Kate Betts Blog
How often should you send out a press release?
31st August 2010
I often get asked how often should you send out a press release? My reply: when you have something interesting to say.
A lot of people believe they should have a marketing plan that includes sending out press releases at certain intervals. One a week, three a week, once a fortnight… once a week every week for ten weeks…
All bad advice. Think of it from the journalist’s point of view. They only want to hear from you when you have something interesting to say. They are not interested in hearing about your company just because you want to promote it. They want stories. So if you haven’t got a story to tell don’t send out a press release.
There are lots of other ways to promote your business. Volunteer to answer questions in those daft columns you get in the paper that want to know your favourite places in Yorkshire or go on the local radio and comment as an expert on something in the news. Use social media: tweet, blog, join discussions on LinkedIn. Go to networking events. Even pay for the odd advert.
Meanwhile a story idea will come to you: your company has won a new contract, a member of staff is off to walk the Great Wall of China for charity or you’ve got a great case study of a client you have helped. And do think outside the box. I loved the wedding planner who started telling me because of the recession some of her clients were ditching the posh hotel on honeymoon and going camping. That is worth a press release.
So think: will it really interest a journalist? Otherwise you’ll write one that ends up in the bin – as 97 per cent do.
Prevention is better than cure
12th August 2010
While I agree that frontline jobs have to be protected as much as possible in all the cuts – let’s hear it for the backroom boys (and girls). Someone has to make sure the fire engines stay on the road, someone has to make sure the police’s radio and phone systems work and someone has to make sure someone ordered paper for the printer in the social work office. Frontline workers need back up.
And all those frontline jobs that are literally, or metaphorically, fire-fighting are made a lot easier if the problems are prevented in the first place
It literally is a case of prevention is better than cure. Getting across fire prevention messages (check the batteries in your smoke alarm), health promotion messages (take regular exercise) and crime prevention messages (don’t leave valuables in your car) makes social and economic sense.
PR, marketing and advertising do have a place in a post-cuts world – even for the public sector.
Surely stopping the problem in the first place is better than dealing with the aftermath. Getting the message not to cook chips late at night is surely better than having to be rescued from a burning building.
There maybe a need to reduce spending on PR, marketing and advertising (the Government’s communications agency the COI has already announced it is cutting 40 per cent of its workforce), but we need to keep some of the lines of communication open. It could even save lives.
BP chief gets his life back after PR gaffe
26th July 2010
You may be the chief executive of a massive company, but if don’t know how to deal with the media it can lead to your downfall.
And it won’t help your company’s share value or reputation.
Just ask BP’s chief executive Tony Hayward, who famously said he “wanted his life back” at the height of the oil spill crisis. Looks like he has his life back now and plenty of time to mull over that PR gaffe.
Just ask Gerald Ratner, who famously said his company’s sherry decanter and glasses were crap and a pair of their ear-rings wouldn’t even last as long as an M&S prawn sandwich. Ratners’ share price plummeted and he was sacked from his own family business.
And more recently add to that Gordon Brown, who forgot that a radio microphone doesn’t stop working just because you get into a car and drive off.
PR gaffes are costly. Soundbites can come back and bite you where you least want it. That’s why knowing how to deal with the media is vital.
And it’s no use dealing with the crisis once it has happened. You need to plan ahead and make sure you know who is going to say what when things go wrong. Because they will go wrong… just as sure as eggs is eggs as Edwina Currie knows. She famously said most eggs carried salmonella and was forced to resign as a junior health minister…..
Paul the Octopus can tell us a thing or two about media coverage
15th July 2010
What can we learn from an octopus? Well, quite a lot really when it comes to media coverage. Paul the Octopus hasn’t just got coverage in the local press – he’s gone global. He now his own iPhone app and, as I write this, there are negotiations for a possible transfer to Madrid. What great media coverage for Germany’s Oberhausen Sea Life Centre. If only the Deep in Hull or Sea Life in Scarborough had thought of it first.
It just goes to show that the media love a daft story. Whether it’s liquorice allsorts figure Bertie Bassett getting married or Walkers launching a competition for a new flavour of crisp - the media lap it up. I remember years ago running a front page story at the Northern Echo saying the Wensleydale Creamery was offering a year’s supply of free cheese to anyone who found the Wallace and Gromit puppets. They had gone missing in New York and the creamery had just got the rights to stick the pair on the labels of their Wensleydale cheese. Daft, but true.
So when you are thinking about ways of raising your company’s profile – don’t dismiss the daft stories. They could bring you in a lot of free publicity.
Is Twitter just a load of chatter or does it have a place in marketing?
2nd July 2010
The old PR is all about getting editorial coverage in newspapers, radio and television and their associated websites.The new PR is all about social media and having control over the output. But what about the outcomes?
I believe traditional media still has the advantage of credibility. And people are still into traditional media, whatever the social media gurus would have us believe. According to RTL, the parent company of television channel Five, we watched an average of 225 minutes of television a day in 2009. That’s more than any time since 1992.
But in order to get into traditional media you either have to pay a lot for advertising or get past the gate-keepers of news editors and producers. So why not turn to social media? Where you have control of where, when and what is published. And it doesn’t cost anything like as much.
I have been trying to understand how useful Twitter is in promoting a brand.So many people are following so many people on Twitter that the message probably just gets lost. Can you really build up a relationship with potential and current customers or clients when there are over 100 million registered Twitter users?
Well, perhaps you can. Just ask PC Ed Rogerson of North Yorkshire Police. I am particularly interested in this example because we at Kate Betts Media are doing some work looking at what applications social media has for the police in communicating with their communities. PC Rogerson has hundreds of people following his Tweets and believes the 40% drop in crime in the area he covers is at least partly down to his 140 character communications.
But what about getting a following for your product or service? How can Twitter help there? Maybe it is more about promoting the brand and getting your name out there than directly promoting your business. No-one wants to read Tweets that are blatant promotion, but they do want to read interesting thoughts and snippets of information (spare us though that you had porridge for breakfast!). It is also worth keeping an eye out for what people are saying about your business. If people are talking about you, why not interact with them? If you deal with a customer complaint, it may prevent a possible viral forest fire.
Or you could just use Twitter as an alternative to the water-cooler chatter. That way you don’t even have to get up from your desk to engage with your colleagues.