Ideal Marketing Company Blog

Consider the topical subjects in the news- childhood obesity, crime, anti social behaviour to name but a few issues which are ‘hot’ at the time of writing.  Even somthing such as the Terminal 5 situation, however these will soon give way to some new topic. Can you find a way in which your product or service impacts on these topics? If so, the media are far more likely to pick up on any article that you send them. If your release hits the right spot at the right time, you can gain an enormous amount of coverage for very little effort.

One of the advantages of press releases is that they can be easily adapted for different audiences. Once you have written the main copy of your release, it can be adapted for the local press or the specialised trade press with minimum effort, maintaining a narrow focus and an angle that is interesting to its intended audience.

Remember when you are writting a press release you are NOT writing an advert- if your press release takes this form, it will go straight into the bin. Your article must contain information of interest to your target audience.

Narrow your focus when sending out a press release. There is no point in contacting a national newspaper if the story you are sending them is of local interest only. Likewise, the publishers of ‘Ball Bearing Monthly’ may be fascinated to read about a new product that you are manufacturing, but this will be of no interest whatsoever to the readers of ‘The Daily Mirror’.

Decide upon your target audience and be as specific as possible. Are you aiming for national coverage, will your angle be of interest to local people, or people working within your specific area of the market? An angle of interest to the local community could be the creation of employment within the area. Alternatively, the specialised trade press may be interested in the use of new technology within your company, you could even catch the attention of the national media with news of a service that your company provides linked in with a current topical issue e.g. selling a health bar aimed specifically at children to combat the increasing trend towards childhood obesity.

Reflect on what your company does that is newsworthy- brainstorm with colleagues, friends, partners for a variety of perspectives. You might not think that you do anything to justify media coverage, but think again. Look at what your company does: the service it provides or product that it makes from different angles. Within its specialised sector, you should be able to come up with some form of newsworthy angle – are you the first in your sector to offer a specific service, are you launching a new product, have you upgraded the service that you offer your clients?

It is an undeniable fact that the media wields an enormous amount of power and influence within our society. Good PR is capable of harnessing this power, and is one of the most cost effective ways of getting your company noticed- yet it is also an area that is neglected by many businesses. One of the reasons for this is that the success of a PR campaign can be difficult to monitor accurately. At its best PR, can achieve spectacular results for very little outlay both in time and expenditure, at its worst, it can flop completely. Surprisingly, whatever the result, the cost to you will often remain the same.

The secret to superior PR is the planning and thought that goes into it – using simple yet effective strategies to gain maximum exposure for your company. Whilst PR can sometimes be considered a cheap form of advertising, this is simply not the case. There are definite costs in terms of software used, time spent on the campaign and so on. In addition, if you employ a company to do your PR for you, then this will also incur a cost- often charged at a daily rate. However, if you can create a successful PR campaign, then your business will receive a tremendous amount of publicity and credibility for a relatively small outlay.

Go back through any recent media coverage you have generated and look at it again. Could it help build your company’s credibility, keep prospects warm or build up the trust of a prospect? If you don’t have a PR programme currently in place, perhaps you can now see how useful media coverage can be at building credibility and helping to close the deal. Now is the time to start making a habit of doing more to gain PR coverage for your company, and doing more with the coverage once it has been generated.

It’s always good to display our wares in as colourful and attractive a manner as possible. And when it comes to proposals, you are expected to present your product or service in its best light when preparing a written proposal. But the more independent it appears, and the less hype that goes into it, the more believable it becomes. The danger of course, is that it can become a very dull document. Direct quotes from radio interviews, TV stories or trade magazines can be a good way to back up the point you are making. In effect you are saying – don’t just take my word for this, listen to what the media have to say about it.

As a sales person, you are not expected to be an independent witness. I have never yet met a sales person who, at the end of the meeting, concluded that I would be better off buying a competitor’s product because it is more reliable and costs less. You are expected to point out all the good things about the product and so, for that matter, is your company’s brochure. But you can have a secret weapon – media coverage. “Of course you would expect me to tell you how well the system performs, but this is what the newspapers have said about us.” It is at this point that you can unleash a pile of clippings – many of which will be articles which are more or less reprints of the press releases that you sent out, but some of which will be proper articles which really do report on what an innovative / money saving / compact / unusual products you have produced. It is like taking an independent critical set of witnesses who can vouch for your character on every sales call.