This is part three of a never-ending series on how to win at public relations. Read part one and part two.
As a PR person, there's one thing you should take away from Apple's iPad press conference last week: when Apple CEO Steve Jobs appeared on stage to announce the new product, reporters clapped.
Why is this important to you?
Because Apple didn't waste those spray painted invites on media who would not be interested in attending.
They only invited their fans.
This might seem logical, yet, some firms still employ the strategy of carpet bombing the media, which is the mirror opposite of Apple's tactic.
Here's a made-up example with real world implications.
The client is releasing a new product -- the Snow Blaster 3000 -- just in time for winter.
In an effort to prepare for the media blitz that will accompany the launch, the coordinator on the account is instructed to build the mother of all media lists. This media list includes every single reporter in the United States of America whose past coverage has ever included some combination of the words "snow", "like a hot knife through butter" and "back pain."
At 12:01 a.m. EST on the day of the launch, the release hits thousands of inboxes.
That morning, the technology reporter at the Miami Herald sits down at her desk, logs into her e-mail and sees a press release announcing a snow blower that is going to "change the way you attack snow."
Delete.
This action repeats itself in newsrooms in various parts of the country.
Meanwhile, the client verbally undresses their account staff because they didn't meet the astronomical metrics.
Everybody involved decries the lazy journalists for covering fluffy news instead and retreats to their cubicles.
We're not yet at the point where we can pronounce the press release dead, but sending out a mass e-mail to reporters hoping one or two will bite certainly is.
(I've recently seen media lists passed around that included defunct newspapers. Try explaining to your client why you didn't land a story in that paper.)
While you cannot control the quality of the product that your client is paying you to promote, you can control the quality of the time you spend pitching the product.
Let's go back in time for a moment.
You get a phone call from your client to talk about the strategy you'll use to pitch the Snow Blaster 3000.
This time, instead of promising 100 stories in metro newspapers all over the country, you suggest to the client that outreach efforts focus on papers and media outlets in cold weather cities. Not only will the odds of positive coverage increase, you say, but from a professional perspective, you're making a name for yourself as somebody who knows their stuff.
In this situation you are managing expectations with your client and helping them to understand why they're paying you good money to do this for them.
Oh, one more thing: reporters are busy people. The reason we monitor coverage is to not only see when our client's coverage runs, but also see what the reporter is writing about on a daily basis. Daily monitoring of our target media gives us a great understanding of their interests and, thus, what they would be interested in writing about. It also eliminates the erroneous pitches.
I've never been told this by a reporter, but I'm positive they like targeted pitches that are in their sweet spot. Besides, the quickest way to a reporter's black list is heavy use of the mail merge feature found in most e-mail clients.
In fact, pretend I never mentioned those words.
Now go out there and don't be stupid.
