Dialing for Coverage

This is the part we like to think of as “dialing for coverage.” Since you know how to spot the right journalists for the story, there’s nothing but a phone call standing between you and those glossy press clips. This is where we close the deal. But—there’s always a “but”—there are a few critical steps to doing it brilliantly.

First of all, understand that you’ve got about twenty seconds on the phone to get the go-ahead, or you go directly to dial tone.

Start by showing the same respect you expect to receive. Selling doesn’t mean snowballing. We’re not here to sucker a poor press guy into covering us just for our benefit alone. We want to give reporters thoughtful stories and great ideas so they call us back further down the road. Start by asking if they’re busy or on deadline, and that you’ll only take a few seconds. Those “few seconds” are the first test of timing. As the failed comedian said: “It’s … all … about … timing ….”

The Pitch That Cried Wolf

There are only so many reporters covering the field or industry you play in, whether it’s automotive technology, software, clothing, or architectural design. With time and experience, you will wind up speaking to them all one day—or their brethren. In a world of instant communication and shrinking inner circles, a PR person who cries wolf with a few off-the-mark pitches is blackballed in a hurry.

There’s nothing the media dislikes more than vapor (a non-story), so don’t pitch it. Click over to Business Wire (www.businesswire.com) or any of its ilk on a given day and you can count up hundreds of thousands of dollars spent propagating vapor news. “Small Company A Signs Agreement with About-to-Fold Company B” or “InterSlice Tech.com Launches Bleeding-Edge Customer Tracking Functionality.” Find us a journalist who actually wants to write about topics like that (how do they affect anyone else besides the people who wrote the releases?) and we will tip our hats to that PR person (who has a reporter cousin, of course).

The danger in vapor is that it builds a name for you quickly. The wrong name. If you’re dabbling in handheld technology, say, and you pitch Ken Li, well-known gadgetry journalist, on every software upgrade, he’s going to learn very rapidly not to take seriously any pitch you send his way. Who cares? The danger is that when you have real news, the kind that matters, such as the launch of your new device that makes the iPac shake in its boots, Ken will not pay attention because you’ve proven yourself to be a vapor merchant.

Before you blast out a cluster bomb of e-mails or send that release over the wire, consider long and hard what’s interesting about it. Is it fascinating just because you’ve spent three tireless months working on the content? Is it amazing because your latest noodling brings you one step closer to a competitor that no one’s ever heard of? If that’s the case, hold off and wait ’til you have something worthier of the presses; in other words, don’t believe your own story too much.

Larger public companies are especially guilty of pushing vapor into the press. There’s a theory out there, one we don’t subscribe to, that if you don’t have a steady, weekly stream of information crossing the wires—also known as “the machine”—your business’s progress has sunk to an uncompetitive pace. Remember that with public companies, their news unfortunately engenders an article or two (unfortunately, because it makes the firm think that what they put out is urgent, and so it compels them to keep the vapor machine oiled).

Yet when this non-urgent-news-pushing firm truly has something worth chatting about, the press may not bite. Everyone at the firm scratches their heads and wonders why. But reporter types and analysts are glazed over from the hundreds of newsless missives shot through that PR cannon. And they are all too familiar with firms that cry wolf.

The take-away from all of this is that vapor works only rarely. For example, it did for Seinfeld. If what you desire is real, respected coverage continually, sit on the vapor (“CEO sneezed today!”), and don’t put it out there. You’ll only numb the reporters who should care and who should notice that what you do is important.

Technique is indeed crucial. Throughout the conversation you will want the journalist to keep saying yes and giving you indicators to continue. If you simply ask if he’s busy and don’t say anything further, he’ll always say yes, and you’re done. If you say it will only take a few seconds, you’ll get the okay to proceed, and you’d better make it fast because the reporter is as busy as you think. What you’re doing is getting the reporter to say yes. “Yes” lets you proceed. “Yes” closes stories. Look for the “yes” label. (By all means, don’t ask him to point you in the right direction in terms of pitching the story. We’d hang up on you, too.)

Now we’re into the thick of the pitch—we’re selling, baby. To sell anything takes a real sense of enthusiasm. You’ve picked up the phone late at night to the sound of an unenthusiastic credit card or newspaper pitch. Every time you hear it, you cut the telemarketer off. A friend of mine pretends he’s died. Whatever. Anyway, the point of all this is that even if the telemarketer might be saving you huge interest payments or offering a free car wash for listening, you don’t want to hear it. They aren’t into it, so you aren’t, either.

The same is true for media relations. You can offer a journalist an exclusive interview with God, but if you aren’t excited about the idea, God may lose a believer. You have to be energized that you’re on the phone with the journalist and excited about whatever it is you’re pitching. Now, there’s a difference between liveliness and artificiality. Don’t be a phony. Just be charming.