All your PR activity should have a planned objective. Think of the people whom you wish to influence: they are your target audience in the same way that advertising defines your market. If your market is defence equipment there is little point in cultivating the local free-sheet. The public you are seeking to influence could be the local council, factory neighbours, buyers and consumers, your banker and your employees. The information you put out should be strictly factual and not an attempt to gloss over some shortcoming in your service. Too often 'a spokesman said' is the ill-considered front for some disaster. PR should be planned on a long-term basis: it is not something that can be generated overnight. Sometimes it involves showing social responsibility – providing heaters for flood victims or waste drawing paper for the local kindergarten. The costs involved need not be large, it is the thought that counts.
PR for the local community can take the form of modest sponsorship for the school lollipop ladies, old folks' outings, 'keep our village tidy' bins, loan of the firm's pick-up truck for the cricket team roller and all sorts of other innocent causes. The small business columns of your local papers are always ready to print good news that shows your efforts in a favourable light. Amid so much gloom a cheerful item should find ready acceptance.
To get maximum impact from your PR activities it is important to know how the media go about their job. It is a sophisticated and highly fragmented industry with considerable expertise at your disposal if you know how to tap into it. You should first understand that, with the exception of the national press, the local media (press, radio and television) have very small news-gathering staff. They rely on being fed stories from the community.
As more local newspapers have been bought up by national or regional groups, the time and know-how of beat reporters has dropped considerably. As staff numbers have shrunk, the opportunity to place your press story has fortuitously increased. Circulation numbers have by and large held up, so there has never been a better or easier time to get your name in the (local) papers. All operate broadly in the same way, ie they all have reporters, sub-editors, a news desk and an editor who decides the overall balance. Where they differ is how they like the news presented and in the matter of deadlines.
Unless you have a major story it is rarely worth sending to the national papers, or mass circulation magazines. They all get hundreds, yes hundreds, of releases every week – most from big corporations, regular and heavy advertisers, branded goods and the shoals of lobby groups all pushing their favourites. Far better to spend your time and money on news outlets nearer home and with highly specialised journals catering for your interest. You must also distinguish between news and features. The mass circulation magazines (mainly monthly women's and home interests with circulations often over 250,000) write inhouse or commission their own feature articles from freelancers. Each magazine will tend to have a stable of freelancers who feed them topics on their speciality – food, holidays, health, finance, etc. It may help to scour through the top magazines and build up your own list of writers who are worth cultivating.
They will probably be in a better position to get your angle into print as they have better connections. The smaller circulation trade and technical press – which are normally not seen on the news-stands – are generally much easier to approach. The editors are not surrounded by protective PAs and you can invariably speak directly to them. Most have been in the trade much of their lives and are keen to keep up to date. You will stand more chance of getting features in these magazines than in the more competitive monthlies. The centre of any paper is the news desk. The editor lays down the house style and the journalists write in that vein. Short punchy sentences with no long words will tend to be used in the popular tabloids. More in-depth detail and analysis are the prerogative of the heavies.
The sub-editors are the linchpins. They cut the stories and rewrite them (if they have the time) to fit the space available. That is where the pressure is. You may come across researchers (particularly for TV) who work some way ahead of the programme, digging out background material. The lowest are the cub reporters who get lumbered with attending the local council meetings, quarter sessions and MPs' fête openings. Every paper has its 'stringers'. These are freelance journalists who feed several papers, and possibly a national, with their own local news.
Guides to the media include Pims Media Direc tory and The Guardian Media Guide; they give subject categories across the country. The national press can be split between the tabloid rubbish end, where pictures are more important than words, and the quality broadsheets. Increasingly I have found that it is the total trivia that makes the nationals, while hard news stands more chance of getting printed in your local or regional press.
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