A key focus for WordWrite as an agency continues to be delivering messages or content from clients to the spaces where their target audiences can conveniently find it.
In a business-to-business (B2B) landscape, journalists continue to be key partners in the ongoing effort to showcase the thought leadership and credibility our clients possess.
Trustworthiness and authenticity are critical elements of an effective business story, so frequent appearances in the media outlets your ideal audiences consume provide third-party validation that’s difficult to achieve in content you create on your own real estate (blogs, social media, website, etc.)
That’s where a good agency’s relationships with journalists across the country can help. If you can’t provide the media with compelling reasons to report on you or your business, then how can you expect your business story and points of distinction to reach those you’re trying to engage?
Journalists these days are dissatisfied, overworked, unappreciated for the work they do and often woefully underpaid for the service they provide to society as watchdogs for the public interest. (Can you tell some of us at WordWrite used to work in the media?)
In terms of limitations on their ability to share your company’s value with others, journalists are also often bombarded by an enormous amount of emails on a daily basis. Volume wouldn’t be such a problem if the emails were pertinent to the type of stories they actually cover. Unfortunately, the relevant details of your business and expertise in a specific field often get lost in a pile of irrelevant garbage, buried beneath so much other junk that the journalist never sees it.
For example, a reporter we’ve worked closely with at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution shared a story pitch she received about a dietician visiting New York City to discuss how better nutrition can prepare women for bikini season.
There were several problems in that pitch for those of us trying to get our own messages and information to the reporter.
a. The reporter is in Atlanta, not New York City, and therefore wouldn’t travel almost 900 miles to listen to the dietician speak
b. The reporter’s coverage beat had nothing to do with the type of health and beauty topic shared in the pitch
c. The reporter told us she receives hundreds of these types of pitches from PR pros who clearly don’t do their homework on what she writes
Unfortunately, this type of shotgun approach when it comes to PR is all too common, in our experience. Even worse, it provides real roadblocks to business journalists who want to share stories that could help their audiences make educated decisions about what to buy, or assist businesses trying to sell their services to other businesses.
To quote from a recent article by Kelsey Jones, the managing editor at industry trade publication Search Engine Journal, “If you are trying to pitch me Tibetan sandals, then you obviously have never visited SEJ and have no clue who our audience is. However, if you take the time to reference a recent article you liked and tie in how it relates to your product or service, then I’m going to be more likely to continue reading.”
Kelsey’s views are supported by findings from the BusinessWire 2014 Media Survey. Emails (69 percent) and press releases (22 percent) are the preferred methods through which reporters want to be contacted. Even in an era in which content marketing – paid ads meant to appear like editorial content – is all the rage, 90 percent of journalists said they’d used a press release in the last week and 70 percent said the absence of press releases would make it harder for them to do their jobs.
Fact sheets (63 percent), press kits (53 percent) and executive biographies (52 percent) ranked behind more traditional media relations strategies in terms of importance to journalists. The common theme here? Reporters want no-nonsense and direct information, not sales jargon. Quality content, as I recently wrote in this space, shares your business story authentically.
It should be apparent by now that journalists –even in an age of diverse and fragmented media – still want to know the truth behind what you do and who you are before they’re willing to validate what you do and who you are to others.
This is why we nurture our relationships with journalists. We believe an agency’s ability to articulate your value proposition to the media speeds that process. Interested? Let’s get to work – together. Bikini season is over.
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Jeremy Church is vice president of media and content strategies for WordWrite Communications. He can be reached at jeremy.church@wordwritepr.com and on Twitter @churchjeremy.
