Is the Press Release Dead?

There was an e-mail or blog posting which went around a few weeks back asking if PR was dead. That seemed to raise an ire within the PR and marketing communities and I believe the general answer is that PR is most certainly NOT dead. Still, one can't help but wonder if it may be sick because certain sickly elements of it give it the appearance of death.

Case in point is our old friend the press release. Many a PR person has burned the midnight oil waiting for a C-level executive to make sure that the i is dotted and the t is crossed. One thing is certain and that is that senior executives love to see a good old fashion press release. They love to pontificate like a prophet from the hill top, extolling the ignorant masses with the blessings of their brilliance.

What is shocking is that from a cost perspective the press release often is a huge money loser. Consider that most distribution services charge you for every word after the first 500 and the first 500 usually only get you past the headline, sub head and maybe the introduction paragraph. Very rarely do the bean counters want to stop a senior level executive from having their pulpit and thus most press releases cost between $1500 and $2000. The saddest part of all is that no one outside the organization is reading them!

Yes that is the sad and true fact. Information both anecdotal and factual indicate that the news media do not read news releases and choose not to receive information for the news they cover from them. Modern technology has allowed press releases to be distributed via Google and other aggregate services so people are seeing them, the level of penetration and how much information is being absorbed still remains questionable. Sadly, the more this becomes apparent, the more we seem to double down on the press release.

So back to the initial question is the press release dead? Well not entirely. Contractual and regulatory requirements plus the the need to distribution information will always require some form of the press release. What needs to be changed is how the information is distributed. For one thing, try a mental exercise. Ban the use of the term press release in 2011. Instead substitute the term news release. While this may be an exercise in semantics, it can also force people to think long and hard about what they really want to say versus putting every iota of information that crosses their desks.

Secondly, once you have adopted the term news release, try putting a hard cap on the number of releases issued. Say for example you agree to 6 per quarter. This will allow you to focus on the most important news and not on the trivial. Secondly, you can focus on delivering your message to key spokespeople and not simply drafting, approving and distributing a release. Lastly, you can significantly cut the costs of your PR operations and deliver results which will have an increased ROI and thus make PR a more significant player in your organizations marketing programs.

The press release is dead in 2011. It's offspring, the news release its younger and more productive offspring the news release. By focusing on news and choosing information which will raise visibility, strengthen the brand and ultimately sell more products we will create a strong and more responsive PR operation. PR does not stand for press release!

Why activity is often the worst thing in a PR campaign

I have had the chance to speak to a lot of marketing and PR people of late and one thing I have noticed is that there is a lot of pride taken by smaller and less well informed individuals that they have achieved regular interviews with the news media. In most cases they are like a kid with their first credit card and only see what they can buy. The don't realize that sooner or later, the bill is going to come due!

I have seen so many companies run a laundry list of all the big names publications who have supposedly covered their organizations. I still laugh when I think of the start up CEO who actually took offense when I disagreed with him and said that publications want interesting stories and aren't really interested in the cult of the CEO. He felt that business was personality driven.

No the sad but true fact is that as far as business publications are concerned, hard news is what sells. As a result, going out for a lot of "puff" pieces that do not clearly communicate to your market, who you are, what you do and why that matters are of no good. Many organizations invest vast sums of money and time in trying to get covered by big and prestigious publications like the Wall Street Journal for example and all they end up with is a waste of both time and money.

The smartest course of action is what I call the sniper's route. In the military, they train every soldier in how to care for and fire their weapon. However they take time to see who is the best sharp shooter in the bunch and then train that person even further and turn them into a sniper. Of the many elements of their training, one of the most important is how to identify the best target from a sea of possibilities. One of the great sayings among snipers is that any sniper can hit the target, but only the great ones can select it!

So picking targets for your PR campaign is one of the most essential elements to its successful execution. Trying to bring in a large number of busy bee results or picking some publication without a clear line drawn from story to customer to sale is the needless type of PR activity that is all too common among PR agencies today. Clients need to realize that it is up to them to go to the agency with marching orders and to expect in return results based on your expectations. Otherwise, you will see a bunch of busy work that in the long term, six months or more, will result in no net gain of sales.

How to wean your CEO from a PR addiction

One thing is very true in public relations today, far too many press releases are being issued. Furthermore, no one is reading them! The sad part is that many corporate executives see the way to dig out of a hole is to dig deeper into the earth.

The appeal of the press release is not hard to see. It allows senior executives, in most cases CEO's to pontificate on what they believe is important news that the entire world must hear. Sadly, in many cases, they are speaking to an empty church. So many releases are going out and most are of such dubious value that important things like messaging and reaching customers is often overlooked in the interest of simply issuing another release. Keep in mind that it is in the best interests of your agency and the wire services to have you issue a release any time you sneeze.

So that your public relations can accomplish its real goal of delivering your message to your target audience and ultimately helping you sell more of your product or service you need to manage your PR program the way you would protect family valuables. There are some steps you can take to ensure that your PR program is run properly. Some require basic steps but like a lot of things in life, the simple things lead to the greatest result. Here are some of my key tips to reduce PR addiction.

• Bar the use of the term press release. Instruct your management team that the company only issues news releases. It may seem like splitting hairs but it forces you to ask such questions as, what is the news value of what we are saying? Will this help us sell our product or services? Will this help reinforce our message to our key target markets?
• Put the management team on a diet when it comes to issue news releases. Pick a number and limit them to roughly half a dozen releases per quarter. That is an arbitrary number but what it does is it forces prioritization on what is really valuable. Hard choices often need to be made and rather than take an easy out by issuing a press release, make a tough choice and issue a news release.
• Look for non-traditional means of connecting with target audiences. While we are evolving in our use of technology, not to many companies are using Web 2.0 technology, such as blogging, Facebook and Twitter among others, to successfully disseminate their message to their market at large.
• Use more established methods in new ways. For example, opt-in email distribution services are vastly under-utilized and as such do not people who are interested in hearing about new developments within your organizations to hear from you. Therefore in a sad irony, information is being distributed to people who don't care or who are not an appropriate target.

Many senior executives believe that they know what is the best way to disseminate information and as a result hijack the PR process. Sadly many communications professionals allow this to happen because they place temporary job security over the long term success of their careers. The ones who truly succeed at public relations are the professionals who establish a rigorous program. The organization's success is the ultimate goal and only through this type of rigorous program can the success be assured.

How to test your start up brand?

Building a brand is something that takes time, patience and, of course, money. To use the old adage, "Rome was not built in a day." That is certainly relevant when it comes to building ones brand. Start up companies today are faced with the dilemma that they need to build to build a recognizable brand as soon as possible and get it to market even quicker so they can establish themselves and begin to generate revenue.

So with any product the question becomes how do you test a brand especially if it is one that hasn't seen the light of day yet? Certainly if you are Microsoft or Coca-Cola you can conduct focus groups and have test audiences to try out your product and see how it works. A new start up has maybe a half dozen individuals to share the information with and, assuming they have a new concept, need to be discrete in who they inform regarding the product.

To that end it is very difficult for a start up company to test its product and get a sense of its brand. Still, it can be done if appropriate measures are taken to protect the brand. First of all, you do have the option of selecting a small group to serve as your control and use them to test the product or concept. By doing this, you are bringing in people you believe you can trust. They need not be people you know personally but they should be screened for reliability and you should be comfortable with who you are working with.

You can also work with organizations and do a blind test. These organizations bring in people and serve as your focus group and tell you what they like about your concept and what they do not like. They are blind in every sense of the word and have no idea what your product is and in many cases may have no idea about your market. While you benefit from feedback, you are getting this feedback from an ill-informed group who may not fully understand the nuances of your brand concept.

Lastly, you can try and run your own research so that you need not work with a pay-to-play organization. This is very dangerous as you do run the risk of exposing your brand to a public audience before it is ready. There have been many incidents where companies tested products before they were ready and the bad press leaked out as most bad press does and ended up causing the type of attention that most companies would prefer to avoid!

Testing your brand before launching it is a sensible and intelligent means of not only determining the brand concepts and strengths but also in easing the product into a position before its target audiences. Sensible precautions and reasonable planning will allow you to test your brand and either adjust the concept before releasing it to the public or, in a worst case scenario, go back to the drawing board. Either way using a control group as a sounding board allows you to build a stronger brand and one more in tune with what your target audience is looking for.