Ten Cardinal Sins in Dealing with the Media
1. No Contact Maintenance
Even and especially in "good times," you should continuously expand your contacts. Many companies tend to disregard this maxim. Some companies will even wait until the first signs of trouble before they touch base with the media. By that time, however, it will be too late, and they will have to resort to the worst kind of press work, the counter-statement. Confidence and openness take months and years to grow. Clearly, a journalist will always behave differently toward a totally unknown, anonymous contact than he would toward somebody he has known for years. In moments of crisis, he will tend to include alternative takes on the situation in his reporting if he has come to appreciate the company at issue as an open dialogue partner throughout long years of experience.
2. Products Rather than Stories
Never attempt to instrumentalise the media. Journalist do not care about the success, or lack of success, of your product sales. Of course it is natural for the fund initiator to wish for as positive a report on his new product as possible. And no doubt a developer would like as many articles as possible to be published on his new project. However, journalists usually react sensitively and defensively and justifiably so whenever they get the impression that a given company is trying to use them. Thus, you should sell interesting news and good stories to journalists, not a product.
3. Bending the Truth
Never tell a journalist an untruth in order to reap a short-term effect. If you have been on good terms with the press for an extended period of time (see above) they will be understanding if things are not going the way they are supposed to: a developer may experience a liquidity bottleneck; a fund initiator may find that some of his funds are in distress; or similar issues. Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of trying to cover up such problems, to euphemise them and to wilfully misinform the press. Just like anybody else, media people are allergic to being lied to. What is more, journalists are like hounds with a keen sense of smell, and sceptical by nature. They will smell blood if lied to, and start hunting for its source.
4. Ignorance of a Given Medium
If you wish to sell something to a customer, you should know certain things about him and his needs. Each customer is different and will want something else. It is a principle any salesman worth his salt will apply to his work, but, strangely, will ignore when it comes to facing the media. But do not forget: The journalist is no different than your customer. It is your job to find out what topics may capture his interest. To put it differently: What does a journalist think might grab his reader's attention? In order to find out, you will have to familiarise yourself with the medium first. It will come as an insult to any journalist if you call up to sell a story, and he realises that you do not even read "their" paper or magazine, or that you have never watched "their" show. If this is the case, they will find out in no time at all. So do take the trouble to regularly read up on the items of any journalist who might be important to your company. Better yet: Get to know the journalist in person in order to find out what subjects truly interest them.
5. Hot Air Instead of Hard Facts
Journalists have no time to waste. They are flooded with press agency reports, press releases, reports and so on. You are well advised not to steal a journalist's time with "hot air". No journalist will take an interest in the texts of your PR agency if all they talk about is "customer benefits", "optimised asset structure" and other such commonplace jargon. Instead, feed them hard fact, and ideally facts that are news. After all, what a newsman cares about is news, not sales rap. Also, be brief in your statements. Be sure to come right to the point. Using your own paper sparingly will save the journalist time. If a journalist needs extra information he will surely ask for it. Moreover, try to avoid any kind of advertising undertone. Advertising is one thing, PR work another. The inability to differentiate between the two is one of the major evils plaguing many a company.
6. Considering PR Work a Side Job
Nowhere else will you find as much unprofessional public relations work as in real estate companies. If the head of sales does the press work as a side job he thereby manifests the very disdain he harbours for the subject. Real estate companies need a staff of depending on their size one or several employees for the professional handling of PR work.
7. All-rounder PR Agencies
Whenever you go hunting for a PR agency, make sure they are at home in the world of real estate. An agency that takes care of the press work for a manufacturer of coffee percolators today, for a producer of garden furniture tomorrow, and a real estate company the day after, is what you would call an all-rounder. There are very few universal genies out there today though, and many of those who do a little of everything actually do nothing well. Pick your PR agency according to how willing to learn they are. Getting a good grasp of what your company does requires the ability to learn, a lot of time, and a basic understanding of the real estate business. A PR agency that deluges the press with rhetorical stunts and empty phrases because they have no idea what your company and products are really about hardly deserves your money.
8. Perfectionism at a Slow Pace
Journalists are always pressed for time and the reporters of dailies or daily news casts, moreso than other. Of course, sometimes it will take time to research the necessary in-house information. But that is not the same as taking your time with it. If you wait until everything has been "100%" researched and then submit the text to each and every member of the board for approval, the right moment will have passed. It is a matter of supreme indifference to a journalist whether your image material is perfectly processed and how you graphically lay out your text. What counts instead is that he get the information quickly or, ideally, at once. Why not generate a reputation for being swifter than your competitors? In which case you will become the first to be asked for statements and market assessment. Tell your receptionist to never, ever ask a calling journalist what his call is about or what company he represents. Also, your staff should make it their business to process press inquiries as quickly as possible. Ask the journalists you work with to pinpoint their schedule. What is the latest time for a incoming report? What is the deadline for going to press?
9. Using Ads as Bait
A good journalist will not care about whether your company advertises in their medium or not. High quality media will strictly separate between the news desk and the advertising department, and for a good reason. Because cheap admags are the only type of newspaper that fail to differentiate between the two. It will hurt the professional pride of a journalist to see his own work linked to that of the ad department. So never use a potential ad campaign as supposed "reward" for a certain sort of coverage, and, inversely, never threaten to take your ad business elsewhere if the coverage turns out to be unfavourable.
10. Reports Without Opener
Newspaper articles need catchy openings. Without an opener, you will usually not even get the report. The journalist needs the opener not just for the reader, but also to sell the story to his editor and colleagues. Which goes to show that it is quite impossible to do good public relations work without putting a trained professional in charge of it. Such a professional will know how to front-load a given report with a great opener. You have no idea what makes a catchy opener? Never mind. It is your press officer or your PR agency who should know exactly what we are talking about.