PR Campaigns – How To Get To Grips With The Media

Resource Box: Paula Gardner at www.bookshaker.com

“THE TOP THREE WAYS TO KNOW IF YOUR PR IS WORKING”

- by Paula Gardner

(c) Paula Gardner. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.bookshaker.com

If you’re serious about getting great results from your PR you may find that you have to severely challenge your current reading habits. A recent client completed her PR assessment form with a comment about the how that she had always read a certain paper because her parents had and she’d just fallen into the habit too. She now realized that she had to read a lot more widely to understand the amount of opportunities that are out there, and which ones would work for her. 

I wonder how many of us are also guilty of falling into media comfort zones? And what can we do about it?

But before, I spill the beans; I thought I’d remind you about the importance of knowing The Sun from The Daily Mail, or Arena from Loaded. There are 4 main reasons why being media savvy will help your PR.

1. You will be aware of what publications are out there and therefore aware of all the opportunities open to you.

2. Different publications, even in the same niche, require a different approach. Both Woman and Good Housekeeping appeal to women in roughly the same age group but the language they use, and the subjects covered, in each of them, is so different that they may even need a different press release to reflect both the differing reader concerns and language.

3. As you read more widely you’ll come to spot more and more opportunities that you weren’t aware of, perhaps even before your competitors.

4. You may spot publications that you could write for and, hey, even earn a second income!

So, how do you get to grips with all the possibilities that are out there?

1. Let’s start by making a list of all that you usually read (and you can do this as a team if there are more than one of you). Include things that you read for fun as well as business, things that you regularly read whilst sitting outside your client’s/MD’s office, and websites that you usually visit.

2. Now go through that list and cross out anything that you wouldn’t want your business to be seen in, or wouldn’t do your business any good to be seen in anyway.

3. Now, looking at your remaining titles and suss out any gaps. If you’ve only covered one trade magazine, what about the other five that barrage you with requests for subscriptions? If you religiously read The Guardian can you accept that you really should start to become more aware of the opposition? So, here’s list two – make a note of all the publications you need to get to know.

4. Now comes the difficult part, fitting them into your daily routine. Understand that you are going to have to move away from your comfort zone. I love to curl up with the Sunday magazines and wallow in materialist lusts (Gotta have those shoes/Nigella’s new book/a kitchen like Jamie Oliver (yeah, as if!) but I make myself read the newspaper first. One way that you can do this might be reading through a publication each week on the train before you allow yourself to relax and settle into your novel.

5. If you work in a team you can assign particular publications to particular people and each of you can be responsible for reading your own publication and the giving a brief run down of what you think is important along with possible press opportunities in a weekly press meeting.

6. Does your trade magazine have a website? If time is really strained then this is a fall back. Send yourself regular reminders via Outlook or whatever to go and take a look and catch up on the latest news.

7. Make catching up on your reading a little bit of “me time” – disappear for fifteen minutes with a publication and a cappuccino and make it into a daily ritual that gives you a bit of time to breathe. If anyone queries it, you are working after all!

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