Public relations is one of the best-kept secrets

When I say I do public relations, people usually ask “Is it advertising”? 

When I say it’s the stories—the news and features that go along with the ads—they’re surprised.

Most people don’t realize that stories are placed—shepherded from an idea to a story with facts, background and clients as sources—by someone like myself.

PR is one of the best-kept secrets in the business world for good reasons.

Publishers and broadcast station owners need advertising. Without it, stories can’t exist.

Journalists and reporters, anchors and hosts don’t want their audience to know that people in the stories are there because they hired a publicist, not because of their expertise.  

Some years ago, the Columbia Journalism Review reported that even the Wall Street Journal, an extremely prestigious newspaper, relied on PR firms.

Some 45 percent of the stories were placed by PR firms.

The next time you watch TV, listen to the radio or read a magazine, newspaper or blog, just remember….

That story probably got there because someone like me put it there.  

For more information, please call us at (916) 455-4790 or visit www.dellrichards.com

Tell journalists what they want to know

During interviews with reporters, people don’t always want to answer questions about company earnings and sales figures.

We tell clients it’s best to give reporters what they want.

If they don’t, the reporter will figure it out on their own.

If they get it wrong, it’ll look like it’s right and there’s little anyone can do about it.  

I say this because we’ve had reporters guesstimate company earnings by using an industry average that was way too low since they were specialists with a large staff.

To have people think they made so little was even worse than having everyone know how well they were doing.

Another time, we almost lost a feature because the company was still in beta-testing, had run into problems and didn’t want to admit sales weren't as high as they’d projected.   

Which is why we say “Honesty is the best policy”—especially with journalists.  

For information, please call us at (916) 455-4790 or visit our website at www.dellrichards.com.

When journalists get it wrong

When interviewing people, it’s easy to make assumptions that aren’t exactly right—or are completely wrong.

Because journalists often make mistakes when interviewing people, we warn clients not to expect perfection.

We tell them to ignore errors, no matter how annoying and to be grateful for the coverage, no matter what it says.   

So what do you do if there are lots of mistakes, something that recently happened to a client?

While there was nothing negative about the article, the CEO wanted a correction.  

After a flurry of emails with everyone involved, the CEO decided to let it go.

I breathed a sigh of relief because I didn’t want them to be seen as  difficult. 

Using a quote attributed to P. T. Barnum, I always says "the only bad publicity is no publicity".

For more information, call us at Dell Richards Publicity, (916) 455-4790 or visit www.dellrichards.com.

PR lasts forever....

A few years after I started doing public relations, a client called to say he’d just made a sale from an article we placed more than a year earlier.

Because people think the media only uses experts, they often save articles until they are ready for a service or product.

Even though we tell clients that being in the media has enormous credibility, it doesn’t always hit home until they see the lasting effect. 

Recently, we had a reporter contact us about an issue we pitched more than three years ago.

Nation’s Restaurant News finally was writing about the idea we sent.

Because they had our client as a source. the reporter now wanted to interview him for the story.

As I wrote this, a researcher from Frost & Sullivan called about the same issue, the story more important now than ever.  

A sale a year later, reporters calling years after a pitch... whether you get immediate placement or not, talking to the media has lasting value. 

So PR doesn’t last forever, it still lasts a long time—not only with the public, but with editors and reporters as well.

For more information, call us at Dell Richards Publicity, (916) 455-4790 or visit www.dellrichards.com.

PR is not dead

With so much emphasis on new media, some people don’t think that “old media” works anymore.

People forget that traditional media not only drives sales, but social media—as the publicity campaign of one of our current clients shows.   

When the Sacramento nonprofit, Destinations Mobility, started a contest for a wheelchair-accessible van and shuttle bus, Destinations had a Facebook reach of less than 150 people.

When our firm got a major local columnist to write about the giveaway, Facebook reach jumped to 8,162.

Less than a week later, when we placed three segments with two teasers on a local morning show and its news affiliate, reach zoomed to 12,244 people. 

When the division manager was on a talk radio show that runs on five local stations, social media hit 22,419.  

Since then, Facebook has remained constant, staying above 20,000.

With old and new media kicking in, entries for the contest not only picked up, but reached the campaign goals.   

For more information, call us at (916) 455-4790 or visit Dell Richards Publicity at  www.dellrichards.com.