Throwing rocks into the pond to create waves is great if the rock is big and interesting enough to your market (not just to you), but if it isn’t, you could just be confined to a storm in your very own teacup. Ashley Carr, Founder of Neo PR, offers tips on how to get journalists salivating to write about you regularly.
The temptation to want to tell the press about the latest change in your world might seem overpowering at times, but how often does it end in disappointment?
Why didn’t your industry magazine want to write about that award you’ve just won; or that partner accreditation you’ve just achieved – after all, they were blooming hard work to get!
Because, they just aren’t of interest outside of your world. Sorry, but that’s the unfortunate reality. Ask yourself the question the other way around – would you be interested to read about how ASDA has just got the food standards agency to award it a 5; or that Microsoft has just opened yet another office in Brackley? Probably not. Sure it’s interesting in their worlds, but getting a journalist writing about it to impress their readership? Really…?
The reality is that throwing rocks into the pond to create waves is great if the rock is big enough and interesting enough to your market (not just to you), but if it isn’t, you could just be confined to a storm in your very own teacup.
And one or two rocks might create some decent looking waves to surf on for a while, but it’s hardly going to get the journalists salivating to write about you regularly (unless you’ve got an awful lot of amazing announcements in the pipeline).
But what if that journalist in your leading trade publication already knew of you and had been writing about why you are the market leader; what if you had already got them excited about your proposition and the positive change it was creating for your clients?
This proactive thought leadership approach to maintain a dialogue with your market means that the journalist appreciates that your view of the industry is of interest to their readership. Make some announcements in this environment and the publication is far more likely to continue reporting on you as they have already set the scene with their readership and will be far more interested to write more about you.
Thinking of your news outreach as more of a campaign means that you can have an active dialogue with your market (& the journalists who are writing about it) without the need to have a constant stream of amazing stories.
Regular thought leadership pieces, mixed with proactive comment on industry trends, peppered with the odd amazing announcement and customer story will mean that you are always in the press being written about. Marry this to a quarterly theme and you start to look like a coordinated marketing machine with consistent messages across sales and marketing that flows through all the channels from your web to social to PR.
So hang on to that announcement for a moment; get into a dialogue with your market trade publication and get them interested in the why, not just the what. That way when you are ready to reveal the latest news, you can make a really big splash that actually gets noticed and written about in your market.
By Ashley Carr
Founder
Neo PR
http://www.neopr.co.uk/