my time on outreach, I rather imagined that the role would be relegated largely to that of gatekeeper, traffic cop and reputation manager.

When it comes to media relations for technology companies, the same discrepancies apply – there are some distinct differences between doing media relations for a small- to medium-sized business and doing the same for a multinational conglomerate. But there are some best practices that hold true regardless of whether the company you’re promoting with its media marketplace consists of two employees or two thousand.

A smaller company is less likely than a large company to have internal PR capabilities

Startups and small companies need to strategically allocate every dollar to deliver the most profound ROI, otherwise the entire business is in jeopardy. Therefore, in smaller companies, specialized roles, like that of PR practitioner, are often allocated to external resources. With larger companies, the ROI on every single marketing dollar is less tied directly to the well-being of the company; when larger companies hire PR firms, it’s usually to augment internal capabilities rather than add capabilities the company doesn’t already possess.

With a startup, you’re probably more likely to see the founder and CEO as the PR contact (he or she is the chef, cook and bottle-washer too) as an agency, whereas with a big corporation like Microsoft, there’s a list of PR contacts as long as your arm – some internal, some external (usually with a known industry player, a proportionately large global PR firm.)

As of 2008, there were approximately 9,000 PR agencies in the U.S., ranging from one-person operations to multinational corporations. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests that employment in the field is on the rise:

Employment of public relations specialists is expected to grow 24 percent from 2008 to 2018, much faster than the average for all occupations. The need for good public relations in an increasingly competitive and global business environment should spur demand for these workers, especially those with specialized knowledge or international experience. Employees who possess additional language capabilities also are in great demand.

The recent emergence of social media in public relations is expected to increase job growth as well. Many public relations firms are expanding their use of these tools, and specialists with skills in them will be needed.

Employment in public relations firms is expected to grow as firms hire contractors to provide public relations services, rather than support more full-time staff when additional work is needed.

A smaller company is more likely to have budgetary constraints, devote marketing dollars to other activities

Smaller revenues mean smaller marketing budgets. Despite the fact that PR is proven to bolster fundraising efforts, a small number of startups that were looking for investment deployed this tactic, according to a PRWeek article from 2008:

  • Startup companies that engage in PR campaigns are 30% more successful in getting funding within one to three months than those that don’t.
  • Forty-four percent of the respondents who used PR outreach received funding in the one-to-three-month time period versus 14% of those that did not.
  • Seventy-eight percent of respondents who said PR helped in their funding efforts are planning to use some of their VC dollars for additional PR.
  • Ironically, the survey also found that only 18% of the 300 startups surveyed had a PR program in place during the funding process.

    • PR requires significant sustained effort, human resources and expertise to be done well. When there are limited marketing dollars to invest in various marketing methods, they tend to be allocated to “easy” marketing activities – Google ad word campaigns, for example, according to a 2009 blog post on Buzzgain.

    Media relations for smaller companies consists predominantly of outreach, where larger organizations elicit more inbound inquiries

    It takes a sustained PR effort to establish what we call a Rolodex factor with the media, the point at which your most influential media know to call you for perspective on issues in your marketplace, which they include in their coverage of events and issues that impact your market. With a large corporation, the public – media included – can be very familiar with your company, its products, its position in the market and the Rolodex factor is pretty much a given. This is where my gatekeeper/traffic cop analogy comes in: the job becomes more about routing calls to the proper departments, managing access to designated spokespeople, governing messaging and positioning.

    When you’re a smaller company, unless you’re truly the next big thing and can prove it, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to influence the agenda of the media. Instead, it will be about where you fit into the agenda of the media, rather than how the media can bend to suit your will.

    Best practices reign, regardless of your company’s size

    No matter whether you’re a party of two or a conglomerate of 2,000, your company needs to provide the media with the tools required to cover your company. Have a well-stocked, easy-to-find online newsroom. Our Leo Valiquette, who spent a decade as a business journalist, wrote a great piece on engaging the media when he was new to our team, most of which still applies in spades.

    There may be some differences between media relations for David versus media relations for Goliath, but regardless of the organization’s size, adhering to best practices will position you well with your media marketplace.

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    Posted by: Linda Forrest on October 14, 2011

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    Posted in: Public and media relations, Startups, inmedia Public Relations — 2 Comments

    In PR, timing is everything

    By Linda ForrestTiming In PR, timing is everything

    If real estate is summed up by the expression, “There are three things that matter in property: location, location, location,” PR could easily misappropriate a slight variation of that: “there are three things that matter in public relations: timing, timing, timing.”

    This post is just a sampling of the many ways that timing matters in PR.

    To every news release, there is a season.

    If you are sending out a news release (I recently blogged about what sorts of news is best suited to this tactic), there is a right and a wrong time to send it out.

    If you have mobile news to share and Apple is holding a press conference that day, even if it is to release the iPhone Meh, that is not the time to try and pitch reporters who cover your space. They are busy and do not want to be interrupted by your phone calls, emails and tweets. Sometimes, bad timing can’t be helped; breaking news does not adhere to an editorial calendar. But in the main, we at inmedia subscribe to the belief that the start of the business day (for the Eastern time zone) on Tuesday is the best time to issue a news release. This approach is supported by data from the top newswire distribution services, according to a post on Journalistics about The Best Day to Send a Press Release:

    PRNewswire suggests sending news in the middle of the week and to steer clear of Mondays and Fridays. Business Wire, on the other hand, suggests early in the day, early in the week for most press releases. readMedia, a social media release startup, sees little difference in weekdays, but advises against sending releases on weekends for obvious reasons.

    These are not hard and fast rules, however. If you have bad news that you have to distribute, Friday at the end of the day may be the best time for it. While public companies are beholden to stringent disclosure rules that dictate what and when company information must be shared, private companies have more leeway and can strategically release news, good or bad, as they see fit. We also subscribe to the theory that if they (in this case, the media) are going to run you out of town, get out in front and make it look like a parade — meaning that it’s best to be the deliverer of your own bad news, especially in today’s 24-hour news cycle, rather than let your messaging be controlled by the market.

    Plan ahead

    We’ve blogged repeatedly about maintaining PR through the summer (again, further bolstered by the 24-hour news cycle) as coverage may not appear for months after it’s been pitched, secured, facilitated and drafted. Long-lead trade publications still drive purchasing decisions in B2B, so strategically plan your campaigns so that coverage falls when it has the highest impact on the buying cycle of your prospects.

    Where are you talking to?

    Though news value can trump time zones and language, you still need to consider where your prospects, partners and customers are geographically. If it’s an Australian announcement your U.S. company needs to make, sending out your release at the close of the Australian business day or in the middle of their night may not be the best approach. Be conscious of timing when reaching out to journalists as well. No west-coast reporter is going to appreciate a call to their cell phone at the start of the east coast’s business day.

    Be in the right place at the right time

    When there are issues or big players’ announcements upon which your company has a perspective, act fast and harvest the PR opportunities arising from that coverage. Reporters and editors will want to speak to sources for their opinions, reactions, feedback and, if you put yourself in the right place at the right time, you can reap the benefits.

    Use your time wisely

    Time management is an important skill for PR practitioners to master. Be conscious of your own deadlines as well as the availability of your client’s knowledge keepers and spokespeople. Breaking news will require that you act fast to develop the necessary messaging and materials, so keeping a good handle on your overall workload will free up your time to be responsive in a rush situation.

    Be respectful of your media targets’ time

    Too many times I’ve read about editors and reporters bemoaning the fact that PR people try to take up their precious time at inopportune times. Journalism is a stressful occupation, with deadlines and demands from editors looming large. When reaching out to target media, take a moment to ask them if it’s a good time to talk; monitor their Twitter stream to see if they’re in the office or offsite, pushing against a deadline or something else that would require their attention; if you do connect with them, keep it brief.

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    Posted by: Linda Forrest on October 7, 2011

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    Posted in: Public and media relations, inmedia Public Relations — Leave a comment

    High-fidelity PR requires open communication between agency & client

    By Linda ForrestREM%20 %20New%20Adventures%20In%20Hi Fi High fidelity PR requires open communication between agency & client

    This one goes out to R.E.M., a band whose breakup last week reminded me of their full discography, including New Adventures in Hi-Fi, hence the focus of this post.

    Wikipedia describes high fidelity as follows:

    high fidelity—or hi-fi—reproduction is a term used by home stereo listeners and home audio enthusiasts (audiophiles) to refer to high-quality reproduction of sound or images, to distinguish it from the poorer quality sound produced by inexpensive audio equipment. Ideally, high-fidelity equipment has minimal amounts of noise and distortion and an accurate frequency response.

    The best PR is high-fidelity PR. PR practitioners act as the conduit through which the marketplace receives our clients’ messages. In order to achieve the most accurate, worthwhile coverage that supports our clients’ overall communications objectives, the process itself needs to be as friction free as possible. But, in some cases, that’s easier said than done.

    Media relations involves a number of different parties, the number of participants increasing dramatically the bigger the company is. With small startups, PR resources typically have direct access to the founders and chief executives at the client company. In these scenarios, there’s less chance of broken telephone muddling up your message between the proverbial horse’s mouth and the media. As additional layers of complexity are added to the organization, there is more potential for noise and distortion to be introduced. The corporate structure of the client company will determine the access that PR has to the CEO; perhaps the PR team reports to a marketing director who then liaises with corporate communications who has a direct line to the CEO. That’s two additional levels of people (and their personal and departmental objectives and agendas) that messages have to trickle down through, before PR resources are pitching to the media. There are exceptions to the rule, of course, but in the main, the larger the organization, the more gatekeepers and approvals processes required before information is made available to the PR flacks and before questions are answered by client executives.

    Some noise was made back in 2007, when Chrysler shifted PR reporting from direct to the CEO to HR instead. There was a great blog post around the time of that shift, called “Why PR needs a seat at management’s table,” which included links to articles on the importance of PR having a direct link to the CEO, no matter the size of the company, including this one from Detroit Free Press reporter Mark Phelan:

    An effective communications team can steer management away from bad decisions and build long-term plans to help the company succeed.

    That’s just one of the advantages of your PR resources having direct access to the CEO. Unfortunately, it seems as though the trend is, at least with the female practitioners that reside within what ABC called the Velvet Ghetto in its landmark 1985 study and 2002 follow up, heading in the wrong direction:

    In the area of access to senior management, 50 percent of respondents in “The Velvet Ghetto” said they reported directly to the CEO, whereas in ABC Profile 2002, only 35 percent said they report directly to the CEO. In 1985, 80 percent said they always had direct access to the CEO compared to only 53 percent in 2002.

    Respondents to PR Week’s 2010 Corporate Survey indicated that more than half are reporting directly to the CEO, an encouraging statistic:

    Reporting1 High fidelity PR requires open communication between agency & client

    It’s near impossible to have high quality transmission of the strategic objectives of the C-suite transmitted to and through PR if direct access is not given. Futurist and entrepreneur Ross Dawson, who wrote a blog post on the future of PR more than five years ago, recently revisited his earlier post, which contained the following:

    Previously, PR executives very rarely had access beyond the Chief Marketing Officer, and often were managed by considerably more junior client staff. Those PR executives that demonstrate they can understand their clients’ strategic issues, and engage at that level of the organisation, will have the opportunity to do so. Moving beyond the ever-more trenchant issues of reputation management and related spheres, agencies can extend themselves to work with clients on other critical and highly relevant issues such as customer-driven innovation.

    It’s really this point that led to the creation of the strategic marketing consultancy, Francis Moran & Associates. After operating inmedia Public Relations for more than a dozen years, it became clear that our clients and prospects had a need for strategic marketing counsel and implementation that extended beyond PR; that each senior member of inmedia had strategic marketing experience and that we have an extensive network of best-of-breed marketing implementation specialists enabled us to diversify and build out our service offering. But that’s not my point: That we were able to have those conversations with the decision makers at those prospect and client companies enabled us to recognize that need. If we were not given direct access to the executive team, not only would our ability to conduct high-fidelity story telling have been hampered, so too would our business development efforts.

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    Posted by: Linda Forrest on September 29, 2011

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    Posted in: Public and media relations, inmedia Public Relations — Leave a comment

    Former PostRank CEO Carol Leaman inspires at this week’s Girl Geek Dinner in Waterloo, with tales from her experiences with technology startups

    By Linda Forrest girlsgeeksidebar Former PostRank CEO Carol Leaman inspires at this weeks Girl Geek Dinner in Waterloo, with tales from her experiences with technology startups

    It’s been a busy week, with Francis Moran and me visiting Waterloo and region for a number of events, client and business development meetings. We kicked off our trip by attending the Girl Geek Dinner, which took place Tuesday evening at Waterloo restaurant Oliver & Bonacini.

    One of these things was not like the others in that Francis was the only male in attendance; the inverse was just about true the following night at Demo Camp Guelph where I was one of a handful of women in the crowd. But the intimate room at O&B was filled to the brim with interesting, welcoming and friendly women who work in technology. The brainchild of Cate Huston, a software programmer at Google, who upon moving to KW from Ottawa started up a local version of this international concept, Tuesday’s dinner marked the third local iteration of the event, which is also organized by PJ Lowe, and Michelle Kostya.

    The speaker for the evening was Carol Leaman, a serial leader of startups, who recently sold PostRank, an aggregator of social engagement data, to Google. Almost as soon as we were seated, it became apparent that many of the women in the dynamic crowd knew one another, thanks to the tight-knit and supportive tech community in the region. But they welcomed Francis and myself with open arms, and it took us just several minutes to establish the (very few) degrees of separation from everyone at our table. We had the great pleasure of sitting with a variety of women, all of whom are working or studying in different and fascinating aspects of the technology ecosystem.

    The in-demand event (we ourselves were on the waiting list originally though thankfully were able to squeeze in) was held in an intimate space, which made the night feel rather like dinner at a friend’s house rather than a structured networking event; there were about 25 attendees, including the speaker and three organizers, seated at three long tables. Our speaker, Carol Leaman, knew many of the attendees, some having worked for her, while others may have benefited from her contributions to the tech community some potentially through her previous role as Executive in Residence at Communitech. The room was relaxed and attentive, as Carol began her informal talk.

    Rather than give a formal PowerPoint presentation, Carol just shared her journey with us in a casual, funny and informative talk. Like most of us, Carol didn’t end up where she planned to; her aspirations did not lie in the technology realm, and in fact, she’s an accountant by trade. But it’s that solid background in finance that has propelled her to a leadership position in multiple companies, many of which she has spruced up and got on track before successfully negotiating their being acquired. In her work at an investment bank, she saw and learned the intricate details of mergers & acquisitions, a familiarity that has served her well as she moved into the technology space. As a person not naturally drawn to technology, she says that she has had a rapid education in the field and said that she still learns something every day.

    It was her work as a strategic consultant that lead to her becoming the first Communitech Executive in Residence in 2007. At first, through, she didn’t think anyone would want her advice and it was with hesitation that she sent out notes to small- to medium-sized companies that were members of Communitech, letting them know that her counsel was available. She instantly received about 20 responses and really got to know KW startups over the course of the following six months. What initially was to be a two-day per week gig quickly turned into four because she was in such high demand. When one of her fellow EIRs recommended that she look at PostRank, she took his recommendation as an endorsement of the company and upon further examination of the opportunity, decided to take on a six-month commitment to running the company. At the end of the six months, PostRank’s founder asked her to stay and it was 3.5 years later that the company was sold to Google. While Carol was offered a great position at Google, she decided to instead go to another startup; it’s clear that she relishes the challenge of learning new technologies, guiding their commercialization, and enjoys the corporate culture of a startup environment.

    She shared some hilarious stories with her eager audience (beware G6; a $10,000 vasectomy reversal is not a legitimate business expense!) and a great time was had by all.

    Inevitably, some familiar issues were raised: what’s it like for a women at the top, a woman in tech… Her very human and very honest responses showed that anyone, regardless of gender, is only inhibited if they choose to be. Her generally positive outlook on life, matched with her willingness to recognize that business success is a team rather than solo effort, her obvious integrity and deferment to common sense in the business environment have helped her reach impressive career highs. It’s clear that she’s well liked by those in the tech community, and it’s understandable why. She’s a down-to-earth woman with an impressive career, who is approachable and supportive of her fellow community members. Her demeanour and attitude is perhaps best described in her own words, “I just have a realistic view of what’s possible. There are good people everywhere and I feel a deep obligation to those people. Everyone ultimately wants to contribute, to be successful, and rewarded. I think that the best leaders help people do what they’re capable of; We’ll figure it out together.” The Waterloo technology community is lucky to have such a level-headed woman of integrity in their midst and it was a pleasure to listen to her speak, as well as to get to know her a bit better personally.

    Melanie Baker, a former colleague of Carol’s wrote a great recap of the event on the Girl Geek Dinner website. For her perspective, visit that site.

    Image: Girl Geek Dinner

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    Posted by: Linda Forrest on September 23, 2011

    Posted in: Startups — 1 Comment

    There is such a thing as bad publicity

    By Linda Forrestlucy pr There is such a thing as bad publicity

    There’s a famous adage in our industry that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. I beg to differ. Your PR resources are doing you a disservice if they fall into any of the following five categories.

    1. They’re poor writers

    We’ve actually had prospects tell us that their PR agency can’t write. Superior writing skills are essential to good publicity, especially in the technology realm. Technology is complicated and if you don’t clearly articulate what it is your technology actually does, your market won’t know its value and you’re subsequently hampering your market opportunity. Those media targets on your list who are interested in and write about hardware, for instance, may not give a fig about the software components of your offering. Speaking from experience, I’ve visited websites, read press releases and other marketing materials that fail to communicate the value proposition of whatever’s being written about. The death knell for your communications effort is sending out materials that leave the reader scratching their head, no clearer about what it is your company actually does, who for, at what price, why, and where they can learn more about it. The five Ws (and two Hs: how and how much) are essential to communicating effectively with your marketplace. Your PR resources must be able to articulate the important details of your offering, no matter how technical. If the technology is not well understood by your PR team, then they will be unable to write about it effectively.

    Bad grammar and spelling are simply unacceptable.

    2. They’re bad at pitching

    The Bad Pitch Blog offers readers hours and hours worth of (equal parts funny and cringe-worthy) examples of what not to do. But what constitutes a bad pitch? One that’s poorly written, off target (no, the telecom writer does not want to cover your biotech product; no, the spray-and-pray media list that you bought is not up-to-date), too long, in poor taste, has attachments (determine interest first and then send what’s needed), is disrespectful (unless you’re friends with a contact or they’ve indicated it’s okay to call them by a nickname or short form of their name, don’t start off an email to Michael with Mikey), or demanding (badgering the media to give your news a top billing when its not warranted will win you no favours.)

    Your PR resources need to understand that the best opportunities lie at the intersection of what their clients have to offer and what the reporter is interested in. These opportunities are rarely published in advance in a public forum like an editorial calendar, rather they come from a good understanding of the media target’s area of interest and coverage and a persistent, ongoing information gathering and sharing so that a) your PR team recognizes what opportunities are available to pitch into, b) what the reporter needs in order to cover your company and c) timely and comprehensive provision of the necessary materials, scheduling of interviews and so on. Not every opportunity for coverage comes from outbound news from a company. Knowing how to generate coverage in a program that is not driven by news releases is essential to harvesting the full coverage potential of your company’s story.

    3. You’re missing opportunities for coverage

    Your PR team should be continually monitoring its media targets’ output to see if there are natural opportunities for your company executive to comment on larger issues that impact the marketplace, have your offering included in roundups of products in your space, and other opportunities that aren’t as straightforward as send news release A, expect coverage B. PR resources should examine the full spectrum of opportunities and know how – and why – your company should be covered there.

    4. Your PR resources are all about tactical implementation without strategy

    It’s easy to do a lot of PR stuff. Write up a press release for every time your company sneezes, put it on the wire, repeat. But PR stuff, unmeasured, with no strategy underpinning the activity, will not garner your company the coverage it deserves. In fact it could damage your reputation with your media marketplace, which is kind of the opposite of what you’re hoping to achieve with your PR program, no? PR resources need to have the audacity to counter their clients with questioning as to why they want to put out the news their pushing for. Without sound reasoning as to the potential ROI for doing so and a solid strategy, bombarding the market with your news will not get you the results you desire. The thud factor (thud being the sound that the many rebroadcasts of your announcement make when printed out and dropped onto the desk of the client) matters little when it comes to actually moving your market; the benefits of rebroadcast reside mainly with your SEO and organic search results boosting your position with Google.

    5. Your PR resources are all strategy without implementation

    Coming up with a brilliant plan that you don’t execute against is no better than loads of PR stuff with no strategy. Know how and why you’re doing what you’re doing on the PR front, and select the tactics that make the most sense and deliver the best return on investment if executed properly. Going round in circles generating report after report about what could be done and what should be done will no doubt lead to missed opportunities.

    Good PR is not rocket science, and the internet is loaded with useful information about how to do it well – much of this content posted is by reporters and editors who are sick of dealing with bad publicity – so, PR practitioners, shape up and technology companies, make sure that your PR team, whether internal or external, is doing good by you. Or suffer the consequences. It’s up to you.

    Image: Houston Press

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    Posted by: Linda Forrest on September 15, 2011

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    Posted in: Public and media relations, Uncategorized, inmedia Public Relations — Leave a comment

    If your company does something and you didn’t tell your marketplace about it, did it actually happen?

    By Linda Forrestoutofdate If your company does something and you didnt tell your marketplace about it, did it actually happen?

    Outbound news is just one aspect of a company’s PR program, but it’s an important one. While there are ways to generate coverage without making announcements, it’s likely that your company has plenty of newsworthy announcements to share with its marketplace.

    We’ve all heard the adage “if a tree falls in the forest, and there’s nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound?” The corollary in marketing might be the title of this post, “if your company does something and you didn’t tell your marketplace about it, did it actually happen?” First, let’s examine what sorts of news is best suited to a news release versus a story pitch, benefits of sharing your news with the marketplace, objectives besides market awareness served by sending out news and a brief story about missed opportunities and the ripples that they have across marketing channels.

    What sort of news is best suited to a news release?

    News releases are not the only outbound PR vehicle but it sure is a frequently used tactic. When the blog Journalistics tried to find out the number of releases issued per day through popular newswires, they came up with a number approaching 3,000, and this was back in 2009; the number is sure to have grown significantly since then. It’s unequivocal that a lot of these releases are a waste of time and resources, as spamming is a well known problem in PR. Just as sending too many press releases can damage your reputation, so too can not sharing your news with the marketplace, especially in today’s interconnected communications world where a news release begets a blog post begets a Tweet…

    Some types of announcements are best suited to a news release over another outbound tactic:

    • Executive appointments and hirings
    • Awards
    • New products versions
    • Events
    • Recruitment initiatives
    • Customer wins

    There are others and aspects of these announcements might be pitched using a story pitch to a targeted set of media, but in the main, these sorts of announcements suit putting out a release. Sending out keyword-rich releases that have been drafted with a keen eye to SEO will distribute the news far and wide and help you to harvest the news value associated with the subject of the release (assuming it’s properly followed up with the highest value targets.)

    Be sure that your latest news releases are achived in your online newsroom. Be sure that your online newsroom is built to best practices, as outlined in this post from our archives. If you don’t broadcast your latest news on the very channels that your organization owns, this includes your own website and your accounts on various social media channels, you’re missing a good opportunity to cross collateralize your marketing content.

    Select the outbound news approach that best suits the story you’re telling

    If your company has survey results, statistics, significant developments in terms of a market shift (either geographically or sectorally), then a news release, depending on your objectives for spreading this news, may not be the best way to go. Perhaps the news is best pitched to individual outlets or reporters. One high value piece may trump the “thud factor” that a lot of rebroadcast of your news release would create.

    What are the benefits of sharing your news with the marketplace?

    Market awareness is the chief benefit of disseminating news. Your existing and prospective partners, customers, media targets, analysts covering your space, investors and other stakeholders are made aware of what your company is up to and can make decisions about their engagement and level of interest in your company and its activities based on news that you share with the marketplace. If you don’t tell your marketplace that you’re expanding, that you’re under new leadership, that you’ve been recognized for an achievement or milestone, then they won’t know. Your company’s currency in the marketplace is value – news value and otherwise – and if you miss the chance to harvest that value, it’s a wasted opportunity: your competitor will be featured in a news story rather than you, prospective partners will rule you out as a valuable partner because you appear to be dormant or out of step with the rest of the market, sought after talent will neglect to send you their resume because they didn’t know you were looking… The effects ripple out across your market and put you at a competitive disadvantage. There’s a reason that publicly-traded companies are subject to disclosure rules. If your company does something material, it’s important to share that news with the marketplace. Private companies should follow suit, evaluating their activities and potentially newsworthy happenings to see if they are important enough to distribute. If so, then evaluate what tactic best suits the news and engage with your market appropriately. There’s nothing sadder than visiting a corporate news room to see it’s been more than a year since it’s been updated. Has that company done nothing newsworthy in that time? Doubtful. They’ve just let opportunity pass them by.

    Once upon a time…

    Take a fictitious company, ABC Corporation. Q2 & Q3 were packed with promotions, trade shows, product updates, executive shuffles and more. But you’d never know it by visiting their website, which was last updated in Q4 of last year. As a result, prospective clients who were doing web research on potential vendors to buy from didn’t add ABC to their long, let alone their short, list. And these prospective clients could likely have taken advantage of sales promotions that would have lowered their costs but since you didn’t publicize these discounts, they paid more to your competitor. ABC did add some prospects to its pipeline but could have certainly added more if the news about the latest additions and upgrades to the platform had been distributed. And ABC is having a difficult time filling open positions on their team or those that are applying don’t target their CVs to the vision of the new president, hired in Q1. But how could they when there’s no trace of the company’s new direction on the website and the company is not getting covered in media roundups and analyst reports on vendors in their space.

    This is an extreme example but as you can see neglecting to share your news with the marketplace can have widespread and lasting ramifications and more importantly, a negative impact on your bottom line.

    Image: Coles Marketing

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    Posted by: Linda Forrest on September 9, 2011

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    Posted in: Public and media relations — Leave a comment

    A new season for marketing: things to consider as you plan your fiscal 2012 budgets

    By Linda Forrestchangingleaves A new season for marketing: things to consider as you plan your fiscal 2012 budgets

    Now that those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer are drawing to a close, many marketers will be looking at the fall as a time to make plans for the year ahead. We’re big advocates of maintaining PR activity all thoughout the summer, especially in the modern era where media increasingly consists of bits and bytes that occur in real time as opposed to ink on dead trees. Unfortunately, not everyone takes our advice and so the fall is jam packed with PR activity, some of which won’t bear fruit until many months from now.

    With memories of the summer sun still fresh in your mind, it’s a good time to consider what your marketing plan for the year ahead will look like. The corporate world emerges from summer with a renewed vigor, ready to make plans for their upcoming fiscal year. With this comes the need to conduct a forensic analysis of your previous activities to determine what worked and what didn’t and why, explore what tactics you’re not currently using but could, budget for activities new and old and source resources whether they’re internal or external.

    An honest look at your marketing activities to date

    Let’s be honest – it’s easy to get settled into a marketing program that works well enough and ride it out for years. We did trade shows last year and the year before and we will do them evermore. Amen. But what aspects of your marketing program are failing you? Are you relying too heavily on traditional marketing activities that are delivering you modest results when the digital activities that could really move your market are dismissed out of hand because that’s not how we’ve done it before?

    Hopefully you’ve got in place measurement tools and metrics to gauge how your marketing activities are working for you. If you don’t, now’s the time to engage such tools. Benchmark activities, set goals, and measure the ROI on activities. In our analytical age, there’s really no good excuse not to. A thorough examination of what you’re doing, what you’ve done in the past and what could work for you in the future is in order.

    Additional tactics you’re considering, benefits and costs of each

    How long is a piece of string? This comment is bandied about here at inmedia and Francis Moran & Associates quite frequently. There is a huge number of marketing activities you could be doing, but which ones should you be doing? Armed with the knowledge of what’s working currently in your program, you can examine what other marketing tactics you should deploy.

    Earlier this year, Google surveyed 600 B2B marketers to find out what their previous year had looked like in terms of tactics, ROI, and plans for the year ahead. There’s a huge disconnect between what people are doing and what’s effective. The full and fascinating infographic is here, but here are some salient details from that survey:

    How did B2B marketers allocate their budgets in 2010?

    62% on traditional media (direct mail, trade shows, print advertising, sponsorships) versus 34% on digital marketing (email marketing, online content, SEO, SEM, display ads, social media, mobile)

    Yet 8 out of the top 10 most effective marketing channels are digital:

    8of102 A new season for marketing: things to consider as you plan your fiscal 2012 budgets

    The good news is that 69% of marketers surveyed planned to implement new digital tactics this year.

    Budgeting

    Budget is listed in that same survey as the biggest challenge, with 40% of respondents saying that they are concerned that they don’t have enough budget to fund their plans and deliver on goals. All the more reason to make each marketing dollar count. Rather than settle for tactics that have delivered lackluster results, focus on what works, expand into areas that show promise and evaluate all along the way. 31% of marketers responded that insufficient ROI analysis was their biggest challenge; plan for tactics that draw an obvious line between the activity and boosting your bottom line.

    Building your team

    31% of respondents said that limited staffing was a challenge. This is where teaming with a strategic marketing consultancy, to determine what program you should budget for and implement, and outsourced activities like PR can enhance your team. With the right program and the correct number of resources planning and implementing your marketing activities, marketing proves to be the investment rather than cost centre that it can be.

    Image: All Posters

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    Posted by: Linda Forrest on August 26, 2011

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    Posted in: Marketing strategy — Leave a comment

    The other 90% of the PR effort iceberg

    This is the next entry in our “Best of” series, in which we venture deep into the vault to replay blog opinion and insight that has withstood the test of time. Today’s post hails from April 2008. We welcome your feedback.

    Fotolia 27389812 XS The other 90% of the PR effort icebergBy Linda Forrest

    Today, I’m doing a lot of work that’s invisible to the client’s naked eye. Having previously posted on database maintenance, a “behind the scenes” task that is incredibly important to the integrity of the PR campaign, I thought I would post a few other tasks that your agency is regularly undertaking on your behalf, invisibly.

    As we’re nearing the end of launch campaigns for some new clients, I’m starting to get a feel for the full range of opportunities that exist in the mid- and long-term for these clients. This means I’m researching the published opportunities available in editorial calendars for target publications for these clients, establishing a list of relevant tradeshows and conferences where company executives could be spokespeople or where there might be value in attending for business development purposes (let’s hope they bear no resemblance to the cautionary tales mentioned yesterday), and generally getting a feel for the PR opportunity outside of the Tier 1, or most influential, media with whom we had in-depth conversations on our clients’ behalf during the launch phase and within which we have a firm handle on the opportunities forthcoming.

    This research will culminate in just a few short pages in the report to the client, but it takes a considerable amount of effort to aggregate the relevant data, weed through it for appropriateness and formulate it into a cohesive spreadsheet or report. Yet, all of this work is truly “behind the scenes” and typically, clients just see the finished product in the report and aren’t in the least aware of the hours we put in to get the raw data.

    Once we’ve got a fulsome view of the opportunities and have discussed with our clients which ones they would like to learn more about, the process again becomes about the behind-the-scenes work of sussing out who is writing the piece on the editorial calendar, what their angles will be, what sort of shape the piece will take and then determining whether there is an intersection between where our client`s interests lie and the particular piece. It’s inevitable that sometimes, these pursuits go nowhere because the client is not a fit for whatever reason. Still, all the data gathering and other hard work up to that point had to be done and is billable work. Like in the entertainment industry, there’s no such thing as an overnight sensation. A lot of hard work goes into getting results. Sometimes it pays off, and sometimes it doesn’t. It’s as simple as that.

    The process is similar for speaking opportunities – sometimes your spokesperson would be a good fit, sometimes they’re disqualified for any number of reasons. A considerable amount of hours were used, but unless there were results achieved, the work is invisible to the client. Because so many of our clients are such focused propositions, an immense amount of qualification goes into establishing target media and conferences for our clients. Knowing the space and having a firm understanding where the opportunities are most likely to lie reduces the amount of negative outcomes at the end of the exercise, but like the little duck calmly floating along in the pond, your agency’s legs are kicking like crazy underneath the surface in order to keep the program swimming along on a forward trajectory.

    I would be interested in the input of the other PR practitioners reading this post and invite them to add in the comments to the list of tasks that, although integral to the PR campaign, cannot be seen or measured by the client. What percentage of your time is spent on these tasks, versus the ones that the client can see?

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    Posted by: Linda Forrest on August 19, 2011

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    Posted in: Public and media relations, inmedia Public Relations — Leave a comment