There are certain tools you can use to create a positive image of your organisation in the press. Each has its own specific task. As a useful exercise, dig out one or two of your trade magazines and see if you can identify them. We’ll go into more detail on each one later, but this is what your toolkit looks like:
Press Releases
A variety of short news stories which combine over a period to build up a picture of an active and successful company – winning orders, developing new products and services, appointing new people, attending exhibitions, and so on.
Aim to send out at least one story every month because, almost without exception,
the success of any PR campaign will depend entirely on the quality and regularity of your press releases. Until you have built up that positive, successful-company image in the minds of editors – and press releases are the only way of doing this – you will not get a chance to use the next two tools.
Articles
Sometimes known as ‘feature articles’ because they are often written to fit in with a feature in a specific issue of a publication (see ‘Features monitoring
1 below). They discuss subjects such as a current topic affecting a particular industry, or the pros and cons of a new technology. The aim here is to present the writer to the readership as the expert in the field – and hopefully as an industry guru to whom journalists will instinctively turn for comments as and when this subject arises again.
After your steady flow of well-written press releases has convinced the editor that you know your stuff, he may look favourably on an article written by one of your people, by-lined with his name, title, and your company’s name. The editor may insist on a so-called ‘generic’ article, i.e. one which does not specifically plug your company or its products (but don’t throw in the towel, there’s a way of getting round this – see page 62).
Case Studies
Case studies are articles that take an in-depth look at a particular situation or problem which arose, and describe how it was solved. Well documented case studies are
popular with editors, and readers like them because they can often identify with them: ‘Hey, we’ve got a problem like that’. They will be popular with you too, because you’ll be able to splash out with the names of the products and services that were the key to the solution (yours, of course). Writing a generic case study is virtually impossible!
Photographs
The impact of press releases, articles and case studies can be improved considerably by photographs (known in the biz as ‘pics’) – people, products, buildings, installed equipment.
One warning: if you are going to send pics, do make them directly relevant to the story. For instance, if your story is about a service agreement that a customer has signed with you, the only relevant pic would be one of the actual signing ceremony. If the best you can come up with is an aerial view of the customer’s premises, probably better to forget it.
Pics must be sharp and clear, and not too small; a good size of print is 5' x 7'. Take time and trouble to get good shots, and try to make them interesting and/or a little unusual – a mug-shot, to go with an appointment story, taken slightly to one side rather than the usual full-face passport job, perhaps. And do remember to caption your pictures to tell the editor what they are. This can be done with a short description printed on an adhesive label stuck to the back of the pic.
In this electronic age, editors often prefer to receive pictures by e-mail in the form of jpeg files. Hence, try to have high-resolution pics taken by digital camera or, if one isn’t available, scan prints into your PC.Getting hold of good pics might sound difficult, but there are usually ways round it. In your own organisation, it’s possible that Marketing already has a library of product pics, and will know of a good local photographer who can take mug-shots for appointment stories. Pics involving third parties (equipment installed at a customer’s premises, for example) can be trickier, especially if the customer is at some distance – you won’t want the expense of sending your local photographer hundreds of miles across country to produce two shots of a widget-forming machine.
If the customer has a Press Office or a PR agency, try asking them if they have anything suitable. Look at the customer’s website maybe you could download something suitable from there? Alternatively, check with your customer to see if he would cooperate, then phone the nearest local newspaper office and speak to their photographer many of them are freelances and may be prepared to take local shots for a reasonable fee. provided that someone is there on site to show them what to take. And if you’re going to the site yourself to research a case study, and you’re a bit of a dab hand with a camera, why not try taking a few yourself? Even if the quality’s not quite up to David Bailey standards, modern digital enhancement technology can sometimes work wonders ...
There is a tendency among many publications to contact you after you’ve sent them a photograph with a press release, asking if you will agree to pay so-called
colour separation charges. These can range from around £85 to more than £200, and the (unsaid) implication is that if you don’t pay, they won’t use the release to which the pic relates. Some make good on the threat, some don’t. What’s it all about?
Until recently, printing a colour photograph called for the manufacture of separate printing plates in primary colours, and this generated platemaking costs. Today’s computer-to-plate digital technology does not require colour separations but, strange as it may seem, many magazines don’t seem to have noticed this! Refusing to pay, using a diplomatic excuse such as ‘I’m afraid we don’t have the budget for it’, will not necessarily result in refusal to use the story. However, if a particular publication is a very important one in your marketplace and you can afford the fee they are asking, you may feel that it’s a worthwhile investment to make sure your story and your beautiful pic get in there.