The College of Saint Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota, and Saint John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota, have hired McVey Marketing Inc. to provide consulting services in the area of strategic media relations planning. The firm will consult with Saint Ben's/Saint John's on the development of a comprehensive media relations plan, as well as the formation of a new media relations position, including assisting with the hiring process.

The College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University enroll nearly 4,000 students and offer more than 60 areas of study and 40 majors. The institutions feature a student-to-faculty ratio of 13-to-1 and have earned national recognition as "best buys" by Barron's and the Fiske Guide to Colleges.

McVey Marketing is proud that Saint Ben's and Saint John's have selected the firm as one of their strategic marketing partners.

How to improve relations in your media relations
So your organization has great stories to tell, but you can't find any reporters or other media representatives to catch your story pitches. Or, worse, the media are reporting stories about your industry, but they're not including your organization, and your supervisors are starting to notice.

Like it not, the success of many marketing and communications professionals hinges on their ability to generate media coverage for their organization. Your marketing operation can be producing award-winning publications, advertising and web pages, leading the way with cutting edge market research, and generating record numbers of inquiries through effective direct marketing campaigns. But if your organization's name isn't in the news on a consistent basis, chances are your marketing operation -- and your future -- aren't viewed as successfully as you think.

So how do you improve relations in your media relations? Having developed numerous successful media relations plans and effectively pitched many regional and national stories during the past 20 years, I believe it comes down to three r's and a p. Let me explain: research, relationships, reliability, and proactive persistence.

Reserach: Do your homework and get to know who the media outlet's target audiences are, who covers what, and what types of stories they're interested in. With the wealth of information about media outlets -- including phone numbers and e-mail addresses of reporters, editors and producers available online -- there's no excuse for sending blind news releases and hoping they hit something.

Relationships: While communications technology advancements such as RSS news feeds, Podcasts, and contact management databases have changed and enhanced the field of media relations, building effective working relationsips with media members is still at the core of the enterprise.

Part of developing good working relationships with media representatives is knowing when is the best time to contact them with an idea, and how they like to be approached. Do they prefer story pitches via e- mail, phone or fax? When are they on deadline and least likely to welcome story pitches? Have you helped build the relationship by focusing your story pitches, weeding out the lame ideas, and quickly returning their phone calls when they need information for other stories?

Reliability: Media representatives need to know they can reach you, that you're honest and trustworthy, and that you'll follow through. If they've agreed to conduct a phone interview with your president at a specific time, you'd better make sure he or she is available at the appointed hour. If a crisis has developed and they call you for comment and you're still gathering the facts, tell them so and ask if you can get back to them once you have more reliable information. Never lie or purposely mislead

Proactive persistence: This doesn't mean pestering media representatives until they cover your story. Rather, this means taking the initiative to interest reporters, editors and producers in a story rather than waiting for them to contact you. And it means not abandoning a strong story idea with the first rejection. Instead, focus harder on who else would be a good fit for the story, consider how the idea could be tied into other newsworthy issues of the day, or be expanded into a broader trend story that has greater appeal.

If business media outlets are reporting secret merger negotiations between two multinational corporations (e.g., like recent rumored reports of Microsoft acquiring Yahoo), quickly prepare and distribute a source list to media of experts within your organization who can provide expert commentary. When the tragic shooting deaths recently occurred at Virginia Tech, many reporters and editors sought to localize the story by interviewing security directors and others, at colleges and universities in their areas. Anticipate the needs of media outlets, and quickly move into position to meet them.

Just in case you need a second and third opinion regarding effective media relations tips, I've enlisted the help and expertise of two veteran newspaper editors: Maureen McCarthy, education team leader at the Minneapolis-based Star Tribune, and Kathy Berdan, arts and entertainment team leader at the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

Here are a few valuable tips from McCarthy: "Do your homework and know which reporters and editors might be receptive; don't stop at one. If news won't take it, maybe there's a feature angle. Try to have more than one angle that might capture a reporter or editor's eye. Does this story lend itself to photos? Sometimes the photo staff is willing to cover something that reporters don't see as a text story.

"Look for opportunities to match your story with events in the news and trends in popular culture. Energy- saving gets more attention now because of global warming. 'American Idol' tie-ins attract interest. Focus your pitch and keep it short: one-page faxes or emails with the most interesting information in the title and lead paragraph -- a simple outline."

Helpful tips from Berdan at the St. Paul Pioneer Press: "Focus in on what's unusual or different about the story. Another story about the play 'Bye, Bye Birdie' isn't likely to interest me. But if one of the leads is being played by the son of an actor who played the part 30 years ago, that's different and interesting and will get more attention.

"Do your homework. I can't stress that enough. I can tell pretty quickly whether or not someone pitching a story knows about our readers, what interests us, and who covers what. With so much information about the paper and our beats being available online now, there's no reason or excuse not to have done some basic research before pitching a story."