Matching the Media

 Effective press relations starts with effective targeting.  You need to ask:

• What is the function of the organisation?                                                                                   
• Which audiences are essential to its success?
• What messages does it wish to convey?
• Which media are suitable?

As well as understanding the organisation’s activities it is important to understand the audience.

For example, the manufacturer of components only needs to reach distributors and the general public if these are sold under the company’s own branding.  In many cases their audience is the small number of motor manufacturers who will supply the components with their own branding through their own distributors. 

Messages

Because audiences can be diverse, most organisations will have more than one message to convey.  Prospective shareholders will want to be assured about viability, employees about security and customers about the nature and qualify of the product.

The Media

Messages have to be tailored to the wide variety of media available, being clear about the target audience

• Use specialised media for your sector to announce developments and air matters of interest.
• Use academic or technical publications to enhance the reputation of staff and to discover if research is being duplicated elsewhere which could lead to collaboration.
• Use other specialised media to interest distributors   
• Use the national press to announce major investments, new products if they are of sufficient interest and company results if quoted on the stock exchange.  Research, campaigns, events and crisis management are other areas of interest to the nationals.  Major orders will also be of interest but only if worth tens of millions of pounds.
• Regional newspapers will be interested if you can give them a local angle.
• Local newspapers will be interested in the activities of companies in their area because it affects the prosperity of the neighbourhood.

Promoting a Product

Genuinely new and different products of interest to the general reader will usually get the coverage they deserve and many specialised products will receive coverage in specialist periodicals.  But not every product is new and exciting.  Many are simply another brand’s interpretation of an idea.    

Existing products which have remained much the same for many years may also need the use of different techniques to obtain coverage.

Advertorials

This editorial space linked to advertising.  An advertisement of a certain size will result in an agreed amount of editorial being run.  Sometimes the newspaper or magazine editor will provide a journalist to write the editorial but it is more usual for this to be provided by a PR function or consultancy.

Many journalists feel advertorials compromise editorial independence and the publication will also target your customers and suppliers to advertise alongside your advertorial.