Fast PR: Give Yourself a Huge Media Boost

By Paul Blanchard

It doesn’t matter if you’re an entrepreneur, CEO, politician, campaigner or a combination of all these things. If you’re reading this book then I’m going to call you a Media Wannabe. You want results. You want PR. You want to be in the newspapers, magazines, online, basically everywhere – and fast.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Large Things
• Release date: Mar 4, 2019
• ISBN: 9781911443100

Paul Blanchard

Paul Blanchard is a PR consigliere, and works with CEOs and global thought leaders around the world. He has been running his firm, Right Angles, for nearly twenty miserable years. He's had some spectacular PR successes - all of which you will read about in this book - and some ridiculous failures too - of which only some will appear. With offices in London and New York, and a staff of twenty, Right Angles is at the cutting edge of professional reputation management. A self-confessed media geek, he also presents the very popular podcast 'Media Masters' - a series of one-to-one interviews with the very top people in the media world. You can listen to the podcast at www.mediamasters.fm - but you really don't have to, as we've nicked the best bits and distilled their wisdom in this very book. For further information, visit www.paul-blanchard.info

Book preview

BOB LEAF

The father of modern-day PR

Former Global CEO, Burson-Marsteller

WHY ARE YOU DOING PR?

You’re doing it to increase your business or to get customers, financing or legal support. What do you want to accomplish? That’s the key.

www.mediamasters.fm/bob-leaf

PART 1

WHERE TO START

If you’re reading this book then you’re already one step ahead when it comes to motivation, confidence, ideas and probably ability too. All you need is the right mindset. So start where you are.

You are doing PR to get results. You’re not doing it to waste time or money or bolster your ego. Getting results is the only thing that counts. Editorial copy is much more trusted than advertising – and it’s free.

There is nothing morally or ethically wrong with using the media to get results. PR can raise your profile, enhance your reputation, give you access to niche networks, and build your confidence and self-esteem. And if you’re doing it properly, it makes you more money too.

MAXINE

MAWHINNEY

Journalist and

news presenter

IT’S ALL ABOUT

COMMUNICATION

Communication today is faster and people want everything instantly – so it’s even more important that people communicate properly, and get their message across effectively.

www.mediamasters.fm/maxine-mawhinney

FORGET

EVERYTHING YOU

KNOW ABOUT PR

Most people think PR is all about them. And all about press releases. That’s what PR agencies tell you. Just write a crappy press release about how marvellous you are. Then spray it out once a month to 50 living journalists – and maybe some dead ones too, just to inflate the ‘reach’.

But there are two problems here: PR is not about you – it’s about them, the reader, listener or viewer, via the journalist. And if I’ve learned anything in this job, it’s that press releases simply don’t work.

Successful PR is a combination of simple methods which focus on your audience and help build real, everyday actual human relationships with the media. And that’s what you’re aiming for on the road to results.

HANNAH DEVLIN

Science Correspondent

The Guardian

YOU NEED TO

STAND OUT

We get a huge amount of stuff: hundreds and hundreds of emails from PRs. Some of it is from journals or university press offices, but others are about beauty treatments or vampire face masks. Whatever time of year it is, there’s a press release to spin off it. That’s the level of competition you face with press releases.

www.mediamasters.fm/hannah-devlin

YOUR TARGET

AUDIENCE:

JOURNALISTS

In PR you have one primary target audience: journalists. It doesn’t matter whether they write for the Lower Bumfield Gazette, Naked Campers’ Monthly, Techno Hipster Geek Today or the Sunday Times; whether they report for LBC, BBC News, Sky News or Channel 4 News – from today onwards, they are the only people that matter in your life.

Yes, your customers are vitally important – but in PR you focus on the journalists because they are the primary route to ‘new blood’, new attention and new customers. And no good relationship with a journalist is ever wasted: one day, that kid on your local rag might well be the editor of the Sunday Times; so it pays to get in early – and be nice.

But always remember that while journalists are desperate for content, it’s only for good quality content, and you absolutely must pass the quality threshold. This is the major mistake that most people make when contacting journalists – they think they will take anything. The reality is they will take anything good. There is an earth-shatteringly huge difference between the two.

TIM SHIPMAN

Political Editor

The Sunday Times

STORIES COME FROM

YOUR NETWORK

A good 50 per cent of getting stories is simply people giving you stuff because they like you – and they trust you and they think that if they help you one day, you might help them one day. As a journalist you’ve constantly got to ask yourself, Why are they giving me this?

www.mediamasters.fm/tim-shipman

GET RELATIONSHIP

BUILDING

PR is about building real relationships with the press. Your ultimate aim is to make friends with a handful of journalists who will come to you for comments and stories – not the other way around. Only once you’ve built a relationship with a production person will you become a columnist, be asked onto the rolling news, or become a regular radio guest.

Think of it as a courtship. You see someone you fancy. You really want to date them – they’re special, potential marriage material. You use every bit of genuine charm to achieve your goal. You need to do this with the media.

You’re aiming to find a large handful of ‘hungry’ journalists that you can build relationships with. You don’t need an expensive media database to do this. Search the online press, Twitter and LinkedIn with keywords, make a note of bylines, and make a list of email addresses. Then familiarise yourself in detail with what they’ve written, watch their pieces on TV, or listen to them on the radio regularly.

VIVIENNE PARRY

Science Broadcaster

BE CURIOUS

The thing that drives me always is curiosity, and I think curiosity is something that’s common to both journalists and scientists.

www.mediamasters.fm/vivienne-parry

LIONEL BARBER

Editor

Financial Times

THE MEDIA HAS CHANGED

When I started as the editor there were around 425,000 print sales and 76,000 digital subscriptions. We now have about 675,000 digital subscriptions and about 200,000 print sales – so yes, everything’s changed. We fundamentally changed the business model of the Financial Times, making it clear that we would charge for content rather than offering content free and hoping for digital advertising. There is a greater range of journalism that you can do with digital in terms of data and moving images; ft.com is not just the expression of the newspaper online, it’s ten times more sophisticated and valuable.

www.mediamasters.fm/lionel-barber

PART 2

THE MEDIA

Journalists are your new target audience. But before you target them you need to know a bit about the press and how it operates.

There’s never been a better time to do your own PR. And the reason for this is simple: the internet.

Online editions of newspapers are not constrained by size – or, to an extent, money. The cost of printing a newspaper is huge but the marginal cost of publishing an article online is, effectively, non-existent.

So suddenly, there’s as much space as journalists can fill at zero cost. And while that’s brilliant in some ways, it has proved something of a headache for them. They have gone from ‘it’s a wrap’, to ‘it can never, ever be a wrap’. And that’s good for you. Because the media needs content (which passes their quality threshold, remember!) very badly indeed.

The other thing to remember in this interweb age is that because they’re not first with breaking news any more, the media is becoming more interested in what surrounds a story. They need new angles on old stories – and if you can give them a different angle or opinion, you’re well on your way to success.

DAVID CALLAWAY

CEO

TheStreet

NEWS IS

SOMETHING NEW

Most people are going to continue to read the news wherever they can find it, likely on their Twitter feed. Whether it comes from the Times, the Post, the Journal, TheStreet or USA Today, it’s the quality of the story that’s going to drive it – and whether it is something interesting and new. News is something new.

www.mediamasters.fm/david-callaway

READ THE

NEWSPAPERS.

DIFFERENTLY

There’s a big difference between the way you read the papers right now, and the way you need to read them to get the information to do your own PR.

At the moment what you’re doing is scanning the headlines and reading the odd story here and there, like an average punter. But you’re not an average punter. From now onwards you are a predator. Newspapers are now deadly serious business tools for you – so pay close attention. Read the bylines, see who they’re quoting, set up a Google Alert for the journalists and any interesting people they quote. Start to build up a list of the movers and shakers, and the journalists who follow them around.

LOUISA COMPTON

Commissioning Editor

Dispatches, Channel 4

GET THE ‘WOW’

FACTOR

The ‘wow’ factor is something which genuinely tells the audience something new, something they haven’t heard before. We try to make sure that any topic we cover is genuinely enlightening our audience and telling them something different. They also have to be stories that the audience cares about. We try to only cover stories that we think will affect our audience, interest our audience, and give them a slightly different world view.

www.mediamasters.fm/louisa-compton

READ THE

MAGAZINES TOO.

BUT DIFFERENTLY

Start reading magazines properly. Look at the structure of the articles and also see if you can get a feel for the personality of the magazine. What kind of products, services and people do they favour? Is there a theme?

Behind every magazine, just like every newspaper, there is an editor – and an editorial direction. We all know that some newspapers are politically leftleaning and some are right-leaning. The same is true for magazines – they have a direction of travel.

It’s up to you to identify what the magazine stands for, who it’s aimed at and whether they are going to be interested in you or your products. Then you need to find a story or product which suits their needs. That way you’ve got much more chance of actually getting into the magazine.

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL

Journalist, author, and

political strategist

DON’T LET THE

MEDIA DRIVE

YOUR STRATEGY

We’ve gone from a vertical world to a horizontal world. Vertical: the leaders make decisions then it goes down through the system. Horizontal: 24/7 media, social media where you’re just being battered with other people’s opinions all the time. I think the important thing is not to get overly influenced by it. Don’t ‘not listen’, but don’t allow it to drive your strategy.

www.mediamasters.fm/alastair-campbell

KNOW YOUR

VERTICALS FROM

YOUR HORIZONTALS

There are a handful of magazines you need to target. One or two of these magazines will be what’s called vertical media or ‘verticals’. They are those magazines for your area of business. The other mags will be where your potential customers congregate.

Read all the relevant magazines, make lists of journalists and people they quote. Follow the breadcrumbs laid down by the journalists, in the same way you do with the newspapers.

JOHN FALLON

CEO

Pearson

EXPERIENCE MATTERS

MORE THAN STATUS

lf you can be ambitious for what you do and the experiences you have, everything else will follow. That’s better than being overly obsessed with role and status.

www.mediamasters.fm/john-fallon

NO ‘PEACOCKING’

Many Media Wannabes target completely the wrong magazines. They do it because they want to be seen by their peers as a big shot. They do what I call ‘peacocking’. The trouble is, peacocking is a dangerous game. You’re not focusing on the end results but indulging your ego instead.

So remember, if you’re a lawyer, your ‘home’ verticals such as Legal Week and The Lawyer are for your ego only. They are only read by your competition. They are not read by potential customers. And you’re doing this to get new customers, ‘new blood’ – and new attention. Not to flatter your ego.

MATT BRITTIN

President EMEA

Google

THERE’S A LOT OF

INFORMATION

OUT THERE

I need people who can guide me to great content; some of the ways they are guiding me to great content might be friends on Facebook who are sharing stories, that’s a social way of guiding me, I might follow you on Twitter because I like what you do and you’re linking to things I’m interested in, I might find stories in Google News, or I might go to an app of a news producer that I’m particularly keen on. There are lots of different ways that people are being guided to great content, but I do think that editing skills, knowing an audience, knowing how to write well and also professional investigative journalism is something that’s vital for the future.

www.mediamasters.fm/matt-brittin

GOOGLE ALERTS –

BIGGER THAN JESUS

Google Alerts are the dog’s bollocks. They keep you up to date with what’s being written about your industry, your clients and your competition.

It’s impossible to keep on top of everything without Google Alerts. Clients often ask me how I’m so well informed, and the answer is that I use Google Alerts – but properly. Make them your eyes and ears. Look for journalists, industry keywords, industry people, your competitors, your products, your rival products and events. I call it my ‘living list,’ and if it needs to be kept on top of, then Google Alerts takes care of it for me.

MAEVE

McCLENAGHAN

Investigative Journalist

STORIES ARE ALL

AROUND YOU

There’s a whole range of ways that you can come across stories. There are cases like The Panama Papers where you get this amazing huge leak, but that’s pretty rare. Much more common is that you’re reading the papers every day, and you notice something that sparks off a chain reaction. Or you’re talking to