I've read a lot about how to promote blogs, PR for social media, and the list goes on. PR people tend to jump onto anything that's new so not to get stuck, labeled as "generalists" or "traditional PR people" (immediately I'm thinking a cool glass of wine should accompany my keyboard, as if to refine myself akin to smoking an old cigar taking me back to the pre-Internet era).
It's been a good 6 years since I've really "acted my age," and practiced this craft as I did once, pushing press releases through fax machines twice the size of a server able to stomach terabytes of information today. Though, I owe it to myself, and the craft, to take a step back - as I always lament to our clients - and detail the practical use of PR as a tool that supports marketing, not as a foghorn screaming blind alerts into a cloudy world.
In this first series on the practical use of PR, I will address research. It's often overlooked, and quite frankly underestimated as one of the most important facets of the profession. While the rest of the world points to Google, PR people - in experienced circles - are laden with overly priced half baked solutions or "free to register and use," only for half of an experience when purchased isn't twice as good.
Bacons now Cision used to be thick green soft covered Yellow Pages directories of media outlets and those who write, produce for them. The books were truly the bibles. They were divided into outlet type, genre, editors, reporters, producers with detailed information on every page. The only challenge - not worried about in those days - was that the data got old, fast. There was no Internet update, just "appendixes" mailed and taped or stapled into the back of the books.
Researching publications was a costly endeavor. We had dozens of magazine subscriptions, and a pass around rate which would have nearly doubled any circulation count, if all of the agencies participated in BPD reports, those that gave the market an accurate look at a publication's advertising tallies in numbers of distribution and ad dollars.
But, I digress. It's no better to teach history on a blog, than it is to discuss the age of a good red wine. Just drink it, swallow and move on. The history lesson in itself bears the appreciation of an age now lost where PR took time, people were less impulsive more calculating, strategic and in a sense, were more accountable for their words when it graced the logo embossed page of an agency's letterhead. Today most people would probably know a PR person's name before their Company, in this brand defragmented area of push email.
Research, thank goodness, has only benefitted from the Internet. The key is to recognize when it can be used to your benefit. The benefit of helping you not invent the invented, but fine tune your work. Cision comes to mind.
As I mentioned, Cision - the once green book goddess - is available online. It's not perfect, but is a quick resource for any PR person looking up the contact information for a reporter. Notice I wrote quick. Looking for a contact? Log into Cision, pop that person's name into the database and viola, there's your name, title, address, email and a sometimes spot on description of the person's background and how to work with him/her. What's missing? The holism of research.
Here's the blessing and curse of the Internet. It's fast, easy, convenient - yet, rushed, not detailed and over the top stuffed with print, online and bloggers who all "cover" the subject you or your client are pitching. What's a PR person to do? Blast a message to them all? You would surprised to learn how many PR people still take this tactic.
The key is in the broad strokes of research. I think the word research is one of the few, including ice cream, where it conjures up the thought of many things combined or a selection of choices. In other words, Cision is only one part of the solution. And, while it offers many parts of the solution, as noted above, it can, and never will, absolute the fact that a PR person still has to read a journalist's articles (yes, plural) and find out if he/she wrote about you or your client - or anything related for that matter - in the past.
Easy, right? Then why do so few PR people pass on it? The issue is a complex one, but my psychotheraputical guess is that 1) while I want to say that most are lazy, they're not, they're needy, and want quick results fast both to influence their ego and their boss or client and 2) don't have the skills to think beyond writing a pitch and pitching the press.
It's not a lot easier said than done and will take the know how of a seasoned PR professional to put the pieces of the puzzle together from speaking with their client or executives all the way through to pitching the reporter. There's a lot of in between work that ties it all together and while it may seem like a lot of work, it's really just dead simple research.
