We hope you'll enjoy this edition of Strategy Matters, a newsletter bringing you news, tips and strategies for effective communications from Strategic Communications, LLC, committed to bringing you success through strategy. www.stratcommunications.com |
|
|
7 Steps to Take Before Pitching to the Media
If you've ever attempted - unsuccessfully - to interest the media in a story about yourself, your business or your products or services, you're not alone. Seeing "your name in the news" can often be more art than science and, unfortunately, many failed attempts fail because of some very simple, and easily overcome, missteps. Following are "7 Steps to Take Before Pitching to the Media":
- Make sure the media match - or matter to - your audience. In other words, if your audience doesn't read the local paper, why worry if your story doesn't appear there?
- Stop thinking about you. The media is unlikely to care about your company's latest award, most recent hire or promotion or even - depending on your approach - new product or service. It's not about what matters to you - it's about what matters to the audience of the particular medium you're trying to pitch. Take an "outside in" approach.
- Think about any potential "tie-ins." If your book on How to Get In the U.S. Open is timed to debut during or shortly before the U.S. open, that's a tie-in. If the country is concerned about jobs and the economy, and you're an economist with actionable tips on how to survive in this economy, that's a tie-in. Pay attention to what's going on around you and ways that you can tie your story to a bigger story.
- WIIFT - "What's in it for them?" - Why should the audience want to know? WHY? You're opening a new credit union branch? Why is that important to your community? You just opened a new restaurant - who cares? why is it different? why does it matter? Approach your own pitches with vigor and keep asking: "who cares?" "who cares?" until your pitch reeks with relevance.
- Get rid of the fluff, puff and hyperbole. Be ruthless in removing any trace of self-promotion in your copy whether in a news release or email pitch. Stick to the facts and just the facts.
- Focus on the headline - or subject line. Favor meaningful over "cutesy." Editors are very, very busy. A recent statistic indicates that the average editor receives upwards of 200 emails each day. How will yours stand out?
- Ask some of your toughest critics - internal and external to your organization - to take a look at your pitch and offer feedback. When it's yours it's difficult to be objective. An outside perspective can be invaluable.
|
Service Brands = Special Challenges |
What makes a strong brand? Recognizability. Performance. Consistency.
When we're talking about a product - a carbonated beverage, for example - recognizability can come through a logo and design, performance comes through the taste of the beverage, consistency is an element of the manufacturing process.
But, when we're talking about a service, the process of brand management becomes much more complex.
While recognizability is impacted by logos and design elements, there are other factors to consider. Consultants who travel to client locations, for example, are themselves a key component of the brand - including how they dress and the type of vehicle they drive (and how well maintained it is).
How is a health care organization's performance defined? By the physician? The registration clerk? The distance from the parking lot to the front door? The cleanliness of the facility? The magazines in the waiting room? The delivery of care (and how do we, as non-clinical consumers, measure that?)? Yes - all of these things, and more! For health care and other service organizations (which would include restaurants, retail stores, etc.), performance is a multi-faceted process with multiple touchpoints and multiple opportunities to either strengthen or weaken the brand.
And, finally, consistency. The greatest challenge of all. While product consistency can certainly be challenging, there are more tangibles to deal with in the product arena. The challenge for service marketers in managing a brand involves managing human inputs and human actions. Significantly more challenging than ensuring that the right physical ingredients are combined in the right proportions in the right environmental conditions to produce a consistent result.
Too often as we focus on other important elements of the brand - like the logo, the name, the "company colors," the design templates, etc., etc., in the service arena we have a tendency to forget about what is most important about the brand (recognizability, performance and consistency) - the people.
|
|
Should you be spending money on advertising? |
|
Frankly sometimes advertising just doesn't make sense. Sometimes there are better, more cost effective and just plain more effective ways to achieve your goals. Of course, to know whether or not advertising makes sense, you first have to know what your goals are and who it is that you're trying to influence.
I worked with a client recently to determine whether advertising in the Yellow Pages made sense - both the print version and the online option. Here's the series of questions we explored:
- When your audience is looking for your services, are they still likely to look in the printed Yellow Pages? The answer, of course, will vary by market and geographics, but for many businesses, the answer will still be "yes," and it was in this case.
- What are your competitors doing? There are situations in which advertisers need to advertise simply because they would be "noticeable in their absence."
- What is the cost? Are there other, alternative communication tools you could be using instead that would generate comparable results?
- What's the best thing that can happen if you do choose this tool?
- What's the worst thing that can happen if you don't?
- Based on the answers to #4 and #5, what does the risk/reward continuum look like?
- If you don't advertise at this time, what is the "worst case" outcome?
In this case, based on an exploration of the above questions, we decided that "yes," it made sense to buy a listing.
And then, the related question of: "Should you be in the online directory?" In this case, we decided "no." Their audience was primarily local and comprised primarily of early baby boomers, or older. We also talked about our own use patterns. In using the Internet, we felt we were more likely to look up a specific business, not go to a directory to find various names of businesses - or phone numbers. We felt this was likely to be true of our target audience. Our decision: "Not at this time." But we will gather information from the market about their actual usage patterns to test our assumptions.
We used the same process to determine whether newspaper advertising was advised and, in this case, decided "no," it wasn't.
The process is much simplified, here, but the point is that advertising does not always make sense. Sometimes there are better, low-cost and even no-cost opportunities available. When there are, you should use them.
Learn more at: www.stratcommunications.com. | |
| Free White
Paper |
25 Silly - But True! Advertising Rules
For a free whitepaper on "25 Silly - But True! - Advertising Rules You Need to Know Now to Increase Sales" contact:
Strategy Matters! |
| Offer Expires: 8/1/09 |
Strategic Communications, LLC, specializes in strategic communication planning and implementation for brand management, community, customers, employees, marketing and media relations.
We work with businesses, large and small, to help them apply strategy to address their communication challenges.
|
|
|
 |
Do you have an "internal communication plan"?
|
|
|
|
