DohertyWhite - Quick Guide to PR

Digital Marketing and PR Generate more leads, generate more revenue PR Quick G uide February 2010

THE VALUE OF PR C onnecting directly to your audience PR is a great way to promote your business. You can Ten years ago, when you wanted to communicate a generate a big impact at low cost compared to other message to your audience, you issued a press release to a forms of marketing. PR is also a critical element in any selection of papers, TV and radio stations. If you were online marketing program, helping you draw visitors to lucky journalists found what you’d written interesting your web-site. In this Quick Guide we provide some enough to publish or broadcast, and your audience heard guidelines you can use when preparing a PR campaign. your story. Journalists and editors were the middlemen We discuss setting objectives - deciding what you’re who decided what your audiences read or saw or heard trying to achieve before you start. We emphasize the about you. importance of knowing who you want to communicate with – your audiences. We also talk about the structure and content of a press release itself. But most importantly we encourage you to be interesting, and even better be unexpected. Finally we’ll provide tips and recommendations on the use of photography and press release distribution. But before describing how to approach a PR campaign, we’d like to highlight three aspects of PR that are becoming increasingly important: ● PR’s role in search engine marketing ● The ability to connect with audiences online ● The increasing volume of messages Today journalists still play a crucial role in communicating with your public, but the picture is more complex. As well as reaching your audiences through the press, you can now PR and S earch E ng ine M arketing reach them directly through your website, blog, and When we think of PR most of us think of press releases networks like LinkedIn, and they can reach you directly issued for the launch of a new product or service. But too. The challenge with PR is learning how to manage these various conversations to your best advantage. today the real value of PR is increasingly from the impact on traffic to your company web-site. Later in this document we’ll provide tips on ensuring your PR helps support your online marketing plans but the principles are pretty simple. Ideally you would like your company to be easily found on the internet. That means you should aim to come near the top of the page when someone searches for your type of product or service. One of the main factors determining how high- up that list you come is how well linked your site is i.e. how many other web-sites link to your site. If you . ensure there are links on your press releases back to your site, every time an online publication picks up one of your press releases you gain some inbound links from that publication, making it more likely that your site will rank higher in the search results. © DohertyWhite 2009 1

The volume problem DEFINE YOUR TAR G E T AUDIE NC E S Many of us are drowning in a sea of email, news alerts, Who are you trying to communicate with? Where are they? and RSS feeds. Journalists and editors are no What do they read, listen to? Where do they go when exception. There are so many people competing to they’re online? There are some obvious audiences such as communicate their messages that it sometimes makes it ‘prospective customers’, ‘potential investors’, but you hard to get yourself heard, and the subject line of your should think a little about how you define these groups. email is all that stands between you and the delete key. You also need to look at people who might influence your But that’s where some of the old-fashioned PR basics prospective customers. Journalists who work in your will help. Can you write a headline that makes people industry or geography are an example, as are analysts, want to know what happened? Can you write a press bloggers and influential online commentators. release that captures people’s interest and imagination? You can use various methods to define your target audiences. In business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing you could define your prospective customers in terms of You need to combine this ability to create compelling demographics e.g. ‘white urban females aged 20 to 35’. stories with some digital marketing know-how to ensure You can also create ‘buyer personas’. These are detailed these stories get distributed as widely and effectively as descriptions of a representative target customer, including possible. First, though, you need to decide what you their day-to-day routine, what they read, listen to and plan to achieve with your PR program. watch, right down to their name and street address. S E TTING OB JEC TIVE S “Defining your audiences helps you What results do you want from your PR program? Do you identify the media you need to target – want to publicize a new product or draw attention to the publications, journalists and social your presence in a new market? Set specific and networks” realistic objectives. For example, if you are selling In business-to-business (B2B) marketing most companies financial services technology, a reasonable goal might still think of segmentation in terms of industry, company be “to obtain coverage in at least 4 financial technology size and geography, but here too people are beginning to trade journals in the next quarter.” You can be extend the buyer profiles to take into account role, needs, specific, identifying the frequency you want to achieve behavior and preferences. A good starting point would be with particular media and the geographic regions you to look at the customers you’ve had success with in the want to target. past 18 months and see if these indicate some potential audiences you should target. Think about how you sold to We suggest that you define a high-level set of them, who on the customer side was involved in the purchase decision, what was the path through the sale, objectives for the next 12 to 18 months, with more what reasons did the customer give for choosing your specific goals and milestones specified for each product or service. This will help you specify your upcoming quarter, enabling you to review what you’ve audiences in a little more detail e.g. “technical achieved to date and adjust your activities going .influencers”, “operational managers”, “financial forward. gatekeepers”, “corporate architects” etc. Defining your audiences helps identify the media you need When setting these objectives, you should make sure to target – the publications you should focus on, the they are aligned with your overall marketing plan so journalists you should talk to, the social networks you that all of your promotional activities reinforce each should interact with. other. © DohertyWhite 2009 2

C R E ATE A PLAN Think about dis tribution Your press release can be distributed to different target In PR, as in most areas of life, it’s good to have a plan. audiences in different ways, so it’s worth thinking a little You have defined your objectives and your target about the mechanisms you can use. Apart from emailing audiences. Now you should list the sequence of actions press releases to your target journalists and online you have to carry out to achieve those objectives and newswires, you can also include it in the company reach those audiences. newsletter, post it to your blog, and ‘tweet’ it on Twitter. You should actively seek ways to ‘repurpose’ anything you write so you can get it distributed to as many places as S et a s chedule possible. Decide what your press release schedule is going to be – For really newsworthy opportunities, such as a major are you going to aim for one press release per quarter, investment in your company you should consider doing a per month, per week? Have a think about how often full scale press launch. In this case you may be looking for TV and radio as well as print and online coverage, which you can produce something that’s newsworthy. If you will require extra effort and preparation. try to churn out similar messages too frequently you’ll turn off journalists and editors. But if you leave too WR ITING A PR ES S R E LEAS E large a gap between releases you’ll slip off your audience’s radar. At this point you may think “isn’t the To be effective your press release needs to be interesting, schedule determined by when something interesting well written and brief. We’ll take each part of the happens, not just when we schedule a press release?” release, from the topic through to the content and highlight some basic rules you can follow to increase the Well, it’s a bit of both. Sure, unscheduled events like a chances of getting coverage. new sale being closed are opportunities to issue press releases. But you may also have to manufacture C hoos ing a topic opportunities to fill out your schedule, and that requires There are two key considerations when choosing a topic a little creativity. Quite often there is a lot going on in for your press release. First, it has to be compelling. an organization that genuinely is newsworthy and just What makes a story compelling? A combination of factors – requires a little digging: for example new product something unexpected, some kind of struggle, with drama innovations, recent deals, successful project and emotion involved. The ‘Holy Grail’ of PR is getting a completions or new senior executives. story that is unexpected and has an element of struggle, disagreement, friction – “Man bites dog”. Try to think of When setting your schedule, get a good understanding your topics in terms of a struggle – beating tough of the journalists you’ll be dealing with. What are their competition to win a contract against the odds; struggling deadlines? Daily, weekly, monthly? Some outlets may against adverse circumstances to achieve some milestone; need the releases with them on a specific date each .breaking through a technological barrier to deliver some month, or weekly by 12 noon on Monday, others on new innovation. Can you also pick out an element in your Sunday night. Contact your target journalists, talk to story that’s unexpected, that involves drama or emotion? them and find out. You’re not trying to write a screenplay, but you should aim to make your press release as compelling as possible. © DohertyWhite 2009 3

Second, keep your target audiences in mind. How does When looking at your PR schedule you could plan in your story affect them? Why would they care about advance to have a survey carried out or a “Top 10” paper reading this press release? Does it relate to any benefit written to provide you with material for releases when you they can obtain? Does it tell them about something need them, rather than relying on newsworthy events to simply happen. they should be concerned about or that threatens them in some way? . Given that most editors are going to decide whether to S earch marketing and PR PR has a huge impact on your search marketing. You even look at your press release based on the subject should be thinking of the online element of your press line of the email you send, you really have to get that release as you pick your topic. Do you know the keywords line right, and then use it as the heading for your press and key-phrases your company web-site is optimized for? release. Try to stick to 10 words or less. And when You should try to use one of these in your heading and you have chosen your topic, make sure to use the active then in the body of your press release, along with links voice when writing the headline i.e. “John Smith scoops back to your web-site. prize” not “Prize awarded to John Smith”. Search marketing is a huge topic in itself, but we’ll discuss a few concepts and tools that are relevant to PR. First of From time to time you’ll have to manufacture a reason all there is the question of keywords. When selecting to issue a press release, or have pre-scheduled an event keywords you are trying to guess which words and phrases or activity that will provide a reason for one. Talk to people will use when looking for you, your product or everyone you can (your colleagues, your customers) to service. If you pick very popular terms there will be lots generate ideas for PR. And try to emulate the best. of other companies competing for them, making it hard to Look at PR award winners such the PRSA’s Silver Anvil get to the top of the search results. Alternatively you can winners to see if they inspire or suggest ideas you could select less popular phrases making it easier to come out on top, but for terms which draw less traffic. The evaluation use. Some standard candidate topics you can consider and selection of keywords is known as keyword analysis. include: As you consider your list of candidate key words, you ● New product or service launch should ask customers and partners what phrases they use ● Publication of a survey or research when looking for your kinds of services. Look at ● Celebrity endorsement competitor sites to see what keywords they are targeting. ● Winning an award Make use of Google’s free Insights for Search tool to look ● New contract or customer at keyword search volumes. And use the keyword ● Announcing a new partnership generation tools that are available too, such as Google Keywords and Wordtracker. These will all help you ● New senior executive choose a set of keywords for your site. ● Major investment or business expansion Once selected, you should then ensure that your press ● Attending or speaking at a major trade event releases are keyword optimized i.e. that a keyword is used ● Sponsorship of an event or charity if possible in the press release heading and is then used ● Publication of a book or report again in the body of the press release. You should ● Office expansion hyperlink from the keyword or phrase back to a ● Publication of something like “Top 10 tips on ...” corresponding page on your website. © DohertyWhite 2009 4

The body of the Pres s R eleas e Las t parag raph and contact details You’ve managed to convince an editor or journalist to Finish up your press release with a standard ‘About <your open your email based on the headline. Now what? company>’ boilerplate paragraph. At the end of this First, write in your dateline – i.e. the city and date of paragraph make sure you provide valid and up-to-date release. Then you have about 5 seconds to make your contact details of someone who can handle any queries story hit home in the first sentence of the first relating to the press release – include their phone, email, paragraph. Take the most interesting element of your a company URL and optionally include Twitter, LinkedIn release and place it in the first sentence. Don’t waste and Facebook links as well. time with introductory or background information. As a last step proofread and spell check what you have Later in the first or second paragraph you will also have to provide some substantive details – the “who, what, written. If there is a quote attributed to someone, where, when and why” of the story. Journalism classes particularly someone outside your organization, you should talk about using the “inverted pyramid” i.e. the idea ensure you obtain their approval at this point too. Check that you keep the most interesting information at the all the links you have in the press release, and make sure very top of the release then add in the less essential you have used as many as you can. elements as you work your way down. One tip you can try – after you’ve written a first draft of the press Prepare variations release, try moving sentences from the bottom of the If you plan to send your press release to a lot of different first or second paragraph up to the top. You’ll often audiences, consider writing variations for each of those find you’ve buried the most interesting sentence in the audiences. Yes, this is more time consuming, but it also middle of your first draft. increases the likelihood that your release will gain You should aim to be brief - 400 words for the entire coverage. This is particularly true if you are running press release is fine. As Voltaire said, “the best way to campaigns that you want picked up by local and regional be boring is to leave nothing out”. Get the main points press. of the story across, using an active voice. By convention most company press releases will contain at PHOTOG R APHY least one quote from your own firm, possibly one from a You should include professionally taken photographs with partner or customer. Try to avoid really obvious as many of your press releases as possible. A good clichés, the kinds of phrases that make readers mentally photograph can double or triple the pick-up on a press turn off. Always try to think of an unexpected angle that will catch the audience’s attention. release. Photography budgets are being reduced at a lot of publications and they’ll welcome any high quality Regarding style, this is one area where you don’t need images you can provide. Online news media also like to be creative when writing press releases. Try to write having an image to go with the words. And if you work like a journalist, with the goal of conveying your with a good photographer, the picture will become the message as efficiently and in as few words as possible. story, enough to generate publicity by itself. Complex words and sentence structures create a barrier between you and your audience. Try reading your copy Don’t attach some grainy amateur shot you’ve taken with aloud – if it flows well then you’re doing a good job; if .your cell /mobile phone. Self produced images and video it seems awkward to read then you should revise. are fine for your blog and other social media marketing, Keeping words, sentences and the overall structure of but they don’t work for PR - you have to supply well- your release clear and simple will help you and your composed, professionally taken shots with good lighting. audience. Some tips for PR photographs: © DohertyWhite 2009 5

● Avoid boring and clichéd set-ups – e.g. someone ● Blog - Post an entry on your blog mentioning and sitting beside an open laptop, someone with hands linking to the press release (but don’t simply cut and folded across their chest looking up from the paste the press release here – writing for a blog is more bottom of a stairway. Use your imagination or ask informal than for a press release). your photographer to do so ● Twitter - Tweet a reference to your press release on ● Avoid having more than three people in the Twitter photograph; one or two works best ● Newswires - Post your press release to a newswire ● Try to have shots on location that are linked to the service. subject of the release There are a range of newswires, ranging from free to fairly ● Have professional photographs taken of company expensive. Examples include: executives who are likely to be mentioned in your ● PR Newswire – www.prnewswire.com press releases so you can supply them when ● BusinessWire – www.businesswire.com requested by editors. Update these regularly. ● SourceWire – www.sourcewire.com ● Have interior and exterior shots of your company’s main offices taken too for the same reason. ● MarketWire – www.marketwire.com ● Provide a range of photographs when sending the ● PR.com – www.pr.com . release – photo editors like to make the final We’ve had mixed experience with the newswires, but selection, not have it made for them by you. that’s generally down to the content – a good press release ● If you’re looking for local press coverage in with an interesting story has a life of its own; something multiple locations, include local photographs that uninspired will refuse to come to life no matter how much are properly captioned. It’s an obvious point – you spend pumping it down the wire. local papers love to print photographs of local people. M ONITOR ING PR C OVE R AG E DIS TR IB UTING THE PR ES S R E LE AS E Ten year ago PR agencies would have used clipping Your aim is to get your press release in front of the agencies to monitor their coverage. Today there are a target audiences you identified earlier. Some of the range of online mechanisms you can use to assess where ways to distribute the release include: your press releases are being picked. The first tool you ● Email- send it to the list of journalists, analysts and should use is Google alerts, a free Google service that lets other influencers that you identified earlier. Just you set daily and weekly alerts for the occurrence of paste the copy of your press release into the body particular terms and phrases. For example, you can set up of the email. Do not send the release as an alerts to catch any time your company name is used, or attachment ● Web-site - Post the press release in the news the names of competitors, or to tell you when your section of your web-site. Ask your web designer to product or service category is mentioned. enable visitors to sign up for RSS feeds or subcribe .There are a huge variety of tools to monitor your presence via email for further news. And make all of your on social media. Taking Twitter as an example, you can pages, including your news section, “bookmarkable” use Monitter to determine how your communications are for other websites like delicious and stumbleupon. being picked up on that network. This increases the chances people will bookmark and share links to your site. © DohertyWhite 2009 6

AB OUT DOHE R TYWHITE DohertyWhite is a Demand Generation and Digital Marketing and PR company that helps you promote your business and generate sales leads. We help business-to- business (B2B) technology companies use web-site structure, PR, search engine optimization, pay-per-click ads, email and social media marketing to rapidly increase lead pipeline and sales conversions. We also help you use offline marketing tools to increase the impact of your digital marketing activities. We generate media coverage to build your brand by ensuring your target audiences know who you are, what you offer and why you're different. We can help you reengineer your sales process, define and plan your marketing programs, and help you execute the required marketing activities, including online and standard ad campaigns, PR, email marketing and promotional events. C ONTAC T US DohertyWhite DohertyWhite 50 Sycamore Road Colab Innovation Centre Glasnevin Letterkenny Institute of Technology Dublin 11 Donegal Ireland Ireland Mob: +353 86 383 8981 Tel: +353 749 381986 www.dohertywhite.com http://blogs.dohertywhite.com/ Email: info@dohertywhite.com

DohertyWhite - Quick Guide to PR

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DohertyWhite - Quick Guide to PR — Document Transcript

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