Category Archives: Publicity

Surveys Can Be Great Publicity Tools for Ad Agency PR

Need to generate publicity for your agency or a client, but you don’t have a news hook?

Try doing a survey. CareerBuilder and Dunkin’ Donuts recently surveyed 4,700 U.S. employees to see which jobs had workers consuming the most coffee. Not exactly a hard-news story, but it’s an entertaining and interesting one that got a lot of attention for both companies.

The release of the study coincided with International Coffee Day.

It turns out that marketing/public relations professionals rank number two in overall coffee use, just behind scientists/lab technicians.

Other major coffee consumers include education administrators, editors/writers, healthcare administrators, physicians, food preparers, professors, social workers and financial professionals.

Not surprisingly—at least to us coffee drinkers—nearly half of all U.S. workers claim that they are less productive without coffee. (On second thought, that actually sounds low to me.)      

Surveys can be great attention-getters, and you don’t have to spend a lot of money to conduct one and publicize the results. Nor do you have to be with a big company to get noticed.

My friend and colleague Michael Gass, who specializes in helping ad agencies with new business development through social media, often conducts online surveys and polls through his Fuel Lines blog, where he reports and comments on results.

In addition to gathering opinions and data through your blog or Facebook, Survey Monkey is a cost-effective, easy-to-use polling tool.

Once the results are in, you can then share them:

•       On a company or agency blog

•       Through an article

•       Via news release distribution sites such as Business Wire, PR Newswire or PRWeb

•       By pitching them directly to reporters and bloggers as a trend story

Try timing the release of your results to tie into a relevant holiday or observance for added news value.

Chases Calendar of Events has a wealth of information about events, holidays, festivals, observances, famous birthdays and anniversaries taking place each day throughout the world. During certain times of the year you can even submit suggestions to Chases for new events or special days, weeks and months.

So, if you don’t find a special day to coincide with the trend you want to feature, make up you own and celebrate it!

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to advertising agencies and businesses.

Ad Agency PR: How to Improve Quotes in a News Release

How many times have you read a quote in a news release that sounded canned, stale and clearly was not something a person would actually say?

“…besides clichés, superlatives, and meaningless terms such as ‘cutting-edge,’ using poorly worded quotes will have reporters hitting the delete button before they read your third paragraph,” writes Laura Hale Brockway, author of the writing and editing blog impertinentremarks.com, in Ragan’s PR Daily.

She offers four tips for improving quotes in releases:

1. Trash those lazy verbs. Laura recommends replacing them with clear descriptions of your customers’ needs and how your product (or service) meets them. To which I would add: just be careful not to sound too promotional or sensational.

2. Keep them conversational. Quotes are more believable if they sound like something a person would actually say if you were talking with him or her.

3. Can you paraphrase? She contends (and I agree) that you can often improve a suggested quote your client or an executive gives you by paraphrasing it or breaking it up so that the quote is short and punchy.

4. Step up your interviewing skills. If you’re interviewing someone, ask for real-world examples, metaphors, epiphanies, etc. Doing so is likely to uncover interesting details that might otherwise be overlooked.

The more a news release looks and sounds like an article in a publication written by a journalist, the more likely it is to be taken seriously—assuming you’ve done your homework and targeted the right media outlets and reporters.

In my experience, quotes are often add-ons to news releases, and they aren’t given the time and attention they deserve. Ad agencies and their clients will benefit from taking a few extra steps to improve the quality of their quotes, and thereby improve their chances of them getting on reporters’ radar.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to advertising agencies and businesses.

Journalist Offers PR Pitching Tips

Ragan’s PR Daily recently ran an article titled, “Five Tips for PR Professionals from a Journalist.”

The author, Amy McCarthy, is a content strategist and editor in Dallas. She’s had a lot of PR pitches thrown her way, and some of them haven’t been very pretty:

“Reading pitches from publicists is part of my daily life as a content manager and Web editor, and sometimes they’re just cringe-worthy. When PR is bad, it’s really bad,” she writes.

Here are Amy’s top five pitching tips:

1. Do your homework. If you’re going to pitch me, it’s probably worth getting a little more information than that little blurb that Vocus gives you. Go to my site, look at some of my content, and see what we’re sharing! If you’re not a good fit, nothing that you can say is going to make you a good fit.

2. Do not mislead me. I know that every PR pro reading this blog is going to say that they’d never do something like that, and the majority wouldn’t, but there is a serious lack of disclosure in the PR industry. If a brand sponsors your expert client, you need to make that clear to me. My site isn’t for shilling products; it’s for providing value to my readers.

3. Understand that I am busy. I’m running an entire website and am extremely busy. There are plenty of things I could (and need to) be doing other than uploading your content to my site and making sure that your client’s name is properly italicized. Be respectful of journalists’ time. If you wouldn’t want them bugging you to death, don’t do it to them. Emailing me daily to ask whether your article is ready isn’t going to get it published any faster.

4. Check yourself. I can’t tell you how many times I get pitches with my name misspelled, horrible grammar, and other crimes against English. Spend a little time going over your release and making sure everything is correct. I know this sounds like a no-brainer, but if I were to take you on a tour of my inbox, you’d believe that a significant portion of the public relations industry hasn’t met spell- or grammar-check.

5. Provide me with something good. As a publicist, I know you’ve got to say that everything about your client is magical and wonderful. Unfortunately, as a journalist, that really doesn’t do much for me. I don’t want to hear about your “new and improved this or that,” but I would really like to hear about how your “new and improved this or that” is helping families save money, or how your “new and improved this or that” showers its purchaser with the finest jewels. Give me value, and I’ll give you coverage!

Good tips, Amy! Thanks for sharing them. There are probably many others that could be added to this list, but here’s a final tip written from my perspective as a former journalist:

6. Make my job easier. Because I’m so busy, the more you can provide me with relevant, factual information that is meaningful and targeted to my audience, the more I’m going to appreciate you and quite possibly reward you with coverage. And when I see a pitch from you in the future, I’ll take it seriously because I know you’re a credible PR person.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to advertising agencies and businesses.

WSJ Asks “How Much Is Free Publicity Worth?”

Trying to assign a value to publicity is a little bit like trying to nail jell-o to a wall. Still, clients want to have some idea of the return they’re getting for money spent to generate publicity, so over the years there have been a number of attempts to rate an article or broadcast interview on various factors and come up with a dollar value.

Carl Bialik, “The Numbers Guy” for The Wall Street Journal, raises this long-debated question again in his column, citing news media coverage of various events and asking what this coverage is really worth.

It’s a fair question, but one that’s very difficult to answer.

Max Markson, a publicist in Australia, gave it shot. According to Mr. Bialik, when a reporter asked him the value of a particular photo that received worldwide coverage, Mr. Markson replied it was worth $10.5 million.

He later admitted that he “pulled the figure out of the air” because the reporter was on deadline. And we wonder why people sometimes question PR’s credibility . . .

Rather than pulling numbers out of the air that have no apparent basis in reality, Ketchum Public Relations has a one-page “scorecard” to help simplify the media measurement process. As I previously mentioned awhile back in my blog, the Ketchum scorecard is a grid that rates coverage on a point scale based on the following:

  • Prominence of client mentioned
  • Prominence of position
  • Source of item (i.e. did it come from the company’s PR efforts or elsewhere)
  • Quality of primary messages
  • Quality of secondary messages
  • Format of presentation (a feature story with photos vs. a mention of the company)
  • Exposure index (how much exposure a story gets in a given media vehicle)
  • Favorability index
  • Audience reach

Of course, the Ketchum scorecard isn’t the only method of measuring publicity, nor is it a perfect system. But you can be sure it’s a whole lot better than Mr. Markson’s method.

I don’t know how much the photo Mr. Markson valued at $10.5 million is really worth, but I do know the value of credibility and integrity: priceless.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

 

Ad Agencies: Here’s an Easy Way to Get Publicity for Your Clients

One of the easiest ways to get publicity for a client is to be able to comment on what’s already in the news, such as trends or breaking news.

Some time ago I read about a PR agency that advised a client with expertise about animal behavior as follows:  “Whenever a kid gets attacked by a dog somewhere in America, you need to contact newspapers and radio/TV shows in that city immediately and let them know you can comment on why it might have happened and how this attack could have been prevented.”

The agency suggested the client use Google Alerts to learn when a dog attack story hits the news. 

Within 90 days of using this strategy, the client had gotten publicity in more than 40 different media outlets.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

Ad Agencies: Avoid Confusing News Release Headlines

During my days as an editor for a healthcare magazine, I received some interesting mail.  Here’s a news release headline a well-meaning hospital PR executive sent me one day:

CDH TO HOST LAPAROSCOPIC HERNIORRAPY PRECEPTORSHIP

Huh? I’m guessing one in a half-million or so people would have a clue what that headline was about.  And ask yourself: how much interest does it generate?  The release itself was fairly well written, and once I read the first few sentences I realized the hospital was hosting a seminar about advancements in hernia operations.

Trouble is, most reporters wouldn’t get past the headline – the release would end up in the recycle bin before the first paragraph was read.  Why not just say in the headline, in simple terms, what the seminar is about?

Headlines are vital to attracting interest and getting people to read the release or article, similar to how the wording on a subject line can make the difference between you reading or deleting an e-mail.

If you are handling your ad agency’s PR, make sure your news release headlines are compelling and readable, or risk having the releases discarded before they even gets read.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

Ad Agencies Top 20 Topics for Publicity

Agencies often get so busy marketing their clients that they fail to market themselves.  Publicity is a great way to get your name out in the marketplace, whether its local consumer media, industry publications.  Not only is publicity free, but it also has much more credibility than advertising.

Agency executives sometimes overlook the breath of publicity opportunities that are available to them.  Here are my “Top 20 Topics” to consider:

  1. Agency awards
  2. New clients
  3. New employees
  4. Employee promotions
  5. Human interest stories about employees
  6. Community involvement
  7. Client promotional success stories
  8. Introducing a new service your agency is providing
  9. Services or commentary that address newsworthy topics/trends
  10. Appointments to boards
  11. Publications (articles, books, etc.)
  12. New offices/geographical expansion
  13. Mergers/strategic alliances
  14. Trends, projections, forecasts
  15. Speeches
  16. Sponsorships
  17. Mentoring programs
  18. Pro bono work
  19. Guest columns
  20. Case studies that could become feature stories

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

Ad Agencies: Add Patch.com to Your Media List for Local News

Special thanks to Joan Stewart’s “The Publicity Hound” e-newsletter for bringing Patch.com to my attention.

Patch is a community-specific news and information platform that covers more than 600 communities and neighborhoods in the United States. And it is still growing.

Headquartered in New York City, Patch is run by professional editors, writers, photographers and videographers who live in or near the communities it serves.

The website’s map makes it easy to find out whether your community is covered. If so, or if you are pitching a story for a client in another community covered by Patch, you simply e-mail your news tip, calendar event or announcement to the appropriate contact. You also can participate in discussions.

When making a pitch it’s important to keep in mind that Patch focuses exclusively on local news and events.

Joan invites readers that have gotten news placed on Patch to share their experiences at her blog.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

 

Ad Agencies: Talking Points Help Your Clients Stay Focused During Interviews

Talking points – also known as key messages – have gotten a bum rap. For many people, the term “talking points” is synonymous with stonewalling and lack of candor.

Politicians, in particular, are adept at the art of saying what they want to say, regardless of the question they’re asked. If they don’t like the question, they silently make up their own and answer it, making sure they get their messages across.

There are, however, some good and honorable uses of talking points. For one thing, they help the person being interviewed stay focused and on track. It often helps to condense what you want to say into a sentence or two, to make sure you communicate succinctly and effectively.

In this age of sound bites, thinking through a few key points you want to make prior to an interview with a reporter is a must.

Talking points also can help you avoid landmines that otherwise could come back to bite you later on. Of course, it becomes obvious when a person is only spouting talking points, so they need to be used carefully to provide guidance to the conversation rather than being the conversation exclusively.

Recently I helped a couple of my clients develop talking points for situations they were facing. Just the process of working through the messaging was useful because it generated discussion about not only what should be said – and not said – but how the words we ultimately chose would come across to others.

If your agency hasn’t prepared your clients by helping them determine what to say and how to say it, beware that interviews can and sometimes do backfire, and the consequences may be far-reaching and unpleasant.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

Journalists Survey Part 2

What’s the biggest concern that journalists have about materials they receive from corporate communications and public relations professionals? According to the new Bulldog Reporter/Cision Journalists Survey on Media Relations Practices, it’s that the information is written like advertising, not journalism.

Following closely behind is the complaint that the material is not relevant to their work.

In addition, half of responding journalists complained that e-mails from communications professionals don’t highlight why readers would care about the subject.

While nearly 70% of journalists surveyed rated PR and corporate communications professionals as substantially or extremely professional, when it comes to understanding their media outlets, 53% said communications professionals have only “some understanding.” Ouch.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.