How To Write More Powerfully For PR, Offline And Online
By Suzan St Maur
Years ago when my Dad owned a group of local newspapers
I spent my school and college vacations working in the editorial
office. We used to amuse ourselves over our sandwiches at lunchtime
looking through and trashing the endless press releases that would
arrive in the mail each day, all beautifully produced with glossy
photographs (this was in pre-internet days).
We trashed them because all but the odd one or
two were ill-considered, highly subjective, barely camouflaged
advertising copy that had about as much editorial news value as
last week's shopping list.
Why am I telling you all this? Because despite
the fact that this happened many years ago, it's still happening
today. Both offline and now online editors continue to laugh sardonically
at the self-promoting garbage they receive from corporate sources
exactly as my Dad and I laughed umpty-dump years ago. I salivate
just thinking about how I could spend the fortunes wasted on those
releases and photographs over so many years.
And why does this continue to happen? I believe
it is because the organizations who send out this stuff - particularly
their financial managers - just can't get their heads around the
difference in culture between what they want to say, and what
editors need to deliver to their audiences.
Good PR advisers try hard to compensate, but ultimately
it's the client who pays their fees, and if the client insists
on issuing garbage there's not much a PR adviser can do other
than resign the business.
Time after time after time I'm called into companies
and asked to comment on why the PR coverage they get in the media
is so poor. 99 times out of a 100 it's because they've issued
press releases that are only of interest to themselves and their
bosses.
And yet when I point this out to them they can't
understand it. "But our development team worked 14 hours
a day for three years to win that contract!" they shout indignantly.
"And the CEO had to cut short his vacation in Turks &
Caicos just so he could sign the documents by the deadline! I
mean, it's the most important thing to have happened to us in
the history of the company!"
"I know," I croon soothingly, "but
those points aren't of much interest to the readers of your regional
business press, or your trade press for that matter."
"Well, maybe not," they reply. "But
they are very relevant to us, and to our shareholders. That's
why we made such an elaborate issue of those points in the press
release."
Ah, I think to myself as I gaze out of the window
to see if my creatively-parked car is going to attract the attention
of passing traffic policepersons. Here is another problem we encounter
with press releases. It's called "when is a press release
not a press release?"
The answer is, when a press release is to be used
to impress all sorts of people who are not members of the press.
Only we want them to think that this is what the press will write
about us, so we put it in a press release. That would be okay
as long as that's as far as it goes.
But the awful truth is the same document (paper
or electronic) really does get sent out to the press. And quite
rightly they ignore it, once again because it is of no interest
to the readership of the publication concerned.
For Heaven's sake, you folks who do this sort
of thing, please grow up and face reality. If you want to promote
your achievements to your share/stockholders or staff or suppliers
or whoever, then just go ahead and do it and dress it up in "press
release" costume if you must, although I don't think that
fools anybody.
But whatever you do, don't send it to the press
- and don't kid yourself or anyone else that to use the same document
for both purposes is a way to economize. It's a sure way to shoot
yourself through the foot and indirectly could cost you a fortune.
If you want to get coverage in the media then
you must forget all elements of self-congratulation. Whatever
information you send out has to have something "in it for
them" (the audience) - something new, interesting and relevant.
It doesn't have to be earth-shattering, just worth reading.
If your organisation has done something brilliant
and you're proud of it, by all means say so; just be sure to emphasise
what's great about it for the audience and/or the rest of the
world, not merely for yourselves. Let the facts tell the story.
If your organisation genuinely deserves to be congratulated, it
will be.
And you don't simply have the audience to consider
in this case, because unlike the forms of communication you control,
with media coverage the decision of whether or not to transmit
your message rests with someone else - usually the editor. Editors
and journalists are either very busy or very lazy or both (and
don't chastise me for admitting that, guys. I've been there, done
it, got the T shirt and drank too much in the brasserie at lunchtime
too.)
If you supply them with material they can see
is relevant to their readers and preferably is usable with the
minimum of editing, they will warm to it a lot faster than something
that may hold a grain of interest but will take someone a whole
evening to rewrite and several phone calls or e-mails to check
for accuracy.
Try to match the style and writing approach of
the publication. If you're sending a release out to several publications
that circulate among the same readership, then one release should
be relevant to all. But if you're aiming at different press groups
- say the trade journals and the business pages of the regional
dailies - you will need to rework the approach of your press release
according to the different audiences.
You'll usually find that the basic core of a press
release can remain pretty well the same across all media groups,
because it consists (or should consist) of the pure facts - the
old journalist's formula of who, what, how, where, when and why.
What changes is the angle, and particularly the lead-in.
That means the headline, which should be short
and attention-grabbing, and then the first two or three sentences
that support the headline and set up the whole story. Often it's
worth trying to work in a clever bit of word-play with headlines,
but be very careful - a pun or play on the words that doesn't
work is worse than writing the headline straight.
A good way to nail down the appropriate style
and approach is to read and become familiar with the publication
or publications you're aiming at. By studying them carefully you'll
see how they use word-plays in their headlines, if at all, and
how they relate them to the topics concerned.
By far the best guidance you'll get, though, comes
from studying the audience - the people who read the publications.
What in your story is going to interest them?
Readers of a trade journal will be interested
in what's new and different about your new product and how it
could improve the way they do business
Readers of local or regional business sections
will be interested more in how your new product's manufacturing
and distribution, say, will impact on the local business community
and economy. Local general newspapers and other media will be
interested in the human side, i.e. how many new jobs the factory
producing the new product will create.
And one last tip on how to get the best from press
releases - use "quotes" from the key people involved
in the story. Not those awful, meaningless corporate-babble quotes
you so often see in company press releases ... "We are delighted
to be able to announce the new contract at this moment in time
and we have every confidence that our latest investment will be
of significant benefit to our..." you know the type of thing.
These are usually the first elements that get chopped out by the
editor.
It's perfectly OK to write quotes for your senior
people, by the way. They very rarely give real quotes for anything
other than TV or radio interviews but don't seem to mind quotes
being written for them, provided they're given the opportunity
to check them before they're issued. So, write them quotes that
- far from being beatific banalities - actually are telling important
parts of the story. This is good for two reasons.
One, it makes your senior exec look intelligent
and aware of what's going on in the organization, which is 100%
more than the banality-quote will do for him/her. And two, because
it's an important part of the story and contains useful facts,
the publication's staff will be far less likely to edit it out.
Possibly you're beginning to feel that in order
to get press coverage you'll have to turn yourself, your product
and your entire board inside out and upside down. You could be
right, but that's PR. Remember that press coverage is not advertising**.
Yes, it's free and that's wonderful, but as always
there's no such thing as a free lunch. Editors will only put your
stuff in, for free, if it is genuinely good for their publication
and their readers, not for you. They do not care about your sales
figures. They care about their own sales figures. Successful PR
people and writers of press releases always, always bear these
points in mind; in fact that's why they're successful.
**An exception to this is what's known (in the
UK at least) as "advertorial." In case you don't already
know this is advertising copy written in editorial style, but
the space it occupies is really an advertisement you pay for.
Advertorial is an unfortunate hybrid that has its roots back in
the first half of the 20th century when it was still okay to run
press ads that looked like articles and some readers were still
naïve enough to be hoodwinked by them. If you're obliged
to write it, please just try to make it as honest as you can.
Not easy.
Online tips
Nearly all the theory pertaining to offline PR
is relevant to the online equivalent - especially in terms of
what content is of interest to publishers and what isn't. Online
publishing of relevance to organizations usually falls into one
of two pretty obvious groups; one, websites, portals etc that
are totally independent and uniquely on the web, and two, those
which are the online alter egos of offline publications.
In either group if you want the publications to
take your releases or submissions seriously, it's very important
that you follow the format and structure of articles that appear
on the websites concerned. Whatever you do don't make the mistake
of submitting a general press release to these organizations,
even though you do it by e-mail.
Check first how long the teaser paragraph is that
appears on the home or section page, and check how they lay out
the full articles. Then submit material that fits perfectly, both
in style and in word counts.
One, you will be saving them the trouble of reworking
your piece which makes it attractive in the first place, and two
because it fits so perfectly you will discourage them from changing
anything, which is also a huge advantage for you.
The other point I would make about online press
work is don't assume that just because you submit a release to
the offline publication (and even if they run it) it will be forwarded
automatically to the publication's website. It won't. At least
not necessarily.
And I've found that one out the hard way, believe
me. Treat offline and online versions as entirely separate entities;
find out who the movers and shakers are on each, and often you'll
see that the online version is run by an entirely different group
of people.
Suzan St Maur is a leading business and marketing
writer based in the United Kingdom. You can subscribe to her bi-weekly
business writing tips eZine, "TIPZ from SUZE" on her website
- go http://www.suzanstmaur.com
- and you can check out her latest book, "POWERWRITING: the hidden
skills you need to transform your business writing" on any of the
Amazons. © Suzan St Maur 2003-2004
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