“How do I use PR to…    

• Get more customers?
• Grow my business?
• Stand out from the competition?
• Inject new life into my online presence?

Almost every week, small business people and entrepreneurs ask me how can PR build your customer base and grow your business?

It doesn’t happen overnight, unless you’re one of those rare savvy jack-of-all-trades who hits the PR jackpot and has your product or service featured on The Today Show or on the Chicago Tribune front page in your first round of media outreach.

It starts with building relationships with the people who can help you spread word about your business.

Look at your local newspaper or radio station. What stories do you see about your industry? Who is the reporter, how can you contact them, what are his/her interests? Do you have any interests in common?

You can find out a lot about reporters by simply following what they write about. Many media outlets provide online profiles about their writers and editors. Often, they’re buried online under the “About Us” or “Contact Us” sections. For example, many major metro newspapers, such as the Chicago Tribune and the Daily Herald (serving the North and Northwest suburbs), have a very detailed list of their reporters, writers and editors.

These editorial directories can be a bit hard to find. For example, the Daily Herald lists their media contacts under the tab “Services & Info, which isn’t the most intuitive for searchers. Often, media outlets bury their “Contact Us” link at the bottom of their web page in very fine print. Take the time and patience to look for it.

If you’re looking for contacts on a magazine web site, often you’ll find an editor to reach by clicking on their “Advertising” tab and clicking on their “Media Kit” or “Editorial Calendar.”

Trying to reach TV reporters? You’ll often find their contact information online as well, although it seems TV stations make it the hardest to find that info. For example, this NBC5 Chicago contact site has minimal information. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, pick up the phone, call the station or outlet’s general number and ask to be connected to the Newsroom. Someone staffing the news desk will be able to direct you to the appropriate person. Don’t be surprised if you get a reporter’s voicemail.

Use the search tool available on nearly all media outlet web sites to see past stories. If their stories are archived (often for a fee), make a small investment to get copies of their most recent reports.

Consider ways to get their attention by sending them samples of your product, inviting them to visit your business, or sharing a new angle or bit of advice on something they’ve reported on. Better yet, send an email, complimenting their work and offering your expertise for a future story.  Invite them for coffee (most reporters don’t have time for lunch, but you should still extend the invitation.)  Don’t be discouraged if they say they’re too busy for an in-person meeting. They really are busy – their jobs have become more demanding. Besides reporting the news, media reps also are expected to post on social network profiles and/or provide additional content for media-owned blogs (or even their own personal blog).

Are you on Facebook or Twitter (either a personal or professional page)? It’s very likely that reporter is also on social media, so take the time to “Like” their page, follow what they do, and engage. Post items on their wall that are helpful. And I mean helpful - not bragging or advertisements. Show them that you can be a valuable resource.

Establishing media relationships is one way to open the door to possible coverage and demonstrate your expertise and credibility.

Next time we’ll talk about how you can use social networks to spread word of mouth and get your customers and their friends talking about you and providing untapped exposure.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear about your experiences working with reporters. What have you done to get their attention?

Was it fruitful? What could you have done better? Leave a comment and I promise to respond!

Image by DFID - UK Department for International Development via Flickr

It’s the payoff for all your hard work—a news reporter has discovered your company’s fantastic new product or service. She wants to learn more about you. You’re torn between feelings of thrill and terror. Done right, mass media coverage can boost your credibility, increase awareness and lead to a spike in leads or sales. Done wrong, you may miss the chance to communicate the benefits of your product or service and fritter away your 15 minutes of fame.

Being questioned by a reporter is challenging for the inexperienced and unprepared. When I was a news reporter for WXRT and WBEZ in Chicago, I conducted hundreds of interviews every year for 15 years. I could easily discern the skilled interviewee from the newbie. For the skilled, the interview is a tango – a dance full of bold yet graceful moves, with accents on the appropriate twists and turns.  For the unskilled, an interview is like sitting through dental work without painkillers.

The key to mastering any interview is being in control and doing the advance work that inspires confidence. So park your jitters and skepticism at the door. This is the first in a series of tips on preparing for and controlling a media interview.

“Control” doesn’t mean manipulate. It means crafting a compelling message for your target audience and using the tactics and discipline needed to make sure the reporter understands and repeats that message in the story.

Just as the first step in the sales process is to understand the customer’s needs, the first step in the interview process is to know what the reporter needs and to whom he/she is communicating. Even before scheduling your interview, find out details so you understand what the reporter is looking for. Learn about their beat, media outlet and its audience.  As you coordinate scheduling, don’t hesitate to ask the following:

• What’s your story about?
• Do you have a specific angle in mind?
• Will you conduct the interview in person or by phone? (Many now will send questions via email, which is great because you have more time to think about your answers, and you have a written record if you’re misquoted.)
• Who else have you talked to?
• How did you hear about me/my company/product?
• What is your deadline?
• When will you run this story?

I advise clients not to ask to review or approve the story before it runs. Allowing a source to edit his/her own story is viewed as an attempt to control coverage. Reporters may follow up with you to check their facts. But no respectable media outlet would allow you to edit (or in their view, censor) a reporter’s work.

After getting answers to those questions, do some simple research to learn a little bit about the reporter. A Google search will reveal the latest stories written by that person, as well as their interests, beats, and tone of their writing. Often news organizations will provide a reporter’s bio in the “Contact” or “Staff” directory of the outlet’s web site.

If none is available, keep digging. With so many media people on Facebook, Twitter and other popular social networks, you’re likely to find helpful information about a reporter’s background, personality and approach to his interview subjects.

Next tip: Preparing for the interview.

I’ve been in the marketing and PR business for a long time and am now fortunate enough to enjoy a variety of PR and marketing assignments through my friends at Pipeline Media Relations, Marj Halperin Consulting and my own firm, Michelle Damico Communications. Through my many years in communications, my colleagues and friends have commented on my success in reaching out to the media to place stories on behalf of clients. So I thought it might be helpful to develop a series of blog posts that offer tips on what’s worked for me over the years.

Today I’m starting with the humble media list. It’s a task often relegated to the most junior staffers within a PR agency. If that’s you, take your time and do it right. If you’re lucky enough to work for a firm that pays for a media contact data base, take the time to dig deep within the list of provided reporters and their beats. Don’t take anything from a media database at face value.

If you don’t have a media database like Cision or Vocus at your disposal, you can still find the right media through the popular search engines. The same advice applies — take time and learn about them.

Why? During one of my first meetings with clients or prospects, I usually ask how they connect with the media. I learn about their extensive list of contacts, how frequently it’s updated and the source of their media data.

And then I ask about outreach: “How do reporters learn about your news?” They invariably respond that they send out emails en masse to all the reporters on their list. They know blasting emails is not the best way to establish media relations, but they lack the time to create customized, one-on-one emails to their long list of trade and general business media. I don’t even venture to ask whether the look up their favorite media on Facebook or Twitter; I already know their answer: “No time for that either.”

Rather than rush to judgment and criticize the practice of email blasting press releases to the media, I put myself in their shoes and express gratitude that they’ve come to me for help. Establishing media relationships is labor-intensive, requires the use of many tools, and has a very low initial rate of success, especially during your first three months of outreach. It’s no wonder that harried PR people juggling many tasks don’t invest the time needed for effective media outreach.

List-building is a case in point. Just this month, I launched media outreach on behalf of a client. The preliminary research alone to develop a solid media list took at a full-day’s work – and that’s while using an efficient online media contacts database.

Here’s what’s involved, just in list-building:

1. Identifying the key topics, news and trends your client wants to talk about
2. Identifying the appropriate media outlets, and the reporters and the beats
3. Viewing media sites to see recent coverage and assessing the chances that the reporter might be interested in your client (you’ll often find that their identified beat, and what you perceive as their specific interest, don’t often match your PR goals, so dig deeper).
4. Checking out others within the same outlet who seem to cover similar beats – but don’t – you can only know by reading their stuff.
5. Identifying other ways to reach them besides email – are they active on Twitter or Facebook? Do they write a blog or have a personal web site? Are you following them? Why not?
6. Finding mutual interests – whether it’s personal or professional – so you have something in common to get conversations started with the media via social networks

The eventual media list I built included lots of notes, to help me find genuine (not phony) connections with the media, either professionally or personally. Relating to them is one way to show you care, and to also show that you GET IT. GETTING IT is the key. What I mean here is walking in their shoes, understanding their needs and empathizing with their daily juggle of stories, deadlines and fears of their newspaper/magazine folding in the not-too-distant future. So you’ve spent a day or two and have a solid list built. Then what? I’ll have more on that later.

This morning, I read a blog item from Chris Brogan about how to reach bloggers and it occured to me that most of his ideas for targeting bloggers also apply to traditional media people such as reporters and editors. So I thought it would be worthwhile to share.

These are my “Four Ps of Pitching” and I believe these rules apply, whether it’s a blogger, a newspaper reporter, a radio newscaster, a TV producer or an online columnist.
1.Persistence — it really pays. It’s easy to get frustrated and think a blogger lacks interest. Most of the time, he/she simply has too many things swirling in their universe. If you know that when you pitch a blogger, you’ll be a lot easier on yourself and keep your confidence up.
2.Patience — don’t expect instant gratification. I agree that you must build a relationship with the blogger. I’ve gotten a blogger interested in my tech client because we share similar loves of cooking and I’ve sent her recipes. We started a relationship.
3.Pushy — DON’T BE!!! If a blogger or reporter ever interviews my client, I practice the “never be pushy” rule. I don’t bother them about when their blog item or story will run. If I do want to follow up, it’s usually with a nugget that might be interesting to what they’re writing about.
4. Pressure — ANOTHER DON’T! In fact, when I make a phone pitch, I don’t even ask if they might write about something I sent them. I don’t believe in pressuring someone on the spot. Let your information sink in with them, and follow up with something that’s valuable to get a sense of their interest. Don’t seek a commitment for coverage. Bloggers and reporters work at their own pace and respond to demands of the news (or their editors).

OK. here’s a 5th item, but it’s an “R” — RESEARCH. Don’t waste your time pitching a blogger blind. I totally agree with Chris about the value of doing your homework and learning about these folks. They are people, People! They are not targets. Look at them that way, and you’ll be successful.