If you’re spending money on PR but not getting the coverage you deserve, you may just want to pull the plug. But rather than stop media relations altogether, let’s first take a look at your activity more carefully.
PR can deliver huge amounts of value to your business, helping to improve brand reputation and drive sales. It enables you to connect with your audiences, including the media, delivering positive promotion of your goods or services.
So how can you make sure that PR works for you and what is going wrong with your current campaign?
PR is all about building relationships with your audiences, whether that’s the media, your employees, customers, all of the above and more. You cannot build a relationship without some understanding of that person or group, their interests and how they work. Trained as a journalist and having spent more than 20 years connecting businesses to their audiences through various PR roles, I understand how to develop PR campaigns that are going to work for you.
In this article, I look at one of the common complaints from marketing leaders when it comes to media coverage,or a lack thereof…
PROBLEM: My product news is not getting the coverage it deserves
SYMPTOMS: Sending out news and trying to build conversations on social media about a product and its innovative features but receiving little, if any, pick up.
You know your product is brilliant and can do amazing things, but no matter how innovative or much of a breakthrough it represents, talking about your product rather than the solutions it provides just won’t deliver the PR coverage that you deserve.
There are millions of fantastic products out there, and straightforward new product releases and updates are sent to journalists constantly – and usually ignored. There are some exceptions, some trade titles cover product news and if you are a well-known brand then updates can be of interest (particularly if they go wrong like Google’s recent update to Maps). But for most, this approach simply won’t work.
Even if you are known to the media, pitching your story in as part of a solution to recognised problems is going to deliver much more interest.
- Remember – journalists want their articles to be read as much as you want them to cover your news, so sending them carefully targeted information can build long-term and mutually beneficial relationships.
This issues-based approach to PR also presents opportunities to create campaigns built on a wide range of content, from thought leadership articles and blogs to webinars and providing commentary in response to the news agenda or scheduled features. This strengthens your position as an authority in these areas and gives you more opportunity to get in front of your existing and new customers. Win-win!
CURE: It is important that you understand your customers and their needs. Ask them – how does our product help you? This information will help to steer a PR strategy and messaging that is built around recognised topics of interest to your audiences, including target media.
Becky Lamont is the communications and PR specialist at Matrix Marketing. Having worked in PR for more than 20 years, Becky knows how run communications for national and international businesses. With experience in sectors including finance, technology, environment, construction, hospitality, medical equipment and services education, retail and healthcare.
She’s also rather good at winning awards for clients and can help businesses thrive with creative ways to get you noticed. So, if your communications need more clout, get in touch.
Matrix Marketing has a team of experts that can help you review the current state of your marketing and PR activity, suggest improvements and implement them from product launches to optimising social channels.
Get in touch by emailing ana.ansell@wearematrixmarketing.com or call +44 (0)1273 385671
