Bright talk media relations session 16 oct final.pptx
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These slides formed part of a webinar session led by BDB account director Jenny Mason to help delegates understand the role of PR within the wider marketing mix and the value that media relations can bring to your business.
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Bright talk media relations session 16 oct final.pptx
- 1. Read all about it: maximising b2b media relations for your business INSERT HEADER SLIDE HERE Jenny Mason account director, BDB www.bdb.co.uk @bdbmarketing @bdbmarketing www.bdb.co.uk October 2014
- 2. Session objectives @bdbmarketing www.bdb.co.uk October 2014
- 4. What is PR? “Public relations is about reputation - the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you. “Public relations is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.” @bdbmarketing www.bdb.co.uk October 2014
- 5. Reputation matters • No reputation is bulletproof • Help to present company favourably • Competitive advantage @bdbmarketing www.bdb.co.uk October 2014
- 6. How is PR changing? @bdbmarketing www.bdb.co.uk October 2014
- 7. It’s all in the story @bdbmarketing www.bdb.co.uk October 2014
- 8. What’s stopping you? @bdbmarketing www.bdb.co.uk October 2014
- 9. The good stuff… steps to getting more value out of PR @bdbmarketing www.bdb.co.uk October 2014
- 10. 1. Get the right team in place @bdbmarketing www.bdb.co.uk October 2014
- 11. 1. Get the right team in place Co-ordinator Strategist Spokesperson Technical Approver support Copywriter Media contact Budget holder @bdbmarketing www.bdb.co.uk October 2014
- 12. 2. Know what you want @bdbmarketing www.bdb.co.uk October 2014
- 13. 3. Agree what you want to say @bdbmarketing www.bdb.co.uk October 2014
- 14. 4. Read the media @bdbmarketing www.bdb.co.uk October 2014
- 15. 5. Be prepared @bdbmarketing www.bdb.co.uk October 2014
- 16. 6. Find your story angle @bdbmarketing www.bdb.co.uk October 2014
- 17. 6. Find your story angle Have we won any awards recently? Why do you think we won? Have we won any awards recently? Why do you think we won? When are our financial results due out? How does our performance compare against the wider industry? When are our financial results due out? How does our performance compare against the wider industry? Can you tell me some more details about upcoming new product launches? How does the new Can you tell me some more details about upcoming new product launches? How does the new product compare to our product compare to our competitors? competitors? Are there any new appointments to the team? Is there a reason why we’ve expanded the team? How is the new office How is the new office performing? Is there anything we can say about our presence performing? Is there anything we can say about our presence in the region? in the region? Are there any new appointments to the team? Is there a reason why we’ve expanded the team? Why are we launching this language microsite? Is there a particular focus on Why are we launching this language microsite? Is there a particular focus on the market? the market? What is the hot topic in the industry at the What is the hot topic in the industry at the moment? moment? What are the most common What are the most common challenges that our customers face? challenges that our customers face? @bdbmarketing www.bdb.co.uk October 2014
- 18. 7. Know your tools @bdbmarketing www.bdb.co.uk October 2014
- 19. 8. Build strong relationships @bdbmarketing www.bdb.co.uk October 2014
- 20. 9. Measure your success @bdbmarketing www.bdb.co.uk October 2014
- 21. Recap: nine steps 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 @bdbmarketing www.bdb.co.uk October 2014
- 22. Upcoming webinars @bdbmarketing www.bdb.co.uk October 2014
Editor's Notes
- Hi everyone and thanks for joining the latest session on international b2b marketing agency BDB’s BrightTalk channel. My name is Jenny Mason and I’m an account director at BDB. Today, I’m going to talk about the importance of maximizing b2b media relations and give some tips on how to implement a successful approach to communications within your organization. The session is aimed at people with a beginner or intermediate knowledge of media relations, who are currently working in an in-house b2b marketing communications role and want to get more out of PR. At BDB, we are often approached by people who are in this position and the trigger for getting in touch can range from wanting to feel more prepared when handling incoming, urgent press queries, to a need to become more proactive in order to maintain share of voice alongside competitors in industry debates. Whether it is a shortage of resource, difficulty in sourcing story ideas or lack of agreement within the business on the overarching message, there are a number of barriers that may need to be overcome. In this webinar, I’ll provide you with a nine step approach to getting better results from PR in a b2b environment. I hope you’ll leave full of ideas on how to get your organization geared up to talk to the media. First, some housekeeping. We’ll run a couple of polls today so do take part in any that I flash up. If you have any questions, please do submit throughout the session and I’ll aim to respond as we go along. Please also rate the presentation when you leave. It’s really important for our channel moving forward and we’ll take it on board for our future webinars. Ok, so we’ll get started...
- This is what we’re going to be covering today. The focus is very much on maximizing media relations in a b2b setting, although of course a lot of the principles will apply to b2c organizations as well. The main takeaway message will be that there is a lot of planning work that needs to take place behind the scenes in order for an organization to become ‘media friendly’. By the end of this webinar, you should be able to better identify what you want to achieve from your communications activity and the potential challenges that you might face as a business in doing so. I’ll also share a checklist that you can use as a reference point to make sure that you are in a position to get the most value from your PR efforts going forward.
- I want to start with a quick poll to understand what you and others viewing this webinar understand by ‘public relations’. Often, I find that ‘public relations’ and ‘press releases’ get muddled up by people not working in the industry on a day-to-day basis. It doesn’t help that they can both be abbreviated to PR! In fact, public relations is about much more than press releases and, depending on the situation, it might be more appropriate to offer a by-lined feature article, phone interview or blog post to a key trade magazine or online news portal. It is also very important to remember that the press release – or whatever format you use – cannot be considered in isolation. ‘Media relations’ doesn’t just mean schmoozing journalists at cocktail parties either! There are a number of other critically important parts of the puzzle that need to be taken into consideration, such as strategic development, research and evaluation, as part of a wider understanding of what ‘public relations’ has the potential to achieve.
- So how is ‘public relations’ defined? The slide above is the explanation that is given by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations – or the CIPR – in the UK. The critical sentence to me is the third: ‘it is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics’. The CIPR is saying that PR is essentially reputation management. Put simply, your reputation – and this applies whether you consider it from the perspective of you as an individual or your business – is shaped by three factors: what you do, what you say and what others say about you. Your PR strategy should play a pivotal role in building, evolving and maintaining a positive reputation for your business.
- In today’s world, we are operating in an increasingly transparent environment. People used to complain about something in the pub to their friends. Now we tweet it or share our opinion on Facebook and – suddenly – everyone becomes a publisher. The slide here shows a recent example from the UK, which I’ve included to demonstrate how quickly news can spread. In this instance, a poster meant for internal use was placed mistakenly in the window of a major supermarket by a member of staff. A photo taken by a passerby and uploaded to Twitter was instantly shared and hit mainstream national news headlines. But PR and reputation management isn’t just about crisis avoidance. I’d encourage all businesses to look beyond merely reacting to inbound press queries, to take a more proactive approach to media relations. PR can be used to present a company more favourably, through careful crafting of the information that is shared externally and making sure that the message is targeted to appeal to the relevant audiences. It shouldn’t be seen as a ‘quick win’ option, however and only consistent engagement with the press in conjunction with other marketing activity will give a business a competitive advantage in the long term. By steadily building the reputation of your organization within the relevant sectors, PR can help to open up new markets, attract high-calibre employees, give more access to funding and investors, create a high value for products and services and help to protect businesses in a crisis.
- As the example I just shared with you demonstrates, you simply can’t afford to ignore PR and reputation management nowadays. We talked about influencer marketing in an earlier webinar in the series, and in an increasingly connected world there are huge opportunities to engage with potential brand advocates or opinion shapers. The communications industry has undergone massive change in the past decade. The advent of new digital channels means that the pace of working has accelerated and your business needs to be in a position to respond quickly to press queries, as journalists are often working to extremely tight deadlines. The trade media is diversifying to meet the needs of its readers, which it must do in order to survive. Editorial teams are on the hunt for content that will help them to differentiate from the competition and – in the trade press in particular – are often open to new ideas from businesses and their PR representatives. You need your company to be part of these discussions or you risk getting left behind.
- There is now a plethora of channels that your customers, prospects and other influencers could choose to go to for information on a particular technical challenge, change in regulation or update on the latest industry trends. We now have an average concentration span of just eight seconds – less than the typical goldfish – and audiences are fragmenting, as readers face information overload and are forced to make choices based on a niche area of interest or personal preference in terms of media consumption patterns. Yet the discipline of PR remains the same at its core. It is still vital to create a compelling narrative across all media that will engage the audiences that you want to target and communicate the relevant key messages. By adopting a consistent approach to PR, you will create and then protect your corporate reputation and – if you get it right – grow strong brand loyalty amongst your target audiences.
- So what’s stopping you? I’d like to run another poll at this point, to get a better understanding of the different barriers that you have had difficulty overcoming in the past. I imagine that it is likely that factors such as a lack of understanding as to media requirements slow / stringent approvals process shortage of time / resource within the organisation need to demonstrate ROI to wider business, or difficulty in identifying what is newsworthy may have caused a few sleepless nights in the past, and they are all certainly problems that a number of the clients that we work with have faced. I’ll now take you through a nine step plan that can help you to tackle these challenges head on.
- Right, so here we go with our nine point action plan to implementing results-driven PR within your organization…
- Firstly, it is important to decide which people will be involved in defining and implementing your communications activity and to make sure that all parties have clear roles and responsibilities set. You also need to be realistic in terms of the level of input required and the availability of the team to support. Does your lead technical contact have the time to spare to provide input into all PR materials, or is there anybody that he or she could delegate some of the work to? If you are the main coordinator of PR activity, it will help you if you understand the motivations of each team member to take part. Are they looking to raise their profile as individual, or is it a task that has been added to their already vast workload without any consultation? PR activity can require bursts of reasonably intense time investment and you’ll work together more easily if you know how each other likes to operate and any problems are flagged well in advance.
- So, who do you need in the team? This slide shows some examples of the different roles required: co-ordinator strategist spokesperson copywriter technical support approver media contact budget holder Of course, these are only suggestions and you may decide to have additional roles in the team, or a smaller number of people covering multiple roles. You should also consider whether you want to work with an agency or not. There are certain roles – such as copywriting, the media contact or the strategist – where you might benefit from the additional resource or external perspective.
- Once you have a willing team in place, it is important to set clear measurable objectives so that you are all clear about what you are looking to achieve from your PR efforts. When setting the strategy, it is important not to get bogged down in what you are going to talk about or the publications where you’d like to see your business appear. Instead, you should think about what business objectives you want your communications activity to help you to achieve and then agree key performance indicators, so you can report your progress back to the wider organisation. You should link your KPIs to business goals such as sales, market share, retention and growth, and also make sure that you establish metrics for monitoring and conversion in Google Analytics for all related website and campaign landing pages. Examples of KPIs include ‘positive’ outcomes, such as number of inbound calls received in response to a product launch, or ‘marketing measurement’ goals like share of voice alongside competitors in the trade press. It is also important to note that advertising equivalent values or weighted advertising equivalent values are now widely discredited in the PR industry, due to factors such as fluctuating weightings and the fact that the figures are not necessarily representative of wider business objectives.
- If you are going to achieve your goals, then you need to make sure that you are all singing from the same hymn sheet. I’d always advise that a key message document is developed that can be used as reference point throughout the duration of the communications campaign. There is no need to worry about seeming repetitive, as it is important to remember that consistency is key and it will often take repeat exposure for a message to be taken fully on board by an individual. In general, the fewer messages, the better or you’ll dilute the impact and risk confusing the audience. It is, however, very important to tailor the messaging to make sure that it is relevant to different groups. If necessary, then consider a key message setting workshop and carry out research to understand the requirements of the various people that you want to communicate with.
- I know that we are all busy, but it is important to have at least a top level understanding of your sector trade press if you are to know what type of information the editors are going to be interested in and also to see what your competitors are doing. You should try to subscribe to the relevant newsletters and key print publications, but a shortcut that can reduce the time input required is to enlist the support of a external agency or another member of your team. For example, the insights that are provided could help you to make more informed decisions by summarizing competitor activity, identifying relevant stories on which your business could comment and including recommendations as to the most relevant and influential titles to reach different target audiences.
- Every company’s business continuity strategy should contain a media handling policy in case of a crisis situation, such as a product recall or accident on site. It is essential to allocate clear responsibility for media relations in advance by identifying key media spokespeople for each area of the business and completing any training requirements. You should also make sure everyone throughout the company knows the procedure for dealing with media enquiries – from the person who takes the initial call to every spokesperson. We’ll be discussing this topic in more depth in a future webinar, so watch out for more information if this is of interest to you.
- You don’t have to wait for the media to come to you though. If you want appear in the trade press more, then you need to be proactive and develop ways of keeping your finger on the pulse within your business so that you are aware of any potentially newsworthy developments, such as product launches, well in advance. If you’re still struggling for ideas, then speak to your technical or regulatory experts to see if there are any topical industry wide issues that you could comment on. You can also seek inspiration from the press to see what angle other companies in your field have taken in order to generate interest. If you work in a large organisation, then it is going to be more difficult to know everything that is going on and so put processes in place to help you – whether it is identifying a point of contact within each team, or sharing your details more widely and setting up some kind of incentive to put forward suggestions.
- I often find that identifying interesting story angles is about asking the right questions. Here are some suggestions are opening statements that you could ask colleagues in your business, as well as ideas as to how you could probe to establish how newsworthy the development potentially is to the trade press.
- As I mentioned right at the start of this webinar, it is important to remember that public relations does not just mean press releases. In order for a development within your company to be suitable for a press release, it must be seen as newsworthy and the material will then typically be widely distributed to a number of trade publications, both print and online. The tool that you select should depend on what you are trying to say and what you are looking to achieve from your communications activity. For example, if you want to position your company as a thought leader then consider a non-promotional article or blog post that is by-lined to an expert spokesperson and placed exclusively in a top publication. If you want to raise the profile of your brand alongside competitors and are struggling for story ideas, then make sure that your spokespeople are ready and willing to speak to a journalist if he or she requires an urgent comment.
- This brings me onto my next – and penultimate – point, the importance of building strong relationships with the trade media. If you can develop a reputation for being a media friendly organisation – with relevant and timely information and spokespeople that respond quickly to requests from the press – then journalists are more likely to come to you for comment. Of course, you need to approach editors in the right way and do not assume that there is a guarantee that he or she will want to cover your material. That said, a polite and helpful introduction is always worthwhile at the start of a relationship and you can then look to get to know each other better at, for example, trade shows.
- And, finally, remember that it is important to measure, measure, measure the success of your communications activity in order to establish whether the investment you’ve made is paying off. You should always refer back to the KPIs that you set at the beginning of the campaign and reassess throughout the course of a project to check progress against these goals, making any changes in approach if necessary. Finally, share your successes internally and – perhaps most importantly – remember that it is a team effort. Thank those who have given up their time and shared expertise in order to secure a great piece of coverage and they’ll be more likely to want to get involved in the future.
- And now it’s my turn to thank you for listening to the webinar today. I hope that it was useful. This slide here gives a recap of the nine steps and we’ll now take some questions.
- Please don’t forget to rate the webinar as you leave, or to subscribe to our channel for our upcoming events and On Demand content. Visit www.bdb.co.uk and click Insights to download our free guides on PR and marketing in b2b sectors. Ok, thanks again for your time and I hope you have a good rest of the day.