While the much-loved Ab Fab character, Edina, may seem a bit of a 90s caricature, her confidence is something you’re likely to find in all PRs – well, at least to some extent. That’s because we all need a level of confidence for the one main thing that sets us apart from other communications disciplines – speaking to the media.
Put yourself out there
It would be all too easy in this digital age to simply email our information to a magazine and hope that somehow it will get to the right person, that person will find it amongst the hundreds of other press releases and spam they received that morning and that it will interest them enough to open and read it.
The harder option – and this is where we need our fearless personas – is to pick up the phone and make contact. If you can keep them on the telephone long enough to explain what your client does and the top line gist of your press release you’re doing well. But making that call puts you in a much better position than the other 50 PRs who emailed their story across that day.
First moves
Journalists are a busy bunch so knowing how to communicate with them is key to a successful outcome – i.e. coverage in their publication.
Understanding what they’ll be interested in hearing about and being concise in your message is key to a productive phone call and a good relationship.
Keeping the spark alive
Nurturing these mutually beneficial relationships with journalists and editors isn’t an overnight job and you have to be prepared to take a few knockbacks along the way but the end result is absolutely worth it; leading to great results for your client and interesting and relevant content for your contacts.
Tough love
So with Valentine’s Day just around the corner spare a thought for the hard-fought love affair between a PR professional and their media contacts: like a marriage it takes a lot of work, there are good times and bad, but for better or worse media relations is an essential part of the communications discipline.
A successful partnership
Assuming you’ve pitched your release to the right person and your story is relevant and newsworthy, you may just have made their job a little easier and the next you call they’re interested to hear what else you have to say…and so the romance begins!
We love media relations at Approach towers so we’ll be sending thoughtful and appealing news instead of hearts and flowers to our press contacts this Valentine’s Day.
Image sourced from Pixabay.
