Enterprise Nation

Understand how the press works and they can be your greatest ally, helping you communicate information regarding your products and services to a wide audience.  Try to ‘manage’ the media if you don’t understand how they work and you’re likely to waste time, money and potentially damage the reputation of your company. So says Simon Corbett of Jargon PR. He’s here to tell us about positive media relations.

Five steps to media success

Love it or hate it, the media has a huge impact on our lives.  Radio, newspapers, trade magazines, pod casts, blogs, on-line news sites, etc, they help direct our thoughts and feelings towards a specific issue, a person or a company and influence our perception.

Small businesses often provide the most interesting content for the media.  Why - because they are often more interesting, more ambitious, more entrepreneurial and usually have a good human angle behind them that tells the story of a passionate owner/manager building their business.

So what are the five things you need to know to get yourself talked about by the media: 

1. Segmentation

Think of the media you would most like to be in, this process usually begins with the media your potential customers read.

2. Target

Read the media you would like to be in.  Look out for regular features that are covered and keep abreast of industry issues.  Also note the names of the writers responsible for the sections you’d like to be in.

3. Position

Decide how to position your organisation. Are you an entrepreneurial new start-up, a fast growing ‘one to watch’ for the future or a product innovator?  Correctly positioning your organisation in the minds of a reporter is crucial.  Once you occupy that position, it is more difficult to change it than create it.

4. Content

Plan the content you would like a reporter to write about.  Perhaps you have won a new customer, have created a new product innovation or perhaps ‘you’ are the USP to the business?

5. Approach

You’ve chosen the media you would like to appear within, you have targeted the correct reporter, have positioned your business and have developed the content for the story, the final piece is to approach the reporter.  Everyone works differently, but the standard rule is to e-mail first, leave it a day and then call offering something additional to the content of your e-mail.  There’s nothing that will infuriate a reporter than a call asking “did you get my e-mail.”

Simon Corbett, Jargon PR

Simon Corbett is managing director of Jargon Public Relations, an independent public relations agency.  Jargon Public Relations works with businesses looking to create or maintain their reputation throughout the media from all markets and with all budgets.

• Jargon PR