We're sorry. We hope this is enlightening as to why some PR people act the way they do.
Dear Friends At Brands,
If you don’t know what we're talking about, you need to read this.
A quick search of Facebook groups, industry scripture, along with Twitter and assorted other forums, will turn up instances where our colleagues, and possibly even ourselves (but doubtful ;-), have rubbed a few of you the wrong way.
Let’s get back to our media industry clickbait-esque headline.
Journalists, do you know the reason you hate (some of) us?
If we had to read your mind, it would be the nauseating amount of irrelevant pitches you receive and the annoying follow-up calls that come five minutes after we send them are likely culprits.
But do you know why we actually do this?
There are two main reasons PR people push too hard, often in the wrong direction, when it comes to dealing with journalists. It’s a systemic issue that many firms won’t want to address.
Reason 1: PR plans are developed and pitched to clients by senior agency leadership teams who are out of touch
The senior ranks of many agencies are led by people who no longer engage directly in media relations, resulting in grossly inflated expectations stemming from plans based on archaic thinking. They haven’t reached out to a journalist in years. They’re not in the trenches regularly communicating with our friends on the editorial side.
As a result, plans are developed based on outdated knowledge and experience.
Touchdowns help to win football games, but the style of play has significantly evolved over the years. As an easy example, we're often told by clients and industry colleagues that <<brand / product / event>> would be perfect for Maxim. They’re usually right…if this were 2001. They haven’t opened the mag or looked at Maxim’s site or magazine in years. Its content has evolved. Are there avenues for the pitch they have in mind? Possibly, but the lack of direct media interaction and knowledge of the current media climate steers plan development in the wrong direction.
A good PR person pushes back on clients and internal stakeholders as appropriate. Despite being experts, when we do push back a bit, the response is often that we must not have strong enough relationships with the media we’re targeting. And if that’s the perception, we could lose the account or our jobs.
While good PR pros know that landing killer media coverage takes a lot more than strong relationships, none of us want to lose our jobs. So we push on and follow orders.
Reason 2: There is a lack of trust in PR teams and understanding of how long it can take for a journalist to show interest, let alone file a story.
That is our only explanation for the following, very common, scenario.
Sometimes agencies are expected to have boiler room-esqueoperations. In addition to update reports, PR firms are often asked by clients to provide call logs for review. This was asked of me at big agencies and later after co-founding Remedy PR. Detailed records of who we contacted, when and their response.
The result of that is intense pressure on the PR agency to tangibly show how our time is spent, even showing how our time is actually spent is not the best use of our time or the budget of our partners.
Do we keep logs? Yes, most agencies do. Some people keep pretty detailed notes. I can tell you where one editor’s significant other went to school, who refs hockey as a passion side-job, and who dislikes a certain feature on a certain type of product.
Our notes aren’t always appropriate to share with our partners, and sometimes we’ll reach out to a journalist about multiple brands, or maintain lists that are relevant to multiple client partners. When that’s the case, if a client wants a call log, we’re often spending extra time drafting something that is specific for them. Not the best use of our time.
And this doesn’t take into account the time spent researching media and refining pitches so they make sense to that Tier-A journalist you want to be interested in your story.
The misunderstanding of how much time things can take is where things take a major turn for the worse, not just for us on the PR side, but you, our friends on the editorial end.
PR people grossly outnumber journalists (6:1 according to some), and some receive hundreds of emails a day, a large part of them irrelevant. These stats get worse when the journalist writes for a high-profile media outlet or is an influencer (define that as you will). This makes it critical for those of us on our side of the desk to follow-up (sorry, we know you hate that) when we have a good pitch for you (we really do!) that may have buried in the previously mentioned hundreds of emails you’re receiving.
Giving a journalist time to get through their inbox and run something through the chain of command doesn’t make for a strong call log for our clients.
Again, the call log doesn’t account for the time we should be spending on strategy, or looking at a journalist’s coverage, tweets, etc., to get a handle for what they could be into in terms of potential story ideas.
We find it strange that many don’t grasp that even a response, let alone action, by a journalist, can take some time.
Most of us probably have friends and family members who may not to respond to a text message or email for days, if not weeks. If it’s not urgent and doesn’t require an immediate response, you probably don’t text someone every other day to check in. That would be annoying.
So why do we expect a journalist to get back to us right away?
Journalists aren't public servants. They’re not firefighters – waiting and obligated – to rush out when the call comes in.
Unfortunately, the pressure some of us receive to generate these logs is the reason for the incessant follow-up.
If you didn’t get back to us on Tuesday, we need to call you Thursday and email again the following Friday to ask if you received our last email and call. And then we send a DM on Instagram.
So we smile, and dial (or the modern equivalent of that), and log every call for review later.
What’s the fix?
There are ways we can around these issues in PR. There are paths we can take that will get brands and PR teams on the radar of the media, and strengthen the relationships between journalists, PR people, and the brands they represent.
We need to change our thinking a bit, and we’ll get into that soon.
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The Five Easy Steps Our Clients Took To Win 10 Major Trade Show Awards
The next Outdoor Retailer trade show(OR Show for short) is right around the corner. If you’ve never been, the OR Show is it’s the near trillion dollar outdoor industry’s version of CES or the New York Auto Show. It’s a business-to-business show where retailers preview potential products to carry in the future and features the biggest names in industries surrounding backpacking, adventure travel, trail running, climbing, mountain biking, outdoor wellness and more. The OR Show is typically a who’s who for the industry. Brands such as Yeti coolers, K2, The North Face, Oakley, GoPro, Sorel, Patagonia are usually there.
In January, for the first time ever, the OR show combined with the snowboard and ski-focused Snow Sports Industry’s Snow Show. It was the equivalent of CES combining with Apples WWDC, or MacWorld if that was still in existence.
It was a crowded event for sure and competition for media was high.
The steps we took to win these awards on behalf of our clients will work for any brand looking for PR exposure, at the OR Show, CES, or throughout the year. You just need to follow them.
Those that know what our clients were offering may think it was fairly easy. Some of the products being highlighted were definitely innovative, but perspective here is important.
The playing field isn’t level in the PR world, especially when it comes to outdoor product launches. At this show we were competing against brands that fly journalists to overseas to go skiing and check out a new fabric. Or to Panama to experience the fit of a new sandal. That doesn’t necessarily guarantee media coverage, but it can definitely help give journalists a useful, in-depth understanding of what a brand has to offer.
While we’d have loved to fly some of our journalist friends to meet us to go snowboarding, a large-scale trip like that was not in the budget. In addition, while our clients did have truly-media worthy innovations to showcase, we were dealing with other issues and legacy baggage to overcome.
Our team has a pretty deep history in handling PR for outdoor brands, going back to one of us working with Burton Snowboards back in the late 90’s. And most of us are avid skiers and snowboarders. Because of this, for one client, our professional and personal authenticity in the industry had us wondering out loud if their product would actually work as promised. For another client, we knew that a rival of theirs had introduced a similar technology, which also won awards. And in that instance, we had heard rumors of another brand trying to do the same.
But collectively, we still crushed it. How? Here are five easy steps.
1. We planned ahead.
Sounds simple, but unfortunately, we’re often called to help promote something under such a tight deadline that we don’t think it will be of interest to the media. Of course, we can meet the client’s deadline in terms of materials creation and outreach, but PR this isn’t advertising and journalists need time (sometimes days, sometimes weeks) to consider story ideas.
The ability to plan ahead do this is a huge factor in helping your PR program achieve success and something we constantly remind our clients about. And thankfully, both of our brands at the show gave us plenty of time to get the wheels moving… one did so two years out. The ability to plan well in advance gives your PR team the chance to anticipate issues and roadblocks that could arise, and map out course corrections to help when they do occur.
2. Relationships matter in public relations, but not always how you think.
How often a PR person doesn’t call a reporter can matter just as much as how often they do.
We try to impress upon all our clients that journalists smothered by bad PR pitches every day. Hundreds of them, and there are websites, blogs, and social media accounts dedicated to them. Just ask a journalist if you want to see some. With that in mind, we never pitch what isn’t appropriate and are realistic in how we position something to the media.
We’ll never say saying something really is groundbreaking when it’s not. That way our journalist friends know that when we do make major media-worthy claims they know we’re not coming to them with a new shade of grey.
3. Timing is everything (point #1 above).
Because our clients gave us time to plan, we were able to give journalists the time they needed as well. Despite a popular belief some brand managers have, journalists aren’t sitting around waiting for PR people to contact them with story ideas.
Through creative mailings and other tactics, we gave journalists an early, albeit veiled, heads-up on what we’d be showing at the Outdoor Retailer + Snow Show. When they received all the details, this allowed them to ask questions, and later, follow-up questions, with plenty of time to meet their deadlines before the big event.
4. We made it easy for the journalists to experience the product.
While flashy events and trips can really give a journalist a feel for the product being launched, those typically take a massive amount of time and budget to execute. Also, we needed to show the products in a tight window before the show, between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. Journalists are just like the rest of us, with vacations booked, families, and personal obligations to attend to. Even if we had the budget to produce an event that’d result in an award-winning case study, there were slim chances they’d even have the time to attend.
To make it easy for journalists to experience the products being launched, we went to them. For both clients, we executed separate three-city media tours, each taking less than 48 hours total, where we met at their offices, coffee shops, restaurants, and breweries, based on the preference of each media contact. Wherever they wanted to meet, we went to. The meetings were fairly quick, about an hour each, and our days typically ran from 7 am until two hours before evening flights out of town.
We followed up the meetings with product for the reporters to review on their own, along with technical details, answers to hard questions, images and more. We were able to plan for almost every question, which takes us to our final step.
5. We anticipated the hard questions and answered them in advance. This one was crucial.
Remember, media relations (aka PR) is not advertising. You can’t just put out your message and hope a reporter will take your word for granted.
PR doesn’t happen in a bubble. We knew what similar technologies had been announced in year’s past for our clients’ categories and we were candid in mentioning that during our meetings.
But we followed up with examples of why what we had to share was not just different, but better. And we were honest in terms of when these products weren’t appropriate, spelling out why you wouldn’t want to use them in certain situations. Journalists appreciated that. Sometimes you need a Jeep, sometimes you need a helicopter. Both can get you places, but neither is appropriate for all situations.
At the end, even with all this advanced work, there was no guarantee we’d be successful.
Media interest in what was being shown was very high. We had an uncomfortable amount of meetings booked during the show to ensure that journalists we couldn’t meet with during our three-city tours would get intimate previews and the attention they deserved.
And almost as soon as they show started, we knew that our hard work did pay off.
Journalists started coming by our clients’ booths early in the morning to drop off award after award. It was almost comical. We had multiple team members on site for the show, but it almost seemed that the journalists were waiting for someone’s back being turned so they could discretely drop off another award.
Collectively, this was a career high for many of us and an agency, a major coup. We exceeded client expectations, as well as those of the internal team here. Will we win 10+ awards at the next Outdoor Retailer trade show for these two clients? Probably not.
And we probably won’t try either.
But that’s the secret to great PR. While we won’t always have something groundbreaking to show, we’re actively planning ways to continue the post-launch momentum, keeping the awareness of our clients high with both the media and the end consumer.
When you have limited budget, or a pitch that isn’t on the same level as the next iPhone, that’s when a PR team’s skill can really shine through.
Remedy Public Relations is the leading lifestyle firm in San Diego for companies in the surf, snowboard, ski, motocross, finance, and consumer electronics industry. We know PR. We know social media. If your PR team is falling short, you may need a remedy!
Cracking The PR And Influencer Marketing Code
We've been working with influencers long before they were called that. And despite what many public relations firms will tell you, they're not all influential.
Sometimes your PR campaign is better off targeting the New York Times or the biggest influencer in your space. And sometimes... you should aim for a local Instagrammer with 456 followers.
Remedy's co-founder and managing director, Bill Byrne, was just featured by Muck Rack (one of the top publications in the PR and social media industry) on the topic. Read it online here.
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Talkin' Turkey.... And Public Relations
You don't have to be the best to score media coverage.
And you don't need to be the most innovative or the market leader, although in the case of Butterball, name recognition helps.
One of the country's top producing poultry brands wins big by repurposing questions that come into their help line for some fun content at a time when interest in turkey is at a yearly high.
Well done Butterball, well done!
One piece they netted (in the Chicago Tribune, no less) as a result of the campaign below, but if you search online, you'll find a lot more out there.
San Diego Public Relations Butterball Turkey PR Social Media Craft Beer SD PR Tech PR #gosandiego
The public relations industry is rife with brands generating press releases that are, at best, fluff, and at worst... well, they're just bad.
Either they're poorly written, written for the wrong audience or simply lack merit.
A recent piece on MuckRack (disclosure, it was written by one of our agency directors) focuses on this.
And if you like it, please share it on LinkedIn too!
QR Codes, kittens, QR Codes Kill Kittens, San Diego Public Relations (PR) And Social Media”San Diego PR” https://plus.google.com/+RemedyprSandiego A leading public relations (PR) agency in San Diego, specializing in social media marketing, event marketing, action sports and finance, San Diego Public Relations Agency, Action Sports PR, San Diego Social Media Agency, San Diego Event Marketing Agency, Social Media Marketing Agency, Craft Beer PR, PR, Public Relations, Social Media San Diego, Social Media Marketing Agency San Diego, Public Relations San Diego, PR Firm San Diego, a leading public relations agency in San Diego, specializing in social media marketing, event marketing, and digital publicity. PR for Tech, experts, craft beer, action sports, finance, consumer tech, bluetooth, beer, consumer goods, b2b, green, eco-friendly, craft beer PR, action sports PR, finance PR, consumer tech PR, PR, beer PR , consumer PR, b2b PR, green PR, eco-friendly PR, real estate PR, Experts, craft beer marketing, action sports marketing, finance marketing, consumer tech marketing, bluetooth marketing, beer marketing , consumer marketing, b2b marketing, green marketing, eco-friendly marketing, real estate marketing, action sports PR, action sports marketing, best PR san diego, san diego best PR, san diego social media, san diego lifestyle PR, san diego bar PR, san diego restaurant PR, san diego restaurant social media, restaurant social media. https://instagram.com/remedy_pr/ San Diego Public Relations. San Diego’s Best Public Relations Consultants – Honesty results in public relations. bestprsandiego.com jpublicrelations, besocialpr, leaders in PR for action sports beer social media san diego, healthcare marketing, crossfit marketing, sports marketing, crossfit PR, crossfit social media, PR experts, social media experts san diego, san diego PR experts. San Diego Public relations and social media. Experts in public relations based in San Diego. Bar public relations. Beer public relations.
Technology has really made it easy for many to "do PR" and at the same time, it's made it that much more difficult for brands with good stories to tell to break through the clutter created by brands what simply want to talk about themselves. Some stats to consider below and more advice elsewhere on our blog here.
A recent MuckRack feature (penned by one of our co-directors, Bill Byrne) explains why you shouldn't get too enamored with flashy case studies.
We all want that 'wow' factor, but realistically you should be looking at examples of success in line with your brand's stature, assets and budgets.
If your brand doesn't have the budget of Red Bull or the cache of Apple, you may be disappointed if you hire a firm based on their work with those two brands.
Click the image below or this link for the full story. And if you like it, please consider sharing it on LinkedIn! Button right below
The Best PR Firm In San Diego Is Remedy Communications.
San Diego Public Relations (PR) And Social Media “San Diego PR”
www.remedypr.com
A leading public relations (PR) agency in San Diego, specializing in social media marketing, event marketing, action sports and finance, San Diego Public Relations Agency, Action Sports PR, San Diego Social Media Agency, San Diego Event Marketing Agency, Social Media Marketing Agency, Craft Beer PR, PR, Public Relations, Social Media San Diego, Social Media Marketing Agency San Diego,
Public Relations San Diego, PR Firm San Diego, a leading public relations agency in San Diego, specializing in social media marketing, event marketing, and digital publicity. PR for Tech, experts, craft beer, action sports, finance, consumer tech, bluetooth, beer, consumer goods, b2b, green, eco-friendly, craft beer PR, action sports PR, finance PR, consumer tech PR, bluetooth PR, beer PR , consumer PR, b2b PR, green PR, eco-friendly PR, real estate PR, Experts, craft beer marketing, action sports marketing, finance marketing, consumer tech marketing, bluetooth marketing, beer marketing , consumer marketing, b2b marketing, green marketing, eco-friendly marketing, real estate marketing, action sports PR, action sports marketing, best PR san diego, san diego best PR, san diego social media, san diego lifestyle PR, san diego bar PR, san diego restaurant PR, san diego restaurant social media, restaurant social media. https://instagram.com/remedy_pr/ San Diego Public Relations. San Diego’s Best Public Relations Consultants – Honesty results in public relations. bestprsandiego.com jpublicrelations, besocialpr, leaders in PR for action sports beer social media san diego, healthcare marketing,
This article was previously featured on Box Pro Magazine, the leading source for CrossFit and HIIT facility owners and marketers.
We're channeling Sesame Street here and asking who are the people in your neighborhood?
These days we spend such a a huge amount of time marketing on a macro level, we often forget that we can see huge gains simply by targeting those close by. Whether it's your local community newspaper or just the people in your local community, you'd be surprised how much return you can get when you put the effort in.
With that in mind, we're sharing this article from Box Pro Magazine that one of our directors, Bill Byrne, contributed. The focus is on simply leveraging the groups around you strategically for a mutually beneficial return. Click the article below (will open in a new window, then click again to resize) to see the full piece.
what does a PR firm do? who is the best PR firm in San Diego?
San Diego Public Relations (PR) And Social Media “San Diego PR”
www.remedypr.com
A leading public relations (PR) agency in San Diego, specializing in social media marketing, event marketing, action sports and finance, San Diego Public Relations Agency, Action Sports PR, San Diego Social Media Agency, San Diego Event Marketing Agency, Social Media Marketing Agency, Craft Beer PR, PR, Public Relations, Social Media San Diego, Social Media Marketing Agency San Diego,
Public Relations San Diego, PR Firm San Diego, a leading public relations agency in San Diego, specializing in social media marketing, event marketing, and digital publicity. PR for Tech, experts, craft beer, action sports, finance, consumer tech, bluetooth, beer, consumer goods, b2b, green, eco-friendly, craft beer PR, action sports PR, finance PR, consumer tech PR, bluetooth PR, beer PR , consumer PR, b2b PR, green PR, eco-friendly PR, real estate PR, Experts, craft beer marketing, action sports marketing, finance marketing, consumer tech marketing, bluetooth marketing, beer marketing , consumer marketing, b2b marketing, green marketing, eco-friendly marketing, real estate marketing, action sports PR, action sports marketing, best PR san diego, san diego best PR, san diego social media, san diego lifestyle PR, san diego bar PR, san diego restaurant PR, san diego restaurant social media, restaurant social media. https://instagram.com/remedy_pr/ San Diego Public Relations. San Diego’s Best Public Relations Consultants – Honesty results in public relations. bestprsandiego.com jpublicrelations, besocialpr, leaders in PR for action sports beer social media san diego, healthcare marketing,
There’s a major misconception in terms of how PR placements actually come about.
We had one agency partner – who we thought was pretty savvy – ask us why we “couldn’t just blast email some mommy bloggers” and get quick results. He wasn't as savvy as we thought...
What most PR agencies won’t readily admit is that the media landscape is changing and there’s more competition than ever for placements.
Even so, the good stories can rise to the top, but often it will take some solid effort unless you're the iPhone of your industry and simply bleed PR.
We’ve outlined below some select examples of great PR placements we’ve had happen for a few clients during the last two years and how long it took to see them happen. If you're not regularly dealing with the media making pitch calls, may find some surprises!
Example 1: New Product Launch - National Men’s Magazine Website
Freelance journalist was a trusted friend of someone at the agency who we spend time with during non-work activities frequently. Literally put the product in his hand and a month later, he filed his story. It didn’t appear online for FIVE more months.
Example 2: Financial Client’s New Office - Major Market Regional Newspaper
New office openings are rarely news in bigger markets, but this client offered something in this market that few firms do. After researching who at this paper would be interested, in an email, we highlighted what we had to offer and sent it off at the appropriate time. The result was an email interview which took months to complete (due to slow responses by reporter), which was incorporated into a feature story. There was more to it than that, including the client being misquoted multiple times in an early draft. (again, this was an email interview). Thankfully we were able review ahead of time (which rarely happens – you should never ask a reporter for this) and we corrected it. Four months after our initial email went out, the piece appeared online and in print, and the local office's phone rang with some impressive people on the other end.
Example 3: Client's Industry Announcement - Trade Publication
While we have a great relationship with the people managing this industry trade publication, an indutry where our client is a force, we should add, that doesn't mean that the editors of this site will drop everything just for us or our client. Even though the announcement wasn’t fluff, their staff was quite busy at the time and it took a few days for them to get back to us and later, run a feature. While the announcement was important, it wasn't "drop everything" important.
Example 4 - Consumer Technology Launch / Major National Magazine
Again, the journalists at this outlet we've known for years and have a great relationship with. They almost always return our calls and emails with some sort of response... a rarity these days for most PR people. At the end of Q3 2015, we gave the team at this very respected magazine an early look and one of a limited number review units that we had available (one of 15 at the time) to try out. In all honestly, this is the next generation of a class-leading product in its category, a PR person's dream and one that is a brand that is frequently covered. At the beginning of Q2 2016, they’ve finally decided they will cover it and we’re working with them now to triple-ensure they have what they need.
Example 5 - Financial Client / Leading National Newspaper
The client at the time was a 20+ year old, independent financial firm. Mid-sized... not the biggest, but not the smallest. In our first month of media outreach (which was our second month of working together), we cold called and emailed roughly 20 financial reporters at the major newspapers around the country. One reporter, who had never heard of our client and never worked with us before, requested an interview with their CEO, who was quoted in a story that appeared roughly a week later. Want to know which paper? Hint: It’s a journal named after a street with walls… in Manhattan.
So from the above, which were we the most surprised about? Truth be told, all of them, but Example 1 the most. It took months for a story to appear online… even after the journalist - a dear friend of someone at the agency - filed it.
Which placement do we brag about the most? Example 5... Wall Street Journal in less than two months? That's PR gold!
And it was Example 3, a regional publication, where the client saw the most traction.
The reality of the current PR world is, unfortunately, that there are multiple variables affecting when and if your brand will receive coverage, and they’re often out of the PR team’s control. As we’ve said before, reporters are not parrots and on a micro-level, they all have their own needs, so research into what each one wants from you before moving forward.
Like this tip? Please share via the LinkedIn button below. Wondering if your PR program is healthy? Reach out for our complimentary PR Checkup at PRCheckup@Remedypr.com.
How do PR hits happen? What's the anatomy of a PR hit?
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A leading public relations (PR) agency in San Diego, specializing in social media marketing, event marketing, action sports and finance, San Diego Public Relations Agency, Action Sports PR, San Diego Social Media Agency, San Diego Event Marketing Agency, Social Media Marketing Agency, Craft Beer PR, PR, Public Relations, Social Media San Diego, Social Media Marketing Agency San Diego,
That said, while we're pretty darn good at our jobs, this campaign from Budweiser is absolutely brilliant. Is it craft beer? Heck no. Budweiser isn't even owned by U.S. based company any longer.
Does that matter... well, not if you're Budweiser and want to drive both awareness and sales.
The above was taken from the recent Fast Company article you can find here.
So can craft breweries compete? Definitely. Will it be easy? No.
It'll take a mix of product (session IPA's and similar styles) unique flavors and above all, great marketing.
