Category Archives: Publicity

Journalists Survey Has Good and Bad News for PR

There’s good news and bad news in a new media relations practices survey of more than 1,700 journalists and editors.

First, the good news: More than 90% of respondents say they rely on public relations for some of their story ideas.

The bad news: Nearly 60% say the relevance of the materials they receive comes up short, citing it as their top problem with PR.

The survey, which was sponsored by Bulldog Reporter
and Cision, contains some interesting information. Here’s a sample:

• Some 45% of journalists report that the communications professionals they work with don’t understand which subjects they cover.
• Nearly 27% say communications professionals don’t understand the subjects they are pitching.
• More than 30% report they cannot find information they need on corporate websites, and nearly 32% specifically say they can’t find the name and/or telephone number of a communications professional on the corporate website.

While these are embarrassing stats for PR professionals, they’re also fairly easy to correct. Learn as much as possible about a specific subject before contacting the reporter covering it, educate yourself on the subject you want to pitch, and then make it easy for reporters to contact you.

If you’ve ever had difficulty finding your way around a city and wondered why there wasn’t better signage, you’ll get an idea of the frustration a busy journalist experiences when trying to find what he or she needs on your ad agency’s or client’s website.

Take a few minutes to visit your site as if you’ve never been there before – how easy is it to find your way around? Then ask some other people outside your company to do the same thing. You may find your website needs a bit of work to make it more journalist friendly. Not a big deal to fix, but the payoff could be great.

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

Ad Agencies: Write Your Own Story at CNN’s iReport

Pitching national news media can be challenging, frustrating and time consuming. Identifying and getting to the right reporter or assignment editor is tough enough, but even with a good, well-targeted story there’s still a lot of competition.

Now, you can take things into your own hands at CNN through iReport, which offers opportunities to write your own story and possibly get television network coverage.

“Welcome to iReport, where people take part in the news with CNN. Your voice, together with other iReporters, helps shape how and what CNN covers everyday,” is the way viewers are greeting upon arriving at the website.

The Assignment Desk section tells you what sources CNN is seeking at a given time, although your story can be about something entirely different.

Still, it helps to know what the network is interested in hearing about at a given time, and you at least can take some comfort in knowing the site is being monitored by people who report the news.

There also are some helpful tips about the ingredients of a good story, as well as advice about photos, videos and recording the sound of your story.

If CNN runs a story you submitted through iReport, I’d enjoy hearing about it.

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

Ad Agencies: Media Training Can Help Your Clients Avoid Blunders

A few days ago Carly Fiorina, the Republican nominee in California’s Senate race, got caught in one of the oldest media tricks around: an open microphone. While waiting for a CNN interview she got a bit too chatty, questioning why another Republican candidate would choose to appear on Sean Hannity’s program. Then, she took a swipe at her opponent’s hairstyle as “Sooooooooooooo yesterday.” Of course, she had no idea everything she said was being recorded.

The gaff has made the rounds on the Internet, and while some are describing the incident as simply a mistake by a novice candidate, she should have known better. One would hope this sort of thing would have been covered in her media training sessions (she did have media training before running for office, didn’t she?). Perhaps she had been warned about being on guard at all times, including before and after an interview, and just got careless.

We all make mistakes, but some are more costly than others. Fortunately for Ms. Fiorina, this incident is merely embarrassing. It certainly could have been worse.

Ad agencies that advise and prepare clients for media interviews should not take for granted that their clients will automatically remember to be vigilant around reporters, especially if they begin to feel comfortable in their surrounds. A safe assumption is that everything is on the record and may be used. It’s something that can’t be said too often.

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

Ad Agencies: Know the Seven Traits of Highly Effective News Releases

Joseph Miller, product manager for EON: Enhanced Online News, Business Wire San Antonio, recently evaluated “hit” news releases and what they have in common. His criteria for hit releases were getting the most reads or page views on EON.

According to Miller, the top traits of successful news releases are:

1. 87% included at least one link in one form or another in the body of the release

2. 73% incorporated some special formatting within the body of the release, whether it be bold, italics, underlining or an embedded image

3. 68% had a sub-headline

4. 58% included the company name in the release headline

5. 35% included a photo or video, with the vast majority of those including a photo only

6. 23% encouraged social sharing or engagement within the body of the release, typically Facebook or Twitter

7. 5% had special characters (e.g. registration trademark or trademark) in the headline, which may indicate special characters are not particularly useful.

Nearly 60% of the best releases had more than 500 words, and 10 am and 12 pm ET were tied for the most frequent distribution times. For more information about his findings, visit:

http://blog.businesswire.com/2010/05/06/seven-traits-of-highly-effective-press-releases/

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

How Ad Agencies Can Help Reporters Discover Their Clients

About three months ago, I started handling PR for a Chicago hedge-fund firm called Steel Vine Investments.

Spencer Patton, the firm’s founder and chief investment officer, had already forged a relationship with Dow Jones, and he was regularly quoted by DJ reporters on various movements in the commodities market.

One of those stories was picked up by The Wall Street Journal, so he had a good start before I began working with him.

I built on this initial coverage by sending introductory e-mails about Steel Vine to a variety of financial media, which resulted in several additional interviews.  We also created a free weekly newsletter that provides expert insights into the commodities market, and announced the newsletter through a PR Web-distributed news release.

A couple days ago, Spencer was contacted by a business writer for Associated Press, who found him after doing an Internet search for a commodities source.

He subsequently was quoted in the AP story, which received extensive online pick up from major media such as ABC News, BusinessWeek, CBS News, CNBC, Forbes, MSN and Yahoo Finance, as well as newspapers throughout the nation.

I’m fortunate to have a client who “gets it” when it comes to the value of PR and is a gifted communicator who really knows his stuff.  It also doesn’t hurt that his fund has had seven months of consecutive gains and outperformed the S&P 500 by 22.56%.

But more than anything else, this is a textbook example how publicity begets publicity.

Ad agencies that know the secret of using publicity to build their clients’ reputations, and understand how to make them “discoverable” as experts in their fields, will find it much easier to retain these clients long term.

Clients who are responsive, articulate and competent will find reporters coming back to them for future stories.  They also may hear from reporters who learn about them not through a PR pitch but from other media sources.

The result is a stream of ongoing publicity – and a happy client. 

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

Ad Agencies: Expand News Reach through PR Web’s Partnership with Zemanta

PR Web’s partnership with Zemanta, a free content discovery tool that automatically recommends relevant content to bloggers as they work on posts, is a smart way to expand a news release’s reach.

According to a release announcing the partnership, if a PR Web customer’s release is considered relevant by Zemanta’s recommendation engine, it will be suggested as related reading to bloggers using the application. 

“We are providing a better way to connect our customers with the blogging community,” Jiyan Wei, director of Product Management at PRWeb, says in the release. “The Zemanta engine ensures that relevant customer content is provided to bloggers — who have opted to subscribe to Zemanta’s application. It’s both a savvy and friendly means to boost visibility for our customers in the social media space.”

Social media has become an increasingly significant way for ad agencies to reach target audiences, and getting news to bloggers who want it should be a vital part of a PR strategy.

While it’s relatively easy to look up traditional media outlets and reporters through directories and Internet searches, identifying appropriate bloggers is more of a challenge.  Zemanta helps solve that dilemma.

PR Web is Zemanta’s first newswire partner, and the arrangement is something that should benefit both organizations as well as ad agencies looking for ways to get their clients’ news in front of more people who have an interest in it.

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

Commercial Celebrating Life Draws Fire from Many in Advertising World

Judging from the Ad Age Web site comments, a Super Bowl commercial titled “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life” is highly controversial and upsetting to many.

The 30-second spot features University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother. Tebow, the first sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy, is an outspoken pro-life Christian who’s not shy about sharing his faith publicly. The spots were purchased by Focus on the Family, a favorite boogey man for those who despise traditional values.

An Ad Age article about the spot frames it in the context of other controversial Super Bowl ads, some of which were downright outrageous and in extremely poor taste. I guess it’s a sign of the times that celebrating life and family falls into that category.

This spot has struck quite a few nerves and received tons of publicity before it even airs. Which make for a pretty good ad, don’t you think?

http://adage.com/superbowl10/article?article_id=141581#comments

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

Ad Agencies: PRWeb Launches News Release Creation Tool

PRWeb has simplified its news release submission process, which is welcome news.

The old method always seemed a bit awkward to me, but now with a streamlined approach users have what PRWeb calls “a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) experience,” which means users can create and manage content within a news release template.

In the 10+ years it has been around, PRWeb has proven itself to be a very effective way to increase online visibility. Now, the process itself has gotten easier and more user friendly, and new features reportedly will be added in the months ahead.

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

A Helpful Tool for Ad Agencies: RadioGuestList.com

RadioGuestList.com is a free service that matches guests with expertise on particular topics with the hosts who want to interview them. Radio talk show, podcast, online radio show, satellite radio and TV program bookers and producers use it to discover new talk show interview guests.

You can be notified when a show is looking for a particular type of expert by signing up at http://www.radioguestlist.com. When the site gets a request from a talk show host, you’ll receive an e-mail with details. It’s up to you whether you want to respond to the opportunity.

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

Google Alerts Alert Ad Agencies to News

Google Alerts can help ad agencies keep on top of news in particular areas related to them and their clients. I have one set up for each client so that I know what is being said and where there may be opportunities for follow-up stories.

You also can keep track of what is being reported about your agency and your clients, as well as competitors. Best of all, Google Alerts are free. To set up your own alerts, go to http://www.google.com/alerts.

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