News is all around us

Generating news about your company is vitally important when it comes to staying in the public eye – for all the right reasons. In the latest in our series about how to get the most out of PR and Marketing, Brian Dolby, Managing Director of Proactive PR, takes us through how to get into the news – and stay there.

A funny thing, news. One second you are in it – the next you are forgotten. Or to quote an old saying, today’s news is tomorrow’s fish and chip wrapper!

You can’t see news – you can’t touch it. You certainly don’t want to be the subject of bad news, yet getting your news across in a meaningful and consistent way remains the most powerful marketing tool in an organisation’s “reputation” armoury.

One of the most powerful things about news is that someone else is doing the job for you! Someone else is writing about your achievements and – if you have done your job properly in the first place – they are only too glad to use your words largely the way you wrote them in the first place. That someone is the editor, reporter, freelancer or blogger that receives your news.

The trick is to make the news relevant, timely and not too promotional. As an ex-newsroom journalist myself, I developed a sixth sense for marketing spin. Going “a claim too far” can ruin a reputation forever. Today’s media people are rushed off their feet – don’t forget the dotcom bubble burst and the recession hit them too! – but the ones worth talking to know their subject and don’t suffer fools easily.

Despite everything you might think, effective Public Relations is about being honest with the media. Not every story will be the greatest on the planet and the sooner you accept it, the better. If you take this approach with your contact they will appreciate it and then when you do have “front page” news, they’ll believe you and listen.

So what makes news and where do you find it?

It’s an easy question to ask but a complex one to answer. Whatever you might think, news is all around you – it just might take a “news hound” to find it. So, how do you start, and where do you look for the raw material you need?

The quick win route is obviously the sales department. This is hopefully where the new orders are flowing in and new contract announcements are the bread and butter of any campaign. But it’s not as simple as it seems. Most sales people – no matter how sympathetic to the PR cause – are too busy moving from one sell, and its commission, to another and you will need to be wise enough to go beyond being told that “the customer isn’t interested”, or “the customer wants to see everything installed first”. Try and get direct access to the order book if you can.

Another strategy, which, I guess today would be termed “out of the box” thinking, once created a rich vein of material for me and the sadly departed Marconi. Instead of relying of sales staff, we went back to source, right back to the factory, for our news. As a result, my best contact in the whole company was a little known fork lift truck driver from Coventry, who reported to the PR department about every single box he loaded at goods outward. This meant we could track orders back to the sales team, rather than waiting for them to “remember” to tell us.

After sales, you have got the kit itself – the product. Anything new from product development is great material as any company needs to be seen as innovative and leading the market. The watchword here however is to be careful not to get the market too excited about buying Mark 3 when Year End salvation depends on ongoing demand for Mark 2! As with the Fork Lift truck driver example, certain individuals can be key contacts for the news hungry PR department.

Read the full interview in Satellite Evolution Asia magazine. Register for your copy now!

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