Some years ago, when I was much too young and far too arrogant and self-important to have given it any real merit, I was offered the opportunity to write the bi-weekly food and entertainment column for what was then one of the nation's most respected daily newspapers. My job was to visit restaurants, particularly those with some sort of entertainment, rate the food, the service and the quality of the act and write a half-page newspaper column advising potential patrons whether to attend or not. I showed little mercy and pointed out every scintilla of hubris to be found, whether in cuisine or the poor, often struggling talent, trying out their act before a live supper club audience.
Although often overly negative, I was responding to what had been the paper's 30-year history of praising anything that passed for entertainment from retired vaudevillians whose bus fare had only gotten them as far as our little city, to acts that truly should have been still entertaining themselves in basements and garages. I tried to find something worth the price of admission but only rarely found it, often in off-beat places, after-hours clubs and the lounges of bowling alleys that happened to have a Hammond B-3 installed in a corner.
What offended me the most were the press releases. Every day's mail was rife with multi-page ramblings about a particular act coming to a given club, replete with the entertainer's history, three black-and-white, glossy photos and tickets to the "premiere" event. Nearly always the releases, photos and all, went straight into the trash. I was hired to review the act and write the story. If I needed background, I felt I knew full well how to ask questions and get answers. I didn't need a publicist's skew and resented the assumption that if they provided fodder we would gladly use it to fill our pages.
Sometimes, the releases invited the ire I had become known for. The prose was so glowing and the praise so sugared with press talk that it invited my attendance. I generally always went with an attitude and seldom found the act or the food good enough to counter the bad taste the press release had already planted with its hyperbole.
Which is not to say that press releases aren't or can't be effective, just a cautionary tale that journalists are not always interested in what you think is earth-shattering enough to merit trees, ink and Web space. Before sending your next press package to a newspaper or trade publication, spend some time reading it. Look at the headlines and see what actually made it into print. Fires are big, as are hit-and-run accidents and homicides. But in Kentucky newspapers, business news gets scant attention even for the biggest of events. It's not the fault of the editors or the managers or the planners who put the papers together; they are, after all, serving their readers, few of whom find business interesting or stories about it relevant to their own lives.
Those with great expectations of public relations and publicity efforts also need to spend some time finding out how content is decided and how publications come into being. The Reader's Digest, for instance, with a readership of several million, starts planning its editorial calendar 12-14 months in advance of publication. That doesn't mean that the publication can't or won't respond to breaking news more quickly, just that the whole machinery of assigning writers, editors, photographers and arranging for celebrity interviews is a bit more involved than sorting through "Humor in Uniform" submissions.
Trying to beat the system through publicity doesn't work as well as it did a few decades ago, when small town papers had tiny staffs, no wire service, and no inkling that the Internet would soon bring them more choices for content than they had pages to contain it. If it isn't news, chances are you're better off designing an attention-getting ad and placing it as often as your budget will allow.
A few guidelines may help if you're looking to place stories about your company, your products, your people or something interesting and innovative you're doing.
First, be truthful. Hyperbole and exaggerated claims are almost always out, and they usually bring disastrous consequences.
Find an angle that people are really interested in spending their time with. If you have a product or a concept that can change lives, save money, improve health, enhance romantic chances or make life more enjoyable, chances are better it will see the light of media attention.
Don't be self-serving. If your only aim is to sell your product, take an ad. The media is there to tell stories and advance concepts, not to hawk products.
Use appropriate media. The newspaper probably isn't the place to send a release about a new farm product, although Progressive Farmer reaches nearly 700,000 readers who scan its pages to learn more about new and better ways to get their jobs done.
There are free online resources as well as a number of subscription media services such as Bacon's that can provide you with thousands of publications, radio and television stations, newsletters and blogs in hundreds of different interest areas. The better services even provide you with the names of editors and writers, and whether they prefer materials sent online or via traditional mail.
Understand that it takes time. A monthly magazine typically closes its editorial content two months ahead of the issue date, even though ads can squeeze in up to a month before deadline. Big magazines with multiple runs (many now have demographic as well as geographic editions) may take four, six or more months to even consider your story idea.
Public relations activities are not "free ink." It takes professionals to really get the job done; these are writers and thinkers, often formerly members of the working media themselves, who make it their business to know the editors and writers who put together the publications and assemble the formats of the television shows where you want your products to appear. It costs money to enlist their aid, even though the result is often a tremendous value when compared to the cost of buying space or time and has greater creditability than an ad.
Ron Jackson is the CEO and president of The Idea Farm, an international advertising, marketing and public relations group based in Danville. You can reach him at ron@theideafarm.net.