We journalists are a prickly bunch, but you need us on your side if the world is ever going to hear about your business – brilliant as it is. One way to get great PR is to be a stellar and controversial company; another is to make journalists love you.
There are certain golden rules about approaching journalists that even experienced PR firms with good resources fall down on. Generally speaking, journos are mean and time-poor, and they don’t appreciate speculative calls out of the blue or emails choking their inboxes.
Take the scatter gun approach you’ll get it all back in your face. But approach journalists as individuals, treat them with respect, give them what they need and, dare I say it, massage their egos and you could be in for some serious media loving.
The biggest thing PR firms get wrong is failing to segment their audience (ie the journalism profession). Successful retailers lead the way in this discipline, learning everything they can about their customers and handing them the things they want on a silver platter.
But the public relations industry is playing catch up. It created a standard approach around the turn of the century and daily observation seems to suggest it is sticking with it. The approach is composed of the following steps:
1) Create press release
2) Load a spam cannon and fire emails to everyone on a big list of addresses
3) Follow up an hour later to see if the press release “arrived safely”
This is pretty weak. Especially because since 2000 the media industry has fragmented like a mirror dropped out of a sky scraper. Audiences are all over the place, media influence is shifting and the word ‘journalist’ has evolved to mean more different things than it ever did before.
PRs would do well to segment their contacts to reflect this new paradigm. My suggestion (and this is segmentation 101) is to chop media campaigns into six groups, according to the publication and – weirdly you might think – the age of the journalist.
This is one way to do it:
Bloggers
Bloggers are media foot soldiers. The best ones do a lot of work and get scoops all over the place but they crave the respect and authority of a broadsheet editor. It’s vital to appreciate that bloggers are individuals and often part-timers, but don’t have the same pressures as their professional counterparts.
The best way to approach them is to make them feel like mainstream journalists (which many of them really are). They will likely appreciate contact more than other jobbing journos, they will love gifts and freebies and, if they make the big time, your brand will rise with them.
Magazines and websites
Magazines, both b2b and consumer, are not what they once were. Many of them have experienced perilous decreases in both display advertising revenues and readerships, partly due to the rise of bloggers and other free-to-access media.
So magazines, even those projecting an aura of luxury, are incredibly resource-strapped. Magazines that could fill an office floor just 20 years ago not might only have two or three full time writers today, the rest made up by freelancers and user-generated content.
These guys want their work to be made easier for them, with helpful offers of assistance from PRs. The best tack might be the offer of regular, impartial, on-point and insightful contributed articles. Basically anything that can fill column inches with quality prose is a good thing.
National newspapers and TV
Newspapers and TV, like magazines, have taken a hit in recent years. Although these are usually bigger titles with large audiences, the journalists working for them are no better resourced and the requirements of daily news means they are always on a deadline.
National newspapers and broadcasters are big, but their constituent parts are small. A handful of journalists might cover what the readership thinks is a major beat. Again, they will only respond to the best opportunities and the most helpful enquiries. It might not be worth contacting them at all.
How old are they?
The age of a journalist is a massive factor in how they will respond to a PR contact. And it’s more complicated than dismissing old hacks as grumpy and junior reporters as naive and credulous. There are roughly four age groups and each want different things.
Check them out on LinkedIn and estimate their years before you act:
Age 18 to 25
Young journalists are not necessarily more naïve, but generally speaking they are more up for a good time. This is the group PRs need to target, because they are the workhorses of the industry and in many cases write the most stuff. They are also broke.
Strategy: round them up and take them for an all-expenses-paid party.
Age 25 to 35
Journalists of this age are getting serious about their career, are rising up the editorial ladder and are making more decisions about the direction of their title. From a PR perspective they are a harder sell and will probably need more convincing about what you are trying to get them to write.
Strategy: wine-soaked lunch or dinner and one-to-one conversations
Age 35 to 50
This age bracket is about as impenetrable as it gets. Journalists in the 35-to-50 band are editors and directors who dictate play, but they are also husbands, wives and young parents with almost literally zero spare time.
These will only accept the most enticing offers of jollies and even then might have to politely decline. [Last week I was invited on a two-day trip to the Commonwealth Games, incorporating travel, opening ceremony and a posh hotel – I said no. I’m 36.]
Strategy: give them plenty of time to make arrangements – and make it good
Age 50-plus
Strategy: see 18 to 25.
