PR TIPS: Working Your Media

May 14, 2013 Leave a comment

Screen shot 2013-05-13 at 5.42.20 PMOnce you’ve landed some media coverage, whether it be print, TV or radio, make sure that you work it.

For example, let’s say you were featured in a newspaper story and – nothing happened.  No one called.  No offers came in.  No interest was generated, at least as far as you could tell.  To start, you don’t know what will eventually come from that one placement.  I’ve seen cases where months down the line some amazing opportunity arose because of one story.  But, for argument’s sake, let’s say nothing happened.   It’s still remarkably valuable.  You just need to work it.

Become the story’s distributor – and I mean distributor in the most basic sense –

  • Circulate your story
  • Feature it in all of your social media platforms.
  • Spread the word.
  • Mention the story in your biography and fact sheet, use it when pitching other stories.
  • Let other media outlets know that you were featured in the article.
  • Duplicate it and use it as a press sample.
  • Use quotes from the story in your mailers, newsletters, ads, and marketing.

I understand being temporarily depressed if you don’t get a decent response to a story, which is why it is so important to understand exactly how media placement works.  One story does not make for a PR campaign.  By understanding the process, you turn what appears to be a lost opportunity into a tremendous advantage.

Make a list of the various ways you can utilize your media, on social media, in ads and newsletters, emails, etc.

Don’t let your failed expectations cloud your business sense.

Don’t waste opportunities due to short sightedness.

Be imaginative, inventive.

Think.

Be creative…

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2013

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Hathahaters: Anatomy of A Collective Bullying

April 8, 2013 Leave a comment

anne_hathaway_1549_635xSunday’s New York Times ran an article titled “Do We Really Hate Ann Hathaway?”  The article went on to list the blogs and articles that have all taken their shots at the actress and went on to further cement the term Hathahaters in the current pop lexicon.  This phenomenon is not confined to bloggers or Twitter.  It has been covered not only in the Timesbut also in New York Magazine, the New Yorker and the New Republic.  It is generally covered with a certain amount of glee.  The writers in the mainstream outlets tend to feign neutrality and proporte to simply be reporting on the story, which is tantamount to telling a group of thirteen year olds that other people are calling one of their classmates ugly.  You’re not saying it of course; you’re simply reporting what you heard to the rest of the school.

I think it’s safe to say that these stories Tweets and posts reflect more on us than they do on the actress in question.  For a culture that prides itself on taking a firm stance on bullying, we seem to have a collective relish for it.  For that’s all that is really at play here.  Miss Hathaway seems to annoy some people, but a lot of celebrities annoy us.  That’s really what’s at work here.    With the collective piling on of the highbrow and lowbrow media, pop culture has given itself a free pass at collective bullying.  It’s okay to attack her because, hell, everyone else is; not only are some bloggers taking shots, but the mainstream media is as well.

A few weeks ago Howard Stern did a riff on the topic, but that’s his job.  At least that makes sense.   As to the rest the ongoing attacks they must be difficult for her to take.  Yes, I know, she’s a celebrity and needs to have thick skin if she’s going to be in the public eye.  But this is more akin to a Lord of the Flies mentality at play than a TMZ day at the office. Hathaway doesn’t seem to be the real story here and all in all, it certainly doesn’t reflect well on us.  There is an axiom that all publicity is good publicity. I doubt it.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2013

 

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From Guest Blogger, Ann Convery: Want the Real Secrets of a Super Star? Ask Will Smith

March 27, 2013 Leave a comment

FILM Smith 1Hi ,

Years ago, Will Smith was doing OK
as a rising TV star and movie actor.

But he was dead clear about his goal:
he wanted to be the biggest movie
star in the world.

So he and his manager studied
the 10 top-grossing movies of all time.

10 out of 10 had special effects.
9 out of 10 had special effects with creatures.
8 out of 10 had special effects with creatures and a love story.

They found the sweet spot in the market.

So they found a special effects script
with creatures and a love story.

Matthew Perry dropped out of
“Independence Day” at the last minute,
and Smith was in.

It was the highest grossing movie of 1996.

“Men in Black” didn’t do too badly either.

By age 44, Will Smith had accrued $4.4 Billion
in box office receipts.

What does this mean for you?

Will Smith’s success is no accident.
He studied the market and
made it happen.

Will Smith, and it might surprise you,
Elton John, Paul McCartney, and Mick Jagger
plotted their rise to the top.

If you want to go from where you are
to the top of your field, take this little test:

Have you actually studied your rise to the top?

Do you have a juicy, mouth-watering vision,
in living color, of what life will be like when you
get there?

Do you know what the sweet spot is
in your market?

Do you know what your market craves
and can’t get enough of?

Do you know what draws people to you and makes them
want you, you, you?

Do you know how to create that?

Think Will Smith. Bruce Willis. Tom Cruise.

Their star power is not an “accident of birth.”

Smith studied every actor, like Don Cheadle,
who came on “Fresh Prince” to learn the
secrets of what made them good.

Do you study the stars in your market
to see what makes them stand out?

Do you know how your market sees you now?

Do you know how to reposition
yourself for amazing success?

Do you have a mentor who can take
you there?

And by the way, you need that
juicy, mouth-watering vision from
the top right now.

Research proves that without a
crystal clear picture of your success,
you’ll never believe you can get there.

So you won’t have the motivation
to get going.

So you stay where you are.

Success is not fairy dust.

It’s more than hard work.

It’s a series of deliberate, planned, calculated,
shrewd moves.

If you answered “yes” to 8 out of
10 questions…

World – Stand back!

You’re on your way.

And..

There’s 1 spot left in the Private Accelerator
Program for entrepreneurs who are hell-bent
on reaching the top.

If this is you, and you’ve got butterflies
just thinking about it –
Good sign.

Send a quick email to annc@annconvery.com with “Ann, I’m interested” in the subject line.I
I’ll send you a one-page application so we can see if you’re a good fit for this high-octane ride.

Copyright © Ann Convery 2012

McMullen, Marion. “The Secret of Will Smith’s Success.” Photo. Coventry Telegraph. 12 Jun 2012. 27 Mar 2013. <http://blogs.coventrytelegraph.net/passtheremote/2012/06/the-secret-of-will-smiths-succ.html&gt;

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The Art of Success

March 26, 2013 Leave a comment

art of successAs an artist, you never know what is going to grab the media’s attention.  That’s why your best bet is to do the work you love and then tailor your marketing to fit your artwork.  I’m not a believer in trying to figure out what‘s going to entice the media, or coming up with the next big thing. Film companies and TV networks have tried that approach for years and you’ve seen what their track record is like.  Your job is to focus on your art, your creativity and on your strengths.  But that doesn’t mean you forget about the marketing aspect of your business, because art is a business.    And that needn’t be a bad thing.  It simply is.  Don’t resist it; use it to your advantage.

It all comes down to your perspective and how you approach this aspect of your career.  Remember creative marketing is an art.   Not to mention the fact that without marketing, most likely your art will be your avocation instead of your vocation.  But again don’t tailor your work towards your marketing, but tailor your marketing towards your art.

For example, our client, Brendan O’Connell, has been painting his Walmart series for going on eight years now.  This is not a series he’s worked on because he thought it would be a great marketing tool.  He painted the series because that’s what he was organically moved and inspired to paint.  He was following his calling.  Now the media has caught up.   His work has struck a chord.   He was featured on CBS Sunday.  Watch Brendan O’Connell (Walmart’s Warhol) CBS Sunday.  He’ll be coming out in People magazine; he was profiled in the New Yorker and was interviewed on the Colbert Report.

Brendan O’Connell on the Colbert Report!

The bottom line is he stay focused on his art first, but was prepared when media interest surfaced.  So, yes come up with a marketing plan and a direction, make that an integral part of your career gameplan, but don’t try to assume you know what’s going to interest the media and tailor your work in that way.  You’ll generally be wrong and you won’t be doing your work…

…Focus on your art, your unique vision and then tailor your marketing accordingly.  Be authentic, do your work and prepare for success.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2013

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Exposed: 4 Marketing Myths – Plus 3 Social Media Myths

March 22, 2013 Leave a comment

marketing mythsThe trouble with marketing myths is that sometimes they are true, depending on the specific situation, but generally those rules that we fell are set in stone and hard and fast; don’t serve us well at all.  Then there are those myths that are completely erroneous.  For example

Doing Any Marketing Is Better Than Doing Nothing -.Wrong!  That’s like the old PR adage that all publicity is good publicity.  That’s nuts.  There are myriad examples of media coverage that was disastrous for a company or celebrity.  And when it comes to marketing, doing nothing at all is much better than doing very bad marketing.  Action for action’s sake can be useless or detrimental.  You need your marketing to be thought out.  You want it to be planned with your goals and objectives in mind

Marketing Is Strategic -  Sometimes.  Yes, strategic marketing can be important, but most of the time you’re not looking for strategic marketing, you’re looking for tactical marketing that is focused on specific objectives.

You Market By Selling – Again, wrong!  You’re objective isn’t to sell but to allow your customers and clients to buy.  It sounds like the same thing, but it’s not.  You want to create awareness, an emotional response and have an effective call to action.

I Don’t Need To Pay For Marketing; I Can Do It On My Own – Well you certainly can try and you can try to do surgery on yourself and your family as well, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

And continuing with marketing myths I recently came across some online marketing myths by Dan Zarrella, author of 6 Deadly Marketing Myths Busted.  I found the following myths to be on the mark:

Don’t Market on the Weekends – Fact: articles tend to be shared on Facebook far more on weekends than on weekdays

Social Media Is For Conversations, Not Broadcasting - Fact: There is no significant correlation between the number of comments a blog post received and the amount of traffic that blog post generated. In other words, conversation doesn’t necessarily drive traffic.

Myth: Don’t Call Yourself A “Guru.” -  Fact:  Looks like moniker guru works and drives more traffic.

So, when it comes to PR and marketing don’t just go by what you’ve heard or read.  Remember just because people believe something doesn’t make it true.  Do your homework.  Devise a marketing strategy for your own unique business and personality. And, yes, you do need to market.  That is definitely not a myth.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2013

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Why Placements In Small Media Outlets Can Be Gold

March 20, 2013 Leave a comment

small media outletsNot long ago I had a conversation with a prospective client.  He was confused by some of the media I had suggested targeting for his campaign.  He wanted us to go big, fast.  As he explained, his story was hot, big; we should go directly to USA Today, People, CNN, and the New York Times.  This was a new filmmaker that no one has ever heard of, with a new film that is still in pre-production.  No producers or editors were knocking on his door, still, he was sure they would and he didn’t want to waste his time on smaller outlets.

I did my best to explain the process.  You build a groundswell, start to generate some media interest and go from there.  PR is a cumulative process.  It works, but it takes time to gain momentum.  I walked him through another client’s campaign where it began slowly and then picked up steam.  It began with a small newspaper article, followed by a local NPR story, a larger newspaper then picked it up, that lead to the New Yorker, which caught the eye of the Colbert Report, CBS then became interested.  We then pinched and landed a piece in People magazine.  It was a consistent build.  If we had started by pitching People, chances are they would have passed on the story.  I explained that those first smaller placements are not necessarily important in and of themselves (although they can be), but that they offer us ammunition to help land interviews and stories in larger media outlets.  He listened and nodded and said it made sense and that he understood.

Then after about an hour conversation he said it all made sense but insisted that he not be pitched to smaller outlets because they were beneath him and didn’t have the readership his story demanded.  I told him a story about another client we worked with a few years back.  We initially placed him in a very small regional media outlet.  I then used that story to pitch Oprah and our client’s second media appearance was on Oprah.   I was about to explain the entire process one more time and illustrate why the small media placements are important because they help us land bigger, more mainstream media outlets, but decided not to.  Instead, I thanked him for the meeting and suggested we both think about possible next steps.

His campaign would have never been successful, because he wouldn’t have allowed it to be.  His preconceived ideas of how the campaign should work all but guaranteed that it never would work.  He can teach all of us a powerful lesson.  Whatever endeavor you’re involved in, if you start with a set-in-stone view of how it has to unfold, I guarantee you you’ll stop it from unfolding organically.  You’ll be cheating yourself and will never know just how amazingly successful it could have been.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2013

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Creating Your Brand Through Effective PR

March 18, 2013 Leave a comment

brandingAccording to Wikipedia, a brand is the “name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers

In essence a brand is a concept.  It’s an idea or an image that the public, over time, connects with a product or service.  The identifying factor could be the name, the colors, the look, the slogan, the logo, or the design, but the overriding power of a brand lies in the concept.  The brand is a shortcut that tells a company’s story.  The power lies in the narrative that a logo, name or slogan both denotes and connotes.  A brand is effective when it is readily recognizable, when it is identified with a company or product. But a brand not only has to be recognizable, it needs to provoke a certain type of feeling or reaction.  The role of each brand is somewhat unique, some focus on trust and reliability, others focus on a hip or cool factor, still others focus on elegance and luxury.

what-s-the-value-in-a-brand-name--86ec9f7591You need to understand your product or company and your market before you can create a successful brand.  Once that’s defined, you want to focus on their needs and wants, and on offering them solutions to their particular problems and issues.  A successful brand will connect with your prospects, motivate your clients, and develop a loyal base.  A brand connects emotionally.  If there is not an emotional component, your brand won’t effectively connect with your market.

Because developing and creating the right brand is so important for a company’s success, we’ll often work with clients on the development of the brand, concept, style and narrative before moving forward on the PR outreach.

There are myriad ways to market your brand and establish it in the market.  But, the most effective is to utilize PR and media relations to establish your brand through the media.  By being featured on TV or in print you and your company attain the legitimacy and validation that comes from being featured as a news story.  In essence you become the news.  You can then use that media coverage in all of your other marketing strategies.  When it comes to creating a powerful brand always keep in mind the power and importance of an effective public relations outreach.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2013

Swallow, Erica. “What’s the Value in a Brand Name.” Photo. Mashable. 5 Nov. 2010. 18 Mar 2013. <http://mashable.com/2010/11/05/value-of-brand-names/>

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Why Media Training Is No Longer About The Media

March 4, 2013 Leave a comment

media training blogIt used to be that you received media training to prepare to be interviewed by the mainstream media.  Makes sense, right?  Before you’re interviewed by your local newspaper, or appear on 60 Minutes you want to get some idea of what to say.  But times have changed; now if you have a website, or use social media, you, my friend, are in the media.  You are in your own media world, like it or not.  So, in truth media training is no longer about the media, it’s now about your media.

Our media trainer, Ann Convery, has trained clients to be interviewed by such media as Time, Newsweek, 60 Minutes, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The New York Times, the BBC, Los Angeles Times, Vogue, People, Rolling Stone and countless other media outlets.  But now she’s also working with clients reviewing what they should say and how they should present themselves on their own videos, or how to communicate via social media.

So, to quickly answer the two pertinent questions

Do you need media training?  YES!

When?  NOW!

Media training teaches you how to communicate with your market, customers, prospects, influencers and, yes, the media.  It is no longer strictly for those of us in the PR or media relations realm

It is an invaluable experience and one that you need in order to successfully run your business whether you’re a producer, painter, author, or rocket scientist.

And if you decide to try and save a few bucks by giving up your search for a good media trainer and trying to do the session with your sister or hairdresser, don’t!  This is truly one of those cases where you don’t know what you don’t know.  Plus, what if the Today Show calls today wanting to book you on the show tomorrow morning?  Then you’ll be prepared, right?  And if they don’t call today, you’ll still be prepared to successfully communicate in your own media world.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2013

 

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How To Successfully Present Your PR Pitch to the Media

March 1, 2013 Leave a comment

TV-InterviewWhen pitching the media, or your target market, generally the harder you sell, the quicker you lose them.  I don’t know of an editor or producer who likes a hard sell.  When launching a PR campaign, or sending out a press release, the hard sales approach is never going to serve your purpose.  Sell and you lose.  You don’t want to come off sounding like a promotional brochure or an advertisement.  Talk about unique selling points and chances are you’ll hear the click of a phone as they hang up on you.  If you have features you want to get across, find a creative way to communicate them.  Whether the benefits you’re hoping to get across are reduced costs, better health, more efficiency, or increased wealth, you need to relate your message in a concise and interesting manner.  You’re not holding a fire sale, you’re telling a compelling story.

Before you tell your story, you need to understand who your story is aimed at; who you are telling it to and for and what action you want the reader to take when he or she reads your story. We live in the age of content marketing which when it comes down to it is basically marketing via effective storytelling.  It’s about creating compelling, persuasive and believable stories.  It’s about narratives that grab your reader’s attention.

First figure out how you’re going to tell your story.  It could be a written press release, a whitepaper, a video, images with infographics, a teleseminar or webinars, etc.  Once you’ve figured out how you’re going to tell your story and tailored it toward your particular market, focus on the story itself.  Create the content.

If you’re launching a public relations campaign and are pitching an editor or producer the action you want them to take is to do an article or segment on you, your company or your product.  If you’re going directly to consumers, your aim could be to raise awareness, educate, inform or change perception.  Here, depending on your needs, you’ll have a different call to action. Your goal could be to get your reader to purchase your product, or to share your content.  Regardless of the call to action, the intent remains the same, to build trust and relationships by offering relevant and useful, compelling information.   In other words, you succeed by telling a concise and compelling story.  So, forget the hard sell.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2013

The Daily Muse. “Talk Show/ PR Image.” Photo. Mashable. 19, Dec. 2012. 28, Feb. 2013. <http://mashable.com/2012/12/19/tips-for-hiring-pr-agency/>

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PR Tip of the Day: Developing a Trend Story

February 21, 2013 Leave a comment

Trends2012Don’t only stay on top of the news and breaking stories; also keep a look out for trends in the media, in pop culture or in your specific field.  A good PR approach is to define a new trend or a new approach that you can discuss and explain to the media and the general public.  For example, if you’re a musician or producer, can you address how the music industry is shifting and explain how the various new trends in music are impacting the culture at large.  The Internet has changed the music business in ways no one could have predicted a decade ago.  Develop a PR pitch on how the music industry has changed and give your take on how musicians or producers can utilize the net to enhance their brand and outreach.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2013

 

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PR Tip of the Day: Expanding Your PR Focus

February 6, 2013 Leave a comment

expand your focusExpanding Your PR Focus:  When creating your PR pitches, your primary expertise is the area you’re going to generally focus on.  But that focus doesn’t have to be limiting.  Before launching your public relations outreach, study different ways that you can present or pitch your primary story.  For example, if you’ve produced a new film, you can talk about the story line, the actors, the director, the journey it took to bring the film to fruition, any current topical stories that the film touches on, how the film reflects the culture, etc.  There are a number of different approaches you can take and you want to broaden your pitch when approaching the media.  The more story angles you given them, the greater your chances of garnering media coverage.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2013

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