Powerful PR: Build Better Relationships, Get Better Results

When most people think of Public Relations, they think of the end result: media coverage. Reviews of their new product. Profiles of their founder. A piece on how “Whiskey Tasting Wednesday” makes them the hottest place to work in town.

With media coverage as the goal, they start pitching. Emailing. Tweeting. Liking all Instagram posts and Pinterest boards. Stalking the media and flooding their inboxes with unsolicited and super-biased, promotional information that is hyped and spun to make absolutely normal everyday business developments sound ground-breaking and newsworthy. Most of it is not.

Reporters hate it.

Who can blame them? They are basically on the receiving end of an unending waterfall of spam. Multi-modal spam that attacks from all angles! Emails. Social. Voicemail.

As a result, they almost never respond. Which makes this model of PR inefficient and not effective.

To be fair, lots of PR people hate this model, too. It rarely works. But their neck is on the line for results. So they keep trying. Fingers crossed!

So what do we do?

First, let’s go back to the definition of the function. According to the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA):

“Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.”

Mutually beneficial relationships.

How different would your actions be if you were trying to build a mutually beneficial relationship with your target editors and reporters? Spoiler alert: A lot different.

Treating media as professionals who, like you and your peers, have a specific job to do will help you create a stronger and more productive, mutually beneficial, relationship. Which will result in better coverage. I promise.

What that looks like:

• Start building relationships early. Reach out to the folks who cover your space, introducing yourself and the company. Send an email or set up a quick “get to know you” meeting so you can better understand who they are, what they’re working on, the way they work. This is not about securing coverage. It’s about learning. It’s Business Relationship Building 101.

• Be relevant. Understand what the reporter covers and read what they’ve written in the past. Then, send them stuff that is relevant to their beat, but not redundant with recent coverage. It seems super simple because it is super simple. But you’d be surprised how many folks use a “spray and pray” model when it comes to working with the press, blanketing every reporter at a target outlet with spam, regardless of their beat or area of expertise. The PR person is banking on the law of odds for a successful outcome, but what they’re really doing is irritating lots of folks and making themselves seem out of touch. And irrelevant. That is as annoying to the receiver as it is inefficient for the sender.

• Add value. Make the reporters life easier. Help them get their job done by giving them the information, access or insights they’re looking for. Quickly. If you’re proactively sharing information, frame it in context so it’s clear why this new data would be valuable for their readers. What you should not do is tell them what to write or spam them with useless promotional fluff.

• Respect their time. Always find out the reporter’s deadline. They’re often under a time crunch, so getting them the info ASAP and inquiring as to the best time to talk through a pitch is essential. If they’re interested, they’ll let you know when they’re free.

• No stalking. They got your email. I promise. If you didn’t hear back, they aren’t interested right now. 100 follow-up emails and voicemails will not change that. It’s better to spend that time re-thinking the story, the pitch or the contact.

• Stay in touch. We all have those friends who are radio silent until they need something. And they suck. Don’t be that person. Not every reporter will want to be brunch besties, but regular relevant and value-add touch-points are a solid plan. This can be as simple as a tweet or quick email to let them know you like a recent piece. Plus, it’s a great way for you to get insights and updates from folks who are paid to “go deep” on your industry.

• Delete your need to edit. Part of the reason PR results deliver more impact and credibility than marketing copy is because the end product comes from a credible, respected third party (the reporter and editor). They get to have their opinions and points of view. The PR person’s role is to get them what they need to tell a compelling story. It is not to edit the final product. Ever. Still, reporters field tons of emails from PR and marketing folks asking to have finished stories changed or edited. A misspelled executive’s name? Ok. The wrong link? Fine. Reframing their opinion on your place in the market? No way.

• Mind your manners. Everything is better with a “please” and “thank you.”

At the end of the day, a stronger relationship with your target press will lead to better results. It’s that simple.

Reporters are people. Even the cranky ones and the mean ones. Unfortunately, they are often treated like content creation machines who will write exactly what you want, exactly when you want it.

Moving away from a transactional model, where PR folks blast information to reporters with an expectation of coverage, to a relationship-based model, where the PR person focuses on mutually beneficial outcomes, will increase the depth and breadth of coverage. It will also uncover opportunities you didn’t know exist and maybe help you meet a few cool folks.