Thursday, March 28, 2024

Don’t listen to Alice Cooper: By Greg Simpson, founder of Press for Attention PR

Greg Simpson, founder of Press for Attention PR, highlights the importance of timing when it comes to PR campaigns.

Ok, that is a sweeping generalisation, listen to what you like but please consider the following advice if you are planning any PR campaigns.

At the risk of sounding like an aging rocker, school’s out for summer. Some might go so far as to say there are no more pencils and no more books (go on, admit it, you just sang the next line).

However, if you can please just curb your inner Cooper a little before you abandon ship entirely, especially when it comes to anything involving the media, that would be really wise. Here’s a final pre-holiday lesson to explain why.

It can be very tempting to rush things, clearing the decks of various little tasks, your finger itching to trigger the ‘Out of Office’ alert on your emails.

There’s a lot to be said and pondered about with regards to how we manage to get so much done when we really need to but please, please, PLEASE don’t include the media in that. Now is not the time to release anything to the media if it can be avoided.

Sometimes, it can’t but this is rare. Public Relations should be planned and sustained wherever possible and that includes timing any announcements that you have coming up, good or bad. Especially BAD!

For now, let’s focus on the positive. Imagine you’ve just spent the best part of a month planning to announce some news. It could be a new product, a new hire or a company milestone. You’ve drafted and approved the press release and hopefully invested in some photography to really bring the story to life. Now, let’s hope you have either called your key press targets or, if you have a PR agency or consultant on board, they have done it for you.

All being well, with a strong story and good images, you should be getting one of three results:

  • Press love it and publish it ASAP. If so, thank them and start leveraging the valuable content. Tweet it, blog about it. Send an e-shot to your database.
  • Press like it but will put it on the back-burner for a day/week due to deadlines or another feature that will be boosted by your news hook.
  • Press love it but need some extra info. Perhaps another quote from the MD in light of other breaking news in your sector which chimes nicely with your story. They might want to take their own picture – this does happen.

No problem you say…but wait…the MD is away for the summer break. There’s no way we can contact her for a quote as she’s unreachable. A picture is out of the question.

You might say these things can’t be helped…but they can. It is all about your timing of the release. Work with the information you have. If the press call you out of the blue for an opinion and your MD is away then that can’t be helped (still try though) but when you are the proactive party, you know the limits and timings.

So, whatever you do, next time you have a story to get out…please make sure you can add further comment or play ball with press requests. If you can’t, wait until the timing is better. PR is a long-term game.

A former business journalist, Greg Simpson is the author of The Small Business Guide to PR and has been recognised as one of the UK’s top 5 PR consultants, having set up Press for Attention PR in 2008.

He has worked for FTSE 100 firms, charities and start-ups and conducted press conferences with Sir Richard Branson and James Caan. His background ensures a deep understanding of every facet of a successful PR campaign – from a journalist’s, client’s, and consultant’s perspective.

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