We play in a relatively new product category most editors have just begun to think about. How can we get them to pay attention to the benefits of our specific technical approach in this category?
This is a dilemma I’ve seen hundreds of vendors tackle during new product tours over the years, as once unfamiliar product categories splinter into niches and sub-niches based on seemingly arcane technical differences. The secret, of course, is not to focus on the obscure technicalities, but on the benefits your newer, better, mousetrap provides to readers.
Here are some techniques I’ve seen work over the years, applied to an editor at a consumer-oriented publication who knows viruses are bad, but doesn’t know or care about the differences among different antivirus technologies.
1) Redefine the market: Come up with a headline and short “elevator pitch” that tells the editor they’re not as smart as they think they are. This will both alarms and intrigues them, as they’re scared of being ignorant and love writing about things they just learned. The headline might be “XYZ Stops Viruses Attacks Today’s Software Misses.” The follow-up elevator pitch redefines an existing product category, as in: “Today’s so-called antivirus software is like looking in the rear-view mirror to avoid a deer that jumped in front of your car. Customers need antivirus software that reacts instantly to new threats as they emerge from the Internet. That’s what XYZ is announcing.”
2) Follow up with a high-level description benefit:”Zero-day attacks represent a huge danger to customers because signature-based antivirus software (which scans only for known viruses) doesn’t even know to watch for them. In 2005 it’s estimated that such zero-day attacks caused 264 years of system downtime in the United States alone. XYZ is the only/best/most efficient/most complete way to defeat such attacks before they happen. 3) Close with a market validation and a repetition (with a bit more detail) of your technical differentiation: “Major vendors like ABC and DEF claim to have behavior-based antivirus products, but they are too expensive/hard to use/slow/inflexible to meet today’s challenges. XYZ is the only tool that combines proprietary behavior algorithms with integration into existing signature-based tools. It is already in use at 125 Fortune 500 firms, providing the most cost-effective, complete, fast-acting and assured protection against the zero-day threats that pose a greater and greater risk to them every day.” In short, you need to first upset the editor’s current “world view” by promising to tell them something new and useful to their readers they didn’t know before. Then you have to deliver on your promise, getting more and more specific about the technical differentiators only as the editor asks and/or is interested on behalf of their readers.
Mixing White Papers and Sales Pitches
We know we need a white paper for our Web site, but we don’t know how much of a sales pitch it should contain.
I recently got this question from a client in the early stages of developing a new white paper. They had a good idea of the subject they wanted to cover, but weren’t sure whether to give it a high-level, vendor-neutral, “educational” tone or make it sound more like a sales piece.
I think there’s only one good tone for a white paper, and that is for it to be authoritative, educational and factual. A white paper defines terms, clarifies the differences between closely related products and explains how technology works. It assumes the reader is intelligent and worthy of respect, and will make the right purchase decision if given accurate and complete information.
But just because a white paper doesn’t sound “salesly” doesn’t mean it’s can’t be a sales tool, and even a fairly hard-edged sales tool. The key is fiddling not with the tone, but with the content.
Is the prospect new to your product or technology?
In that case, they are probably “ignorant but interested.” When they finish the white paper, you want them to 1) recognize the need for your product or service, 2) understand how `your product or service meets their need, and 3) to think of you as a credible, if not leading, provider of that product or service. The content should begin with a description of a high-level, strategic business challenge and briefly describe how your product or service meets that challenge. The key content is the insight and unique perspective you bring to the subject. You want to wow the newcomer with the breadth of your experience and the creativity of your thinking.
Is the prospect familiar with your product, but on the fence about buying it?
The tone needs to stay educational, but the content must push the prospect towards a purchase by educating them further about the urgency of the threat, or the immediate benefits your product or technology can provide. The key content consists of specific examples of harm caused by not meeting this business need, and/or specific examples of how customers benefited by proactively meeting that need. Here, you want to wow the customer with real-world examples of your product or technology in action.
Is the prospect ready to buy, but on the fence between your product and a competitor’s?
Here, you can get very technical and very specific about the capabilities or your product and the weaknesses of your competitors’ offerings. Again, keep the tone as specific, objective and educational as you can. Get very specific about which capabilities you are comparing, and why each of those capabilities will be important to different customers. This is different from a sales piece because you are educating the customer as you are comparing features, and you are acknowledging the applications or scenarios in which your product isn’t strongest. (This acknowledgement gives you tremendous credibility with the prospect, and doesn’t cost you much – only the chance to sell the customer a product that won’t meet their needs.)
In other words, a white paper is always pitched at an intelligent, valued prospect who wants to learn more. The tone is always respectful, balanced and educational. What changes is what you tell the prospect, based on where they are in the sales cycle.
Jazzing Up An Evergreen Pitch
How do we raise the issue of email troubleshooting or troubleshooting in general? The cost and impact of downtime is huge...(with) steep overhead costs endured by various IT departments for resolution...so why is the issue of troubleshooting not more widely discussed?
This question was raised by a PR professional with a client in the email troubleshooting space, but could easily be applied to any vendor selling a product or service that tackles a “perennial” customer need. Troubleshooting, whether of email or any other IT function, has been around for as long as there has been IT, so it tends to become an accepted, “‘unsexy” topic. It’s not sexy, and it’s not new, so how do you get an editor to pay attention to it?
The answer is, to find or make news about troubleshooting. Real “news” about troubleshooting could include:
Surveys or studies showing, in new detail, precisely how expensive or time-consuming troubleshooting is. “Did you know the average email administrator spends half their day simply tracking down emails users deleted by mistake?” Software that automate this one task can have a far greater ROI than those which claim to solve higher-end problems such as managing email archives on servers...
Surveys, studies or white papers that explain in new detail the reasons why troubleshooting takes so much time. “A new survey of 120 email administrators shows that basic mistakes – such as not changing the name of their email server after working from home” – result in 60 percent of email related help desk calls. Here are the ten questions users should ask themselves before calling the help desk...
A press release that highlights how your client is taking a new approach to solving an old problem. “The best way to handle email-related trouble calls is to prevent them. Our new software detects when a user has unsuccessfully tried to log onto your mail server, troubleshoots the most likely causes and sends a message to their voice mail suggesting steps they can try to fix the problem themselves...”
The common thread, as you’ve no doubt realized, is to clearly explain what is new about the problem and what is new about how your client solves it. Your client must be doing something new or worthwhile in their field or they wouldn’t be in business. Keep digging until you find the “news” in your client’s hardware, software or service, and can hit a reporter or editor over the head with it.
What’s the Best Way To Pitch A Case Study?
“Is there a “best practices” way to pitch technology case studies beyond problems/issues, challenges, solutions, benefits? What is the best, most impactful approach to capture the attention and interest of a journalist in case study?”
With the decline in ad pages, and in the number of reporters at trade journals, pitching case studies is getting harder and harder. The basics have to be there, of course: The business problem the customer faced; why the customer chose your client’s product over others; and the business benefits the customer received. But that’s not enough to rise above the noise these days. My suggestions:
Focus: Improving your pitching takes time and work. You can only do a superlative job on maybe two to three publications per client. Learn what are the few “must-have” wins for your client and then...
Study: Which stories get the best play at your target publication or Web site and why? Do they feature big Fortune 500 companies or scrappy newcomers? Heroic CIOs turning around a failed IT project? (If you read between three to five paragraphs down in a story you should see the paragraph that summarizes its importance. (“When Joe lost his key fob, it revealed the hidden weakness in high-end security products: Users are clumsy...”) Check out this “nut graf” in four or five stories by your target reporter to see the types of angles that get the best play.
Push:
Once you have specific idea of angles the target publication tends to go for, push your client for customers who fit these target criteria. Think like an editor who is looking for a good story. Is the customer a (the) leader in its market space? Is the customer bouncing back from a setback? Prospering in an industry when others are hurting? Growing when others shrink (profitably)? Shrinking when others grow (profitably)? And if so, how is your client’s product or service helping them?
Structure: Build your pitch around the surprising development, the new trend, the counterintuitive trend, the unusual angle that makes the story worth reading. Try writing a “nut graf” for your pitch. Can’t write one? Then the story isn’t ready for pitching. Save your breath, and the reporter’s time, until it is.
Knowing a publication before you pitch to it isn’t rocket science, I admit. But where many PR professionals fall down is not doing enough research to really understand the specific angles the reporter needs to sell a story to his or her editor. Doing that extra work won’t guarantee you success every time, but will give you the best possible shot.
To blog or not to blog
“My client wants to blog. Should I let them?”
If your client’s been reading the business trade press, they may think they absolutely, positively need to start a blog (a Web site with their thoughts and insights on industry trends, along with links to other sites and comments from readers.) They may not know why they should blog but, hey, Business Week did a cover story on it the other week, didn’t they?
After a lot of initial skepticism, I’ve come around to believing that a blog can be a valuable way to promote a company, communicate with potential customers, and increase its visibility – if done right. That means knowing:
Why you should blog: If you have a vision or product story that isn’t getting out through conventional channels, or if you have a dedicated/rabid base of customers, resellers, or developers who will spread the word about your technology if you give them attention and information through a blog. Sun’s President and COO Jonathan Schwartz looks, to me, to be doing a good job on his blog. It’s generally interesting, has a personal tone and usually winds up making an argument for why corporate customers should use or at least try Sun products.
Another benefit: The better your blog, the more other bloggers will link to your site. If your CTO has the best blog on real-time operating systems, for example, you’ll show up higher when someone types “real time operating systems” in a search engine.
Who should blog: Someone with enthusiasm, good time management skills andsubject matter expertise. Time and interest are more important than wonderful writing skills because a blog is a personal conversation, not a novel. But blogs turn into a black hole of effort and time. The more successful they are, the more posting you need to reply to and the more links you must consider adding to your site. (One possible alternative are RSS feeds, which continuously provide content from all over the Web to readers interested in a specific topic.)
How You Should Blog: Develop a policy that addresses common-sense issues (no bashing of competitors, no crude language), legal issues (don’t leak nextquarter’s profit numbers) and blog-specific issues such as how to respond to company-bashing. One PR person recently described how a client caused a huge stir in the “blogosphere” by removing a reader posting that the client felt unfairly criticized one of his products. The uproar drew more attention to the alleged defect than if the client had calmly and candidly responded to the complaint.
I don’t recommend PR firms produce blogs for companies because a blog is, by definition, an insider’s take on a particular subject. However, PR firms can help their clients define the general story or theme they want to address in their blogs, and can help clients develop blogging policies. (The policies posted by Sun and IBM are a good place to start.)
Squirrelly Reference Customers
Before giving interviews to reporters, one of my reference customers is demanding to review and “edit” the story before it is published. Is it worth passing their name on to reporters?
If the reporter is with a first-tier publication, the answer is of course “no.” Most of them are under firm orders never to give the customer such review rights, and for good reason. (I recently bent my own rule on this to get quotes from a customer who had a lot of valuable things to say. The corporate communications folks blew the deadline for review and I had to tear all their quotes out of the story at the last minute.)
For a second or third-tier publication that will sit still for such a review, such a reference customer might work. Here are some ways for you, as the PR or marketing person trying to coordinate the contacts, to know if it’s worth pursuing such a customer.
1) Ask the person who will be interviewed for the name of the person who will actually review the story. Talk to that person (in PR, legal, or corporate communications) and ask what their REALISTIC time frame is for turning around a story review.
2) Ask the reviewer HOW MUCH CONTROL they expect over the finished product. If they want to fine-tune the content word by word, make that clear to the editor or writer before up front.
3) If your conversations in items (2) and (3) show the review process will be a nightmare, drop them. A “reference customer” who is not really in a position to speak freely, to make only reasonable corrections and to make those changes quickly is not really a reference customer at all. Trying to use them as such only wastes your time, the customer’s time, and the reporter’s.
How To Use The "S Word"
“My client insists I call their product a “solution” even though nobody knows what that means. How can I cut through the confusion?”
Originally, the word "solution" meant a vendor was selling more than "just" a computer or an application -- they were selling everything you needed to solve a problem. The word sounded so vaguely comforting, so all-around reassuring that everyone and their brother began calling everything they sell a "solution." In the last few days I’ve seen the "S" word used to describe a pavement company (“Aggregate Solutions Inc.”), home loans (“Mortgage Solutions”) and even frozen food (“Family Dinner Solutions.”)
Why anyone in information technology marketing still thinks the “S” word makes their products or services sound more credible is beyond me. When I see the “S” word in a pitch I groan because I know I’ll have to quiz the PR or marketing person, often several times, before they can describe their offering in plain English.
If you insist on (or are forced to) use the “S” word, here are some ways to avoid the confusion it causes for editors, analysts and customers.
1) Right after your first use of the word “solution” specifically explain whether your offering is hardware, software, services or a combination of all three. Example: “This multifunction printer solution consists of a multifunction printer, an easy-to-use installation wizard and automatic on-line shipment of replacement cartridges and paper.”
2) Describe what makes this offering a “solution” that’s better than a standalone product. Example: “This `Simple SAN’ solution contains pretested and precertified components that eliminate the need for customers to go through expensive, time-consuming setup work themselves.”
3) If services are an important part of your offering, describe what makes those services special and makes you a good choice for the customer. “Our solution includes not only server hardware from leading vendors, but 24-hour a day, seven day a week service that has won us a 95 percent customer satisfaction rating for the past four years running.”
Don’t short-circuit your marketing efforts by hiding them behind the “S” word. Explain – somewhere and somehow – what your “solution” really is.
Describing A Service-Oriented Architecture
“How do you describe a SOA (service-oriented architecture)? To be honest, I don’t think anyone really has decided on one definition. I’m thinking that some clarification needs to be done in the industry before SOA fades into buzz-word world.”
Agreed. I asked Google “What is a service-oriented architecture?” and came up with these gems:
1) SOA is an architectural style whose goal is to achieve loose coupling among interacting software agents.
2) A service-oriented architecture (SOA) defines how two computing entities interact in such a way as to enable one entity to perform a unit of work on behalf of another entity.
3) A service-oriented architecture is essentially a collection of services. 4) A service-oriented architecture has services that developers create in a service layer.
From a technical perspective, these definitions are all (kind of) saying the same thing. The problem is they are all technical definitions aimed at developers or IT architects, rather than clear explanations that would mean anything to the folks who write the checks.
I’d instead define a service-oriented architecture from the business benefits on up:
“A service-oriented architecture is made up of hardware, software and development processes that deliver computing as services that can be deployed, as needed, across various platforms rather than as applications tied to specific hardware or operating systems. This cuts costs because customers can redeploy a “print” service, an “authentication” service or an “ERP” service on whatever hardware or operating system is most cost-efficient at any given time, rather than being locked into a single vendor’s platform. This also cuts development and testing costs because common services can be reused rather than rebuilt for each new application.”
How Do I Pitch Copier Software?
“My client has a software solution that greatly enhances the efficiency/ROI of copiers…by easing the process in which information can be digitized. We have done OK with vertical publications, but with business and tech press, most...don't see the urgency to cover this topic. How might we package this pitch?”
This pitch is hurt by focusing on the “efficiency/ROI of copiers,” which to a business editor might sound like small change. To a tech editor, it sounds even worse because copiers are office equipment that have little to do with the world of applications and business processes.
The good news is that, looking at this company’s Web site, I see the product’s claim to fame is that it does indeed make it easier to integrate paper-based information into existing business applications and business processes.
My first suggestion: Ditch the word “solution” and tell the editor exactly what the product is and what it does. For example: “Software that captures information as documents are copied and makes it easier than ever before to integrate those digitized documents into applications and business workflows.” (Interestingly, this positioning is already reflected in the company’s mission statement, but most editors will never see that before rejecting the pitch.)
My second suggestion: Tell the editor what makes this product better than scanning and PC faxing tools that have been around for decades. The corporate Web site already has such a comparison: “Unlike standalone fax software long sold on PCs, this can capture documents even as they are copied on networked copiers. And unlike earlier software that merely creates files users must track and manually email, our software automatically sends the file to the proper user through connections with 250 different combinations of applications. We also offer a software development kit that allows users to seamlessly merge paper into any electronic workflow.”
Follow, of course, with a specific statement of savings in not only paper, but in long-term productivity and efficiency. If the product has helped any customers to enter new markets, dramatically increase customer satisfaction or provide new products and services, that of course makes for a better “strategic” pitch. Also helpful: A “before” and “after” diagram highlighting the benefits of the software, as well as listing the applications for which the vendor offers “connectors.”
So how would my pitch sound?
Existing fax and scanning software creates ‘islands’ of documents. Our software sweeps away this complexity, treating any networked copier as just another “node” on the network, capturing paper-based data and automatically routing it to the proper applications and/or workflows. This eliminates, in a way never before possible, one of the major time and cost burdens for document-intensive industries such as health care and financial services – and we have leading customers ready to talk.”
The best way to pitch a product is to 1) Tell me specifically what it is; 2) specifically what it does; 3) specifically why it’s better than competitors and 4) how customers benefit from it.
How Do I Deal With Unhappy, Overstressed Reporters?
Back in the early 90s, we knew every single tech writer, their dog's name, their girlfriend problems, and the color of their underwear… Nowadays, it's very difficult to know who's writing for what and on what subject. It's even more difficult to get them to talk to you!
How do you best deal with a journalist who is obviously unhappy with what he's doing? I understand that many people aren't where they want to be in life, but there are select reporters who are obviously bitter…skeptical from the get-go, only covering stories to avoid the wrath of editors, and then carrying the grudge into briefings with vendors?
First, there have always been, and will always be, grumpy reporters. (I should know, having been one myself.) But today’s computer trade press isn’t what it was back in the ‘90s. Like workers in many other industries, reporters are covering more assignments, under more pressure, and are more scared of losing their jobs than ever before. With all the technology beats they’re hustling to cover, the reporters themselves don’t know what their beats are half the time.
How do you get results for your clients in an environment like this?
READ the publication carefully to see which reporters are actually interested in, and writing about, your client’s product area rather than relying on the masthead or official “beat list.” Remember that feature writers, while not “officially” covering your client, may be more open than news writers to follow-up or trend stories that involve your client.
DON’T call or email a reporter unless you can explain, in two to three sentences, how the call or email will help the reporter get through the day. If the client insists you harass reporters because “that’s what they’re paying you for,” decide if the risk to your reputation as a PR professional, and your relationships with the reporters, is worth pleasing the client.
RESPOND PROMPTLY (even if it’s just to say you’re working on their request) to a reporter who needs help on deadline. It’s hard for even a reporter to stay grumpy with someone who’s clearly doing their best to help them.
CONTACT the editor for whom the reporter works, or the top editor of the publication, if a reporter is consistently impolite, unresponsive or unpleasant. Send a brief, detailed email describing how, in your view, the reporter behaved unprofessionally and how their behavior robbed the publication’s readers of valuable information. Also ask specifically what you, as a PR professional, could do to work more effectively with the reporter in the future.
Finally, if a reporter or editor is acting clearly bored or contemptuous during a meeting, stop the conversation and politely ASK if they are getting what they need or if there are other areas they’d rather discuss? At best, you’ll find out what’s really on their minds or what they think of your client (giving you valuable info for future pitches.) At the very least, you might shame them into better behavior.
How Do I Handle An Impossible Client?
"My clients drive me nuts. They refuse to accept advice and continually demand that we do things that don't make sense or that will reduce the…press coverage they receive. They severely restrict access to customers, withhold essential information on their technology.... then, they complain about the press coverage that they do get…”
When I began “Question of the Month” I thought most of the problems would involve PR professionals and reporters. Instead, I’ve been hearing more questions lately about how to handle problem clients.
Strictly speaking, this not so much a PR question as a general business question. But I’ll take a crack at it anyway. After all, we free-lancers work with some of the same clients you do, and as sole practitioners have nobody to blame but ourselves if we let a customer drive us nuts.
Ask yourself a few questions:
1) Does your client listen to you? Note I didn’t say “Does your client agree with you all the time,” but do they disagree by probing, by challenging, by demanding proof for your statements, or by asking you for a better idea for solving their problem? If so, it shows they have some respect for you and what you know.
2) Does your client share information with you? Maybe not their three-year product
Roadmap or their secret misgivings about the CEO, but when they have a legitimate change in strategy, a significant product release or major customer win, are you brought in early enough to be effective? If not, you’re being set up to fail.
3) Does the client keep asking more and more, no matter what you do? Anybody in a service industry has to put in that extra effort or time when it counts. But there’s also a time when no amount of effort will be enough, when the client is making you suffer for their internal lack of coordination or one manager’s perfectionism.
4) Do they pay their bills? (Need I say more?)
As you’ve probably guessed, my advice if you’re wracking up too many “no” answers is to use the “f” word: fire the client. (Or at least ask your boss why he or she doesn’t fire them.) Sure, it’s scary to lose a paying customer when business is bad. But if you’re struggling in a no-win situation, it will probably end badly sooner or later. Better to stop the suffering on your own terms and start looking for someone with whom you can work more effectively.
"How Do I Interest A Reporter In A Follow-Up?"
“I engaged a reporter a while back regarding a story he had written about Linux in the enterprise. We went back and forth via email a couple times talking about my client's strategy for urging customers to adopt Linux, but as soon as I wrote, "Are you currently working on any other Linux stories that my client could comment on?" I never heard back from him.”
First, congratulations for reading the reporter’s work and commenting on it. The fact you got a dialogue going shows you did, indeed, have a relationship in the works.
But when you asked the open-ended question “Are you currently working on any other stories…” you went from giving the reporter something valuable (feedback and ideas) to asking the reporter for something valuable (his time and effort.) To answer your question, the reporter would have had to a) review your client’s product line, b) match it against his or her list of current, future or possible stories and c) identify the areas where your client could benefit by being quoted.
In other words, (in the eyes of the reporter) you were asking him or her to do YOUR job.
I would suggest instead doing more preparation before the call. Read the reporter’s last story carefully; talk to your client and ask them for possible follow-up angles you can offer to the reporter.
For example, let’s assume the reporter had told you how surprised he was to hear that it’s sometimes easier to get support from the open-source software community than from the big computer vendors. Based on that comment, and on your research, you might say:
1) “That surprised us, too. By the way, did you see the Gartner (IDC, Aberdeen, etc.) study that showed it’s actually easier to get technical support for Linux than for vendor-supported operating systems? We’ve found this study really turned around the thinking at several of our Fortune 500 customers. Let me know if you want to talk to any of them…”
2) “Funny you should say that. Some of our client’s customers find the open-source community so helpful they’ve created virtual teams with other open-source users around the world to share the cost of new application development. Matter of fact, my client has created a ‘customers-only’ section on their Web site to help customers link up for such projects. Let me know if you want more details…”
3) “Not only are our customers finding support is easier to get, but the software itself is less buggy. My client hired an independent quality control lab which found that hardware drivers produced by the open-source community are 64 percent less buggy than drivers coming from the big-name operating systems vendors. Let me know if you want a copy of the study…”
Note that in all three of these hypothetical examples, you aren’t asking the reporter an open-ended question that means more work for them. Instead, you are offering specific, actionable ideas that help them do their jobs. To move from the “schmooze” to the “pitch” part of the relationship, you need to offer something of value.
How do I get published in small regional or vertical trade publications?
I recently got this question from a friend who is looking to promote his networking and PC repair services by contributing articles about computer topics to local publications. His company might be relatively small, but the answer to his question applies to much larger companies as well – and to PR professionals who’ve played the “story placement” game for years.
Consider his challenge: This is a one-person company, operating in a geographically-constrained area (he wants to stick with customers within 40 miles of his home). He is also selling what could be considered generic services: The repair and maintenance of Windows PCs and networks, and help with everyday chores such as setting up backup software. Finally, as might be expected, his specialty is PC and network technology – not writing.
How did I advise him to go about getting published? Sitting down at a local coffee shop for an hour, we determined:
1) Who is he trying to reach with his writing? The potential purchaser for my friend’s services is the owner of a small business (with fewer than 50 PCs) in central Massachusetts. That not only helps determine the writing style (decidedly non-technical and easy to read) but the publications we would target – general business publications which were limited to central Mass. Bad news: That’s a short list of pubs. Good news: Those pubs probably can’t afford well-written, well-targeted computer advice columns, giving him an edge if he can deliver.
2) What does he have to say? My friends likes the idea of “educational writing” and of providing “consultative” services. He at first wanted to write columns that would describe common computer terms such as “firewall” to a general business audience. I suggested he stay away from such “generic” introductions to computer technology, since that information can be found anywhere from the Web to the local bookstore. Instead, I suggested we focus on specific things “a business owner knows he should do something about, but doesn’t have the time to learn about.” Our first topic: Backup hardware and software.
3) How should he say it? There’s plenty of syndicated or off-the-shelf material a small business journal could find about computer backups – if they had the staff or time to find it and adapt it for their use. I suggested my friend do this work for them by using a distinctive writing style and format. We played around with some ideas and came up with “Top Ten Stupid Backup Tricks To Avoid” – along with, of course, specific suggestions for how to cost-effectively avoid these common backup mistakes. (We can always change the writing style and format to fit the target publication – which is where step #4 comes in.)
4) Where should he say it? Here’s where I sent my friend off to the periodical section of the local library. His assignment was to look at the past four or five issues of the publications we’re targeting to see if they’re already running any computer columns or to see what writing style they prefer. Rummaging around in the periodicals section might also turn up other possible target publications, such as a Chamber of Commerce or Small Business Administration newsletter.
My friend just finished his first draft so it’s too soon to declare success (or failure!) But at the very least I’ve saved him a lot of time and moved him much closer to his goal of showing off his specific areas of expertise to his specific target audience.
Whether it’s a one-person PC repair shop or a $20 million storage management software company, the same lessons apply: 1) Define exactly who you’re trying to reach; 2) Determine exactly what it is you have to say, 3) Find a different and unique way to say it, and 4) Find exactly the right places to say it.
You interviewed one of my users but didn't use their quotes in the story. How come?
That was the question I got recently from a PR firm after writing a story about the challenge of managing storage devices from different vendors. The customer they gave me was informed and cooperative -- but said he had designed his storage infrastructure so he didn't have to deal with the interoperability problems. That's a reasonable approach -- but it didn't add anything to my story.
As a PR person, you know you must understand the specific problem or challenge the story is about; the specific type of customer comments that would be new or newsworthy to the reporter, and the type of company and level of spokesperson the reporter needs to speak with.
But here are some questions to ask about the reference customer before you commit their time, and the reporter's, to an interview.
1) Are they articulate? Can they quickly and easily describe complicated concepts?
2) Do they have good business sense? Can they quickly describe the role they play in their organization, the key challenges it is facing, and how the technology in question is helping them meet those business challenges?
3) Will they have anything relevant and interesting to say? Has the customer faced the issue the reporter is writing about, and do they have anything new or insightful to say about the issue?
4) Are they candid? Will they point out any shortcomings in your client’s product, and give credit where credit is due to your client’s competitors? (Yes, it takes an enlightened client to cough up a customer like this, and the customer obviously should be generally happy with your client. But these are the sources reporters will go back to time and time again, generating a stream of press mentions for your client without any effort from you.)
5) Can they be specific? Can they say exactly how long a project took, how much it cost, how much it saved the organization? If they can’t describe the benefits in hard-dollar terms, can they give specific percentage ranges of time or money saved?
My client is a start-up in a new market and doesn't have the reference customers editors are always demanding. How do I get exposure for them?
Just because your client doesn't have a list of quotable, Fortune 500 customers doesn't mean you're out of luck. If you can find a potential customer or, in some cases even an OEM who can talk about the need for your client's product, you can pitch a story about the need for that product.
Your client or its investors have probably talked to potential customers to gauge demand for the product and the features it should have. Would one of these potential customers talk to a reporter about their needs and why the current offerings fall short? If these prospective customers can describe a gap in the market, the reporter might write a trend story about this gap and mention your client as one of the vendors looking to fill it.
I also recently spoke with a vendor who plans to package their technology for IT managers, but so far has only licensed that technology to major OEMs. Might one of those prestigious OEMs tell a reporter how your client's technology will help its customers, or even provide a potential customer to talk to the press? As long as there's not too much overlap between your client's offering and the OEM's version of it, this can help the OEM build demand while establishing your client as a player in an emerging field.
Sometimes, of course, you just need to wait until you have a mature product, and actual customers, before taking your story to the press. But remember: If you can't quote an actual customer, try broadening the pitch to talk about the problem the product will solve or the challenges it will help customers meet.
All my journalist contacts have been laid off and are free-lancing. How do I know what to pitch them?
You can’t know what the free-lancer will write about next because most of them don’t know. They work only on assignment from editors, rather than writing stories and then pitching them. And unlike beat reporters who focus on one or two areas, free-lancers cover everything under the sun so they can snag more assignments.
It usually doesn’t work to email a free-lancer with a follow-up idea based on a story they just finished. That’s because unlike a beat reporter, it’s unlikely the free-lancer will cover the same subject again soon. In fact, right after he or she finished a story is probably when a free-lancer is least pitchable on a follow-up.
Instead, drop the receptive free-lancers on your list an email every month or two with a list of your major clients, grouped by product or service offered (i.e., network management, storage, security, ERP, etc.) Include a two to three sentence description of exactly what the client does and exactly what they’re an authority on. Be specific and precise or you’re wasting your time.
Example: "BeyondFirewalls sells a combination of behavior-based and encryption security services on an ASP model. They claim the Web application layer – not the firewall – is the big target for hackers these days. They’re early in the product cycle and have only beta customers who will talk on a “not for attribution” basis. But the CEO is a very quotable former military information security consultant who can share great contacts. Think of BeyondFirewalls for "trends" or “think” pieces about emerging security issues, especially in the government/national infrastructure space.
