Like me, you are probably saddened by news reports that COVID-19 is making a resurgence. Once again, the pandemic is poised to dominate news cycles and, in addition to worrying about health concerns, anyone who is trying to gain media coverage will need to think about how their message fits into the current media conversation. One bright spot in this otherwise dismal situation is that we learned a lot over the last year about the opportunities for and the importance of PR during a pandemic, and we can all put those lessons to use going forward. In the spring of 2020, we encountered somet ..read more

Think about how you get information these days. Did you read that newspaper article in print or on your phone? Did you hear that interview on the radio or on a podcast? It’s no secret, of course, that the media landscape has changed drastically over the years – and the changes keep coming at a pace that sometimes makes us all dizzy! But here’s something I feel confident about: The value of these changes may be greater for you than ever before. The digital world has given all of us different and often better options for how we get our news, how we share it with others, and for those of yo ..read more

Today’s journalists are stretched thin because of staff and budget cutbacks, and they are called on to do more with fewer resources than ever before. Certainly, they can use help and you might be just the person to come to their aid. Assisting the media is also a great way to help yourself when you’re trying to promote your personal or business brand. In the last PR Insider, I shared with you some of the results from the 12th annual Global State of the Media report compiled by Cision, a PR software and services provider. From Feb. 1 to March 1 of this year, Cision surveyed 2,700 jou ..read more

  Anytime you seek to promote your brand through media coverage, you probably have a target audience in mind. If you’re a financial professional, that audience could be people in or near retirement. If you are a marriage counselor, it could be bickering couples. But regardless of that ultimate audience, your first audience is always the editors, reporters, TV producers or others who receive your press release or pitch. If you don’t get their attention, everything else is irrelevant. So, how do you do that these days, when some news agencies have cut staff, leaving the journalists wh ..read more

We often hear people express puzzlement about the value of PR. What’s my ROI, they wonder, and how do I determine it? Sometimes the confusion lies around these same people’s very good understanding of the value of direct-response advertising, which is designed to get instant results by encouraging people to take some sort of action right now. A store advertises its Memorial Day sale with a mammoth two-page newspaper spread and the store’s foot traffic either goes up or it doesn’t. Case closed. PR doesn’t work that way.  The ROI of publicity isn’t as instant or as cut-and-dried as advertis ..read more

I often talk to people who know they need publicity and want professional help to get it but find hiring PR agencies to be a confusing and daunting task. That’s understandable. Public relations firms differ in a thousand ways, it seems. For one, they use different business models – some charge monthly retainer fees while others are pay-for-performance, meaning you pay only for actual media coverage. Firms also have a whole range of specialties, from crisis communications to public affairs to research and analysis. How can you possibly determine which is the right firm for you and your needs? I ..read more

2020 has been a challenging year in so many ways for nearly everyone – and pitching the media in the middle of a pandemic is no exception. COVID-19 dominated so much of the news cycle that, seemingly for months, any pitch that didn’t include a coronavirus angle ended up in some reporter, editor or producer’s deleted file. Fortunately, at News & Experts we found plenty of ways to tie our clients and their messages to the situation, though at times it required some exceptional brainstorming sessions! And eventually other topics began to work their way back into new reports, much ..read more

The first half of 2020 has provided us with some unusual times. For months, a handful of extraordinary events have dominated the news cycle. The COVID-19 pandemic has been the major culprit, but more recently protests across the nation took center stage. So, when two of our News & Experts team members – Miguel Casellas-Gil and Ashley Pontius – participated in a recent webinar, it was no surprise that they fielded variations of this question: Should publicity efforts be put on hold until the world returns to something more approximating normal? The short answer: No. This i ..read more

In my last two PR Insiders, I shared with you tips for getting media opportunities – without being opportunistic – during the COVID-19 crisis, as well as  tips for how to handle media interviews once you land them. This week, let’s look at the next step. At some point this challenging situation we are all going through together will be over, but any media coverage you gain during this period can still be valuable to you weeks, months and even years into the future. That’s true, though, only if you take steps to leverage that coverage. One of my biggest frustrations in PR is when we ..read more

In the last PR Insider, I shared with you some tips for reaching out to the media during the coronavirus crisis; tips that I had also discussed in a webinar I participated in titled “Authority Marketing in a COVID-19 World.” That webinar was inspired, of course, by the many ways in which the coronavirus has impacted our daily lives, including how people are able to market their personal and business brands during these unsettling times. I explained that there are many opportunities for getting in the media as journalists and hosts are looking for people who can provide quality advice; have str ..read more