Over time, PR leads to recognition

In public relations, if you beat the drum long enough, you’ll eventually hear back from journalists.

If you have a good story, you'll get a flood of queries and the interest in your client will suddenly take off.

When Mutual Housing California became for the first rental community in the nation to be certified by the Department of Energy as a Zero Energy Ready Home, we knew it was an important jumping off point.

When the local media wrote about it, a freelance journalist from the area saw it and sent a story to the subscription-only ClimateWire.

Scientific American republished that article a few days later. 

Since this past May, 18 articles have been written about the zero-net energy development and a video made on it.

Four other stories are being written, including one by NeighborWorks America, the Congressionally chartered nonprofit.     

And the list goes on… because once people hear an exciting drum beat, they want to be part of the party.

For more information, contact Dell Richards Publicity at www.dellrichards.com.

When to ignore a "critic"

We usually tell clients to make good and then answer critics on social media.  

Recently, a fan who didn’t like a change, turned on one of our clients.   

She called and called—and called.

Even though the client talked to her, it made no difference.

When we got press, she added comments—pages and pages of comments.

Because we didn’t want “He said, she said”, we advised the client to ignore it.

Luckily, the length and belligerence of the comments made them suspect.

As it turned out, no one took her seriously from the media to other customers.    

And after that one intense outburst, we didn’t hear anything more from her.

For more information, contact us at Dell Richards Publicity, www.dellrichards.com.

Why you want to help the media

Recently, a local TV station called one of our clients for expert comments on an issue—and for help finding a person who was affected.

Luckily, we were able to do so in the 3-hour time frame the reporter had to gather information and visuals. 

The two-minute story ran on the local news a few hours later.

At the 5 p.m. hour, the story reached 37,900 people and had a publicity value of $25,244.00.

It’s great to get press that valuable, but being Johnny-on-the-spot has other benefits.

When people have called the media with a complaint, because the reporters know we’re honest and reliable, they call us to hear our side. 

Once we explain we’re fixing the problem, they have not done a story.

Working hard to build a reputation with the media gets clients press for what they do—and, in the past, also has protected them from unfair allegations.

For more information, visit us at www.dellrichards.com.