Sometimes it can seem like there’s just too much media out there. Simply stroll into Borders and you’ll find specialist magazines to cover every want, need and desire; whether you’re into football, ferrets or farming, there’s a publication that’ll suit you.
In fact, so swamped are we that there’s now a market for media dedicated to sifting all the week’s news to its essentials, saving us from having to sieve through the verbiage in our quest to discover who said what while wearing whatever and sleeping with whomever.
More media, of course, means more journalists striving to make their reputations or just pay the rent with this week’s big story. And as there’s only a finite amount of real news out there, that leaves a lot of journalists seeking an angle that will give them that elusive exclusive.
Journalists trying to outdo each other in a quest for the best story can only be bad news for B2B companies.
Ask any tabloid newspaper editor: bad news sells. So give a journalist the freedom to choose and they’ll usually try to write the worst story you could possibly imagine, and the only opportunity you’ll have to rebut or even make a reference to your side of the argument will be in a hasty press statement or interview.
Commenting on a story a journalist has conceived, researched and worked up is known as reactive PR: quite literally, reacting to a story about you that someone else has concocted.
It, of course, has its uses this is typically how crisis-management and damage-limitation works, which to many companies is the primary point of a PR department or agency. When they want to tell a positive story or shout about the quality of their products and services they tend to turn to their advertising departments.
Problem is, when it isn’t working to manage a crisis, reactive PR can help to cause them. Journalists are very much not concerned with your best interests, and many will do all they can to get your company to discuss issues that might be damaging or uncomfortable. Simply being reactive puts your company’s reputation at risk.
So instead of simply turning to the admen, companies should begin spending more time trying to be bolder with their PR.
Most importantly, rather than simply responding to stories, they should be crafting them themselves. They should be getting proactive…
Proactive PR entails actively encouraging the media to write stories: giving them the hooks, content and access to make a story utterly newsworthy and compelling. And at its best, smaller, lesser-known companies can use proactive PR to get them in the news, while for bigger, more renowned organisations, it allows them to shape it.
Once a company has chosen to adopt proactive rather than reactive PR, all sorts of techniques for reaching the media are suddenly open to them. News hijacking is a favourite: commenting on an industry-relevant story that’s already in the news such as a competitor’s annual results gives companies a free ride into the media at the expense of either a related industry or their own competition. Conducting research in a relevant field links the topic, and the research results, to a company’s name. These techniques, and numerous others, allow companies to create and hone any message, and then gives them a chance to reach places an advertiser simply cannot get.
Even simply taking the initiative, and talking to the media about current strategies and future plans, can reap dividends. Your product might be the finest in the industry, but if only your ad department is telling customers about it, how will they know? After all, don’t the ads from your competitors all claim that their product is the best there is? The independent voice of a journalist carries a credibility that marketing cannot create.
Of course, there’s more to it than simply picking up the phone. Famously, PR can do three things:
- Alter people’s views.
- Affect their buying habits.
- Get them to consider changing their behaviour.
Each requires a slightly different specialised approach. A little careful planning, so you’re sure about your who, what and why beforehand, will save time and money.
But they all require one shared expertise storytelling. A good story never hurts, of course, but when all is said and done, the skill is in the telling.
Chances are, your company has already spent a tidy sum coming up with a brand identity, a mission statement, even a website in the corporate colours, but none of this content is being put to use.
The best way to make all that outlay worthwhile is to tell your story. And the only way to ensure it’s really your story that gets told is to be proactive.
