Cultivating Media Relationships: It’s A Process

For some tech companies, cultivating a positive relationship with the media can be a big challenge. Many firms — particularly startups — expect to simply generate and distribute news in the form of press releases, gain media coverage and then use that coverage to provide sales teams with “air cover” to drum up business.

However, it isn’t that easy or simple. It is a methodical, repeatable process that my agency has completed time after time for clients large and small. It requires effort, and it makes me think of the old?TV ad ?for Paul Masson Wine starring Orson Welles, who stated that “we will sell no wine before its time.”

Like creating a good wine, creating an effective media relations program takes time. But post-launch, a thoughtful media approach can yield results that show the lasting value of PR by building awareness, interest and consideration from key vertical and business journalists. Trust me: The upfront effort is worth it.

The main objective for PR pros or departments is generally to become useful to journalists. This means they should become helpful, reliable resources to journalists by assisting them with doing their jobs wherever and whenever possible. Developing productive, conversational relationships with journalists helps “build the brand” of both agency and client. You can do this using tactics like providing information to journalists to provide background for a story without expecting to be quoted in the story. This technique, along with such basics as picking up the phone and being responsive, can help position you and your client as ongoing sources of reliable information.

In this same vein, I also recommend developing regular research projects that reporters will find useful. Customer and industry surveys are always a hit for me because they provide new perspectives and real data points around business issues that make for interesting copy.

In addition, PR pros can ingratiate themselves to reporters by arranging media “sit-downs” with key executives and technical experts, as well as virtual (and perhaps soon-to-be in-person) coffee, drinks or dinner meetings with journalists who are important to them. Most reporters will recognize and appreciate the effort it requires to arrange such meetings, and when the pandemic subsides, I expect to see the return of in-person media tours in major markets like New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Boston that facilitate real-time, face-to-face connections between clients, agencies and media personnel.

Being of service to reporters in this way won’t automatically earn you placements, but it will put you in a better position for reporters to hear and fairly consider your pitch when the right time comes along.

Be An Ally

By being an ally to journalists, you can build relationships with them. Following individual reporters and helping to advance the interests of their particular media outlet shows professional respect and illustrates that both your agency and your client are paying attention to their work. At Bospar, we engage with reporters by interacting with them regularly, taking note of when they post stories and then amplifying their work through insightful commentary when relevant and appropriate. We do this because we understand that editors keep track of engagement, page views and shares, so engaging in this way is a method of providing reciprocal professional support and a technique that can help expand a client’s sphere of influence.

Target Appropriately

Off-target and spammy media pitches like those?Muck Rack highlights ?are practically legend among reporters, and it behooves PR people to make sure that they choose both the reporters and media outlets that they contact well. By targeting the appropriate vertical and trade publications, particularly at the outset of a PR program, you can ensure that any coverage you gain will provide credibility and a go-to resource for larger business or national publications that end up researching your client. By staying on-target and focusing on the right reporters — as well as avoiding being spammy — you can show them that both your agency and client are serious and professional players.

Make Your Own News

When you’re working to build up a company’s reputation and its relationships with the media, you should also incorporate the strategy of making your own news. By doing so regularly, you can transform every company development — such as a new product launch, a customer win, a personnel move or almost any other sort of positive financial event or signal of company momentum — into a “news-making” opportunity.

You also shouldn’t miss “newsjacking” initiatives, which are opportunistic media relations efforts that tie one’s client to a current news story or a hot topic that is making its way through the news cycle. Journalists often appreciate a relevant, timely and unique perspective on an issue, and by offering client resources to reporters, you can often generate coverage in the form of executive quotes or company-provided data points that position an organization as a leading source of industry knowledge.

These approaches go hand in hand with the notion of “cadence,” which is the release of news on a regular, almost staccato, basis. I advocate for at least two high-value news releases and one creative media outreach campaign per month; this cadence helps advance the narrative of rapid corporate progress. A strong news cadence gives PR firms an avenue through which to provide the media with what they need — which is fresh, original news — while driving home the dynamism and category leadership of an individual client company.

In The End, Pursue Results

In the end, a commitment to building media relationships can earn real results — not only in the form of publicity but also in the form of gains across more nuanced metrics like share of voice. I believe that relationship-building with the media can be really effective when a PR agency is staffed with former journalists with whom this approach resonates. Building ongoing interest, conversation and coverage just requires agencies to invest effort and time to bring about sweet results — just like making wine in the 1970s.

This article originally appeared in Forbes .