Earlier this week, I was once again reminded of the reality facing our “traditional media” landscape as 33 of the top daily newspapers sought out bankruptcy protection.

Among those in the “who’s who” list of papers included The Philadelphia Enquirer, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and Minneapolis Star Tribune. Honestly, I’m not one bit surprised by this news nor should anyone in the media or PR industry be shocked at these recent events.

Late last year the New York Times published a story entitled, “Newspaper Circulation Continues to Decline Rapidly.” The only positive (neutral) news coming out of last year’s study was the following excerpt:

“The exceptions among the nation’s biggest newspapers were USA Today and The Wall Street Journal, two national papers and the two largest in circulation, which were virtually unchanged, at 2.3 million for USA Today and 2 million for The Journal on weekdays. Neither paper publishes on Sundays. Among more than 100 papers with weekday circulation above 100,000, none had more than a fractional increase.”

Do you think it’s a coincidence that USA Today and The Wall Street Journal are also two of the earliest adopters of a strong online presence?  In fact, I remember the exact day (October 17, 2005) when The Wall Street Journal decided to shrink its print edition pushing readers to their website for the most up-to-date news and in-depth stories.  I also remember people complaining that the WSJ was moving towards a tabloid format and it was a risky move.

The reality is without an online presence (or focus), these daily newspapers don’t stand a shot.  In fact, unless these surviving daily newspapers can dive into the local grassroots journalism to differentiate thier papers…they too will be one of the many newspaper casualties.

What are your thoughts about the future of newspapers? Will we be down to a handful by 2012? Anxiously awaiting your thoughts & perspective!

There has been much dialog this past week about the tactical aspects of working with the media or media relations. A PR colleague, David Mullen sparked some debate with his calculated title to a post called, “Relationships Don’t Matter MOST in Media Relations.” Although David’s point was very well understood in his post, many seemed to react as if David was suggesting that relationships don’t matter.  As you can see from his post today, “Five Tips for Media Relations Success,” David clearly makes his point.

This also triggered me to share with each of you a tactic that falls into the category I like to talk a lot about, “Commonsense PR” called the “Reverse Pitch.”

Within the worlds of PR and media relations we get so caught up in the traditional pitch process or taking a story idea or resource to our trusted or sometimes unknown media contacts. Please don’t misunderstand me; I have generated hundreds of articles for clients and companies I’ve worked with as a result of this traditional pitch process. 

I would ask that each of you reading this post to humor me for a minute and take off your PR or marketing hat and look at the traditional media relations process:

1. Your client/company has a message they would like to communicate to a group or groups of respective targets…via the media;

2. You identify the media outlets and contacts to target with these messages;

3. You target these media contacts with a pitch and/or press release telling them why they should care about your messages;

4. You can repeat and tweak steps 2 & 3 but at this point your “pitch” is in the hands of these media contacts.

As you can see, the traditional pitching process is dependent on an uncontrolled variable (not to be too technical) – the media being convinced that the story or resources you’ve pitched are worth moving forward on as a story.

Without elaborating this “reverse pitch” approach in great detail. I would strongly suggest that steps 1 & 2 of this process consist of asking the following two questions before you get into your tradition pitch mode:

1. What types of stories or resources are you currently looking for given the beat (or beats) you are currently interested in covering?

2. How can I be of assistance in helping you accomplish those stories?

Granted, this is more of a formality than anything else as they may immediately respond with, “Why? What do you have for me?” But my point here is that we must start this process by first assessing the needs of the individuals (the media) that control the outcome of our efforts. By doing so, I can guarentee each of you will see far greater success generating coverage for your client or company.

This said I’d love to hear from you about this “reverse pitch” method or perhaps the “ask before you pitch” process. Do you agree? Do you feel differently about these initial steps? As always, I look forward to the conversation!

I’m not sure how you are, but whenever I’m traveling to a new market, representing a new industry or even curious about a new technique, I typically read up on the subject at hand as much as possible. After sticking my toe into the social media pool several times over the past 2-3 years, I finally hurled myself into a cannonball and I’m now immersed in this pool!

As I’m sure to do with most things new and based on a number of recommendations, last night I started reading “The New Rules of Marketing & PR” by David Meerman Scott (2007). Although I started reading late in the night, I immediately began to realize this was going to be complimentary to my instincts about social media & PR as David says, “In PR, it’s not about clip books. It’s about reaching our buyers…Instead of spending tens of thousands of dollars per month on a media relations program that tries to convince a handful of reporters at select magazines, newspapers, and TV stations to cover us, we should be targeting the plugged-in bloggers, online news sites, micro-publications, public speakers, analysts and consultants that reach the targeted audiences that are looking for what we have to offer. Better yet, we no longer even need to wait for someone with a media voice to write about us at all.”

Just to caveat David’s thoughts on these “New Rules”, he does clearly point out throughout the book that there is still value in traditional media relations.

Although I haven’t yet finished this book, I thought I’d provide you with David’s “New Rules of Marketing & PR” as I would love to hear your thoughts and to learn about what YOU are doing to address this new channel:

• Marketing is more than just advertising;
• PR is for more than just a mainstream media audience;
• You are what you publish;
• People want authenticity, not spin;
• People want participation, not propaganda;
• Instead of causing one-way interruption, marketing is about delivering content at just the precise moment your audience needs it;
• Marketers must shift their thinking from mainstream marketing to the masses to a strategy of reaching vast numbers of undeserved audiences via the Web;
• PR is not about your boss seeing your company on TV. It’s about your buyers seeing your company on the Web;
• Marketing is not about your agency winning awards. It’s about your organization winning business;
• The Internet has made public relations public again, after years of almost exclusive focus on the media;
• Companies must drive people into the purchasing process with great online content;
• Blogs, podcasts, e-books, news releases, and other forms of online content let organizations communicate directly buyers in a form they appreciate;
• On the Web, the lines between marketing and PR have blurred.

These were all great reminders to me that the way we do media relations, PR or marketing in general have all changed and are currently changing as I write this post. In fact, this book was published in 2007 and I’m sure as I get into the tactical recommendations, they will have already been replaced by something better. Regardless of this evolution, I think these “rules” are still very true today.

Please let me know what you are doing different today and if your answer is “more of the same” I would LOVE to hear why these rules aren’t applicable to your practice of marketing & PR today.  Have a great Monday!

I was inspired today by the cleverly titled, “Relationships Don’t Matter Most in Media Relations” blog post from fellow PR professional David Mullen. The lesson David made was that writing a well-crafted pitch and knowing your media targets was the most effective way to generating media coverage for your company or clients.

I do agree with David’s point that when all is said and done (relationships or not) if you don’t have a pitch or angle that is on-target for each media contact, you won’t likely be successful.  There is however one catch to this overall argument, in particular when working with the national media…if you do have that relationship established your chances of success will greatly increase.

David makes the argument that PR agencies often have multiple clients spanning across many different industries, hence making it impossible to maintain such relationships. While this may be the case when working with industry or trade media, I don’t believe this to be the case when working with regional or national media…and here are some simple steps to follow that explain why:

Create at least one internal champion at every key media outlet.  It could be the technology reporter at the Chicago Tribune, the personal finance reporter at the Wall Street Journal, or the consumer interest producer at the TODAY Show.

Gain the trust and credibility from these champions through establishing yourself as someone knowledgeable of their outlet and audience and most important, someone who can deliver quality resources in a timely fashion.

Lean on these champions to help identify the appropriate contacts within their respective outlet, if not themselves.  This way you’ve now been given the inside track or referral from within (I now have the mobster image in my head…”he’s a friend of ours”) and have a leg up on anyone blindly pitching an unfamiliar contact.  If sending via email, I will often put in the subject line, “[your media champion's name] suggested I contact you.”

Again, I have a ton of respect for David and fully grasp the point he was making on his blog today.  I just felt the need to elaborate on the importance and ability to have such relationships in place before you make that most important relevant pitch.

How do you effectively manage your media (or non-media) relationships? 

For anyone that knows or follows me on Twitter they know how passionate I am about “doing the right thing.”  Most recently you’ve probably seen how frustrated I’ve been about this week’s national media blitz from Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.

As a business owner and PR professional, I make it a priority to focus on ethics above all else.  In fact, let me share my checklist for any new business opportunity (more for myself vs. a tried & true process):

1. Does the prospect have an amazing story to tell…if not several amazing stories to tell? If yes….
2. Would I feel comfortable representing such a client and introducing them to the media contacts that I cherish? If yes…
3. Do they have a clearly defined need tied into a business goal or goals for our services (i.e., not just wanting to see their face in the WSJ)? If yes…
4. Do they understand the value and process of media relations? If yes…
5. Is there a reciprocating connection between the prospect and our firm (sometimes a gut instinct)? If yes…
6. Do they have $ and time to invest in this process (daddy does have to feed the boys, right?)?

I feel the need to share this with you because I learned that Gov. Blagojevich had hired a firm in Tampa, FL called The Publicity Agency to represent him on this recent media tour.  Glenn Selig, owner of this firm touts right on his homepage that his firm also represnted Drew Peterson, a former Illinois police sergeant who was accused of killing his third & fourth wives.  Was there any ethical decision made when Mr. Selig decided to take on both Blagojevich & Peterson as clients?  Did Mr. Selig apply a similar set of personal requirements when assessing either of these opportunities? 

I would love to hear from others on this topic and specifically on this particular example.  Is it our “duty” as PR professionals to represent these characters (accused criminals)?  Once again, ethics should drive every decision we make…my answer is plain and simply, “no.”

I continue to look at the Public Relations industry (specifically Media Relations) and I am constantly amazed at the number of ways that PR firms continue to “pitch” various media outlets. If it isn’t a press release it is “dial for dialog” mentality requiring you to call your media targets until you’ve finally reached them “live.” Overall, I blame the traditional structure of our PR agencies who traditionally put entry-level staff on the front lines making the outreach to these media outlets. Historically, once you’ve put in your time…you don’t have to pitch anymore and you can focus on being “strategic” and/or managing account teams. This (in my opinion…hence my blog) is the major flaw of our industry and hence the reason we are labled as flacks, spin-doctors, etc.

If our industry (PR) is to sync with the ever-changing media industry, we have to get back to putting relationships back in Media Relations. Here are my no brainer 3 Simple Tips for Practicing Common Sense PR:

1. Read, Read, Read – Again, logic comes into play. Would you go into a new business meeting without learning anything about the prospect? Or how about asking a doctor to give you a haircut?! That is no different than pitching a reporter or producer that doesn’t cover what you or your client is pitching to them. Read the latest if not several months worth of your media target’s stories. Understand their interests, story trends, and style before you even think about engaging about a story idea.
2. Ask Before You Pitch – Educating yourself about the media you are pitching is a logical first step, but we often forget that just because a story idea falls within a media contact’s “beat” or area of focus, doesn’t mean it is timely for them. Start by asking about how you can make their lives easier and find out about the stories they are currently working on and/or seeking resources for. Remember, a journalist’s goals are quite simple: 1) they would like to write a good story and 2) they would like to get home as soon as humanly possible. Be a resource and be time-sensitive.
3. Put The Media’s Needs First – Until I actually started my own Media Relations practice was I finally able to speak these words around my clients and prospects. In the PR agency world we are taught to put the clients needs first and often to say “yes” to even the most ridiculous story ideas. The reality is although we think our stories are wonderful (right or wrong), we forget that the only thing we control is how the story ideas are presented to the media. Once that takes place, the destiny of you or your client’s story is ultimately in the hands of the media. Please just try putting the media’s needs first for a change…your company or clients will thank (and likely reward) you later:-)

How about you…what can you add to this list of Common Sense PR Tips?