Back to PR basics

With a lower journalism head count, and journalists managing two or three beats at once, sharper PR skills are required to land successful pitches.

All meat, all sizzle: Back in the day, you might be able to hit up a reporter on a slow day and persuade him or her to cover your not-so-newsy pitch. Well, those days are gone.

“Despite the newsroom staffing, there is one fundamental that we in PR need to adhere to and remember—and that’s content,” says David Schemelia, senior VP and media director of HealthSTAR PR in New York. “A good story is still a good story and despite how much work a reporter may have on their plate, they will recognize this.”

Adele Cehrs, president of Epic Media Relations in Washington D.C., was in a recent new-business pitch where a potential client said a PR competitor had promised to set up dozens of deskside briefings with media regarding the client’s new book. Not so fast, Cehrs explained to the potential new client.

“Given the current economic landscape, there are far less journalists and editors available for such appointments,” Cehrs says. “What I said to my potential client—and she agreed—was that this is the time when having a complete, well-packaged story is an absolute necessity. Pitching and posing a story that makes it easy for reporters to help you is our job as a PR pros. Asking for anything more in this media relations era is old-school and ill-advised.”

Helping hands: As Cehrs says, the more assistance you can provide to beleaguered media contacts, the more likely they’ll spare a few seconds to listen to a pitch. Charlotte Risch, president of Phoenix agency The Media Push, says high-resolution photos are her secret weapon. “That’s one less thing they have to worry about when working on a story,” Risch says. “Many writers say these photos are instant publicity, because it saves them so much time.”

J. Zachary Rantz, communications coordinator for the Nixa R-2 school district in Nixa, Mo., also makes sure his pitches are rich with detail. “We’re seeing our local media taking some of our press releases and running them verbatim,” Rantz says. “So we’re making sure we give them good quotes—everything they need to tell the story.”

Hard-to-get sources: To get a reporter to respond to your e-mail or take your call, expect to offer enticing sources and other background material. “Reporters want to talk to your customers, not to just the CEO,” says LeaseTrader.com’s John Sternal.

This is also a time when exclusives can play well with journalists who are struggling to prove their worth and keep their jobs. “If you know an announcement is happening a few days out, pick up the phone and contact the reporter and give them heads-up off the record,” says Schemelia. “They’ll not only appreciate the advance knowledge, but it will also provide them with the ability to shift their schedule around and give them more time to work on the story.”

Meet them halfway: Rantz of the Nixa school district says he and his communications colleagues are sensitive to the scheduling challenges of their media contacts. “If we know a reporter from Springfield will be in Nixa on a certain day, we’ll try to have a press conferences at that time so they can attend,” Rantz says.

Don’t rely on e-mail: “I recently talked to one CNN booker who said she had 3,000 e-mails in her inbox,” says Mitch Leff, president of Leff & Associates in Atlanta. “There’s no way anyone can manage that volume of e-mail.” Since it’s become so hard to reach reporters by phone or in person, Leff says, most PR people rely on e-mail to pitch. But that’s created problems of its own.

“You can’t use just one form of contact,” Leff says, adding that he’s had better luck contacting reporters through LinkedIn, or via their Facebook pages. “They’re more likely to respond to queries through Facebook than through ordinary e-mail,” Leff says.

Break out the compassion: Robin Yasinow is a fan of “compassionate persistence.” Says Yasinow, “As frustrating as it may get, we must understand and respect the challenges reporters, editors and producers are under. Being creative, of course, is also essential. We have to breathe new life into a story, find fresh angles, when the reporter who has been pulled off a story is available to revisit it.”