Guest post by Barbara Mednick of BKM Consulting

To break through the media clutter and harness the power of public relations (PR), keep the following ten PR & marketing tips in mind:

1. News is not advertising and promotion

News is not advertising and promotion and what is important for your business or organization may or may not be important or of interest to the media.  News value and relevance drive coverage; meaning that the media decide what is newsworthy by evaluating your story idea against news criteria. 

2. Determine PR goals

Determine PR goals to produce the best results. For example, are your PR goals to:

• Introduce your target audience to a new product or services?
• Increase your visibility to increase sales, members, or charitable contributions?
• Persuade people to buy your product or service rather than a competitor’s?
• Enhance the reputation of your company to attract more customers?
• Counteract misconceptions about your organization, industry or product?
• Attract shareholders and support your stock price?
• Get people to vote for legislation that will help your organization?

3.  Consider news criteria

Consider the following news criteria to determine if your idea is newsworthy:

• Timeliness – did it happen recently? Is it a current trend? 
• Proximity – is it in the geographical area targeted by the media organization?
• Impact – will it affect a lot of people?
• Prominence – is someone famous involved? Is it important to the audience?
• Conflict – does it involve conflict?
• Novelty – is it unusual?

4. Develop your ‘news angle’ or ‘news hook’

Develop your ‘news angle’ or ‘news hook’ to pique the media’s attention and increase the chances for media coverage.  Ask yourself, who cares beyond your organization or company?  Why is the story significant? How many people does it affect? Timeliness and proximity are important for “hard” news stories and novelty and impact are important for feature stories.

Keep the following in mind when writing news release and media pitches:

• Include specific “keywords” to optimize your release on search engines.
• Include links in your news release to your web site, blog and other sites.
• Remember that editors and reporters can tell whether your company, product or issue is newsworthy. Avoid using highly promotional copy or inflated prose.

5. Target Internet, print and broadcast media

5. Target the growing number of Internet, mainstream print, and broadcast media outlets that reach your intended audience and/or market.  Use news media web sites and media directories to create a customized media list.

6. Once you’ve identified the right media channel, find the right media contact.

7. Distribute your news release

Distribute your news release and make it available in the following ways:

1) Via email to a specific media contact at a news outlet. Personalize the email to a specific reporter/editor and keep your message succinct and newsworthy.
2) Via an online news release distribution.
3) Post your news release on an “online newsroom” section of your web site.

Remember that today’s journalists, producers and editors prefer to receive news via e-mail and to instantly access company or organization web sites to secure the facts.

8. Promote your news release

Promote your news release via social media tools like Twitter and others. Include a link to your news release online. Also, include hyperlinks in your news release. 

9. Manage the message

Manage the message – Remember that you can’t control the media, but you can manage your message and help to shape media coverage and public perception of your business or organization. 

10. Remember what’s news

10. Last, but not least, remember what my favorite journalism professor used to say: “When dog bites man, that’s not news. But, when man bites dog, that’s news!”

Guest blog post by:

Barbara Mednick - BKM Consulting

Written by Barbara K. Mednick of BKM Consulting, Inc. (www.bkconsulting.com), a strategic PR and marketing communications firm located in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Barbara has partnered with WordsmithBob.com on several marketing projects for clients. You can contact her at 651-486-7007 or bmednick@bkmconsulting.com.

HackingEthics

Originally posted 2010-04-02 12:00:31. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• Roshini Rajkumar Interviews WordsmithBob on WCCO Radio Today... Roshini Rajkumar, guest hosting on the Al Malmberg Show on WCCO Radio, interviewed me from...
• WordsmithBob Speaks On Social Media Marketing Image via Wikipedia WordsmithBob is speaking Wednesday, January 20th, 2010, on Social Media Marketing to...
• Social Media Marketing For Business Social media marketing for business seems to most of my clients like networking at a...

• Corporate Blogging Link Building Strategies An important part of promoting your corporate blog is making...
• Make Money With Online Home Based Business Thanks to the internet, people are now able to do...
• Murphy-Goode's Smart Marketing with New Media Murphy-Goode Winery has an interesting job opportunity that you may...