8 tips to coordinate a media exclusive

Coordinating an exclusive story with a top media outlet often brings accolades to PR pros.

Warm, fuzzy feelings also bubble up in newsrooms, as fiercely competitive reporters and producers jockey for first dibs on a fresh or breaking story. Journalists want to feel special, an important dynamic for communicators to understand when offering an exclusive.

These tips can help you avoid missteps during the process:

1. Make sure you have something new to offer.

Exclusives can happen only if your story is unique. Often, organizations are so close to their own activities that they convince themselves they have something distinctive, even though it’s virtually the same as what their competitors offer. Due diligence is imperative; PR pros must make certain that no other group can provide similar content.

2. Create your dream story.

Once you are positive you’re sitting on an exclusive, put on your brand journalist hat and create the content yourself before offering it to journalists. The more you can fully understand all aspects of your pitch, the easier it will be to sell it to a reporter or producer. Your story can be a simple outline, written article or more detailed multimedia piece. Once the exclusive hits, you can use this content in additional pitches and on your company-owned channels.

Download the free white paper, “How to be a brand journalist,” to learn how to tell your organization’s compelling stories.

3. Rank the outlets.

Prioritize the news organizations in the order that you will approach them with the exclusive opportunity. To strategically rank the target channels and publications, answer the questions to these common campaign goals:

• Does the outlet have a high audience in your target demographic?

• Is the journalist a good match for this story?

• Is the reporter trustworthy and relatively low risk?

• Do you have a history with the outlet or journalist?

4. Align internal teams.

Assign one person to negotiate the exclusive. Be sure that all internal teammates and PR partners clearly know who is leading the charge. It’s imperative to remind others not to offer anyone an exclusive. Nothing can ruin your special deal faster than a zealous team member talking to the wrong journalist or contact at the wrong time.

5. Start early.

Lead time is essential to successfully execute an exclusive, especially with a major TV network or other national outlet. Ideally, we recommend a minimum three weeks before the date the story will be released. Each special negotiation with an outlet can take up to a week. Remember, your point person on the other side will need time to pitch the story internally, and then make a decision. If the first-ranked outlet declines, you must build in additional time to approach the next decision maker on your list.

6. Focus on specifics.

This is where your communication skills can shine. Be clear and transparent about the terms of your agreement. Be sure your bosses, partners—and especially the folks in the newsroom you’re working with—understand your expectations and what an “exclusive” means. Once verbal agreements are made, send a summary email that confirms (and documents) the details. Be specific about the definition of the word “exclusive”:

• Does it mean that the outlet gets to cover the story first, then other news outlets can access the story after they break it?

• Or does it mean that no other outlet gets the story other than the exclusive one?

One condition of the pact should be that the journalist commits to a publishing or air date. If the piece gets delayed or doesn’t run for some reason, you need a way to hold them accountable. Moreover, you will probably want to pitch another outlet quickly. You don’t want your story being held hostage.

7. Be honest.

Don’t promise the decision maker something that’s impossible to deliver, just to keep the ball moving forward. You don’t want to mislead a journalist, as being disingenuous can destroy your exclusive as well as your long-term credibility.

8. Maximize with owned media.

Talk with the decision makers about your company-owned media channels. Discuss the rules for your own organization’s promotion of the show or segment on social media before it airs or publishes. Make sure that the people you are coordinating with on the news side know you will be releasing your own content via social media after their exclusive runs. Don’t jeopardize the exclusive by jumping the gun on your company-owned channels.

Lisa Arledge Powell is president of MediaSource, a public relations firm that specializes in brand journalism. MediaSource has been named Best Health Care Agency in 2013, 2014 and 2015 in Ragan’s Health Care PR & Marketing Awards. Connect on Twitter: @LisaArledge.

This article was created in partnership with MediaSource.

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Key PR metrics to examine—and act on—for 2016

It’s autumn, which means back to school, back to work and planning for 2016.

Both in-house and agency marketing teams will be defending the current year’s work, gearing up for 2016 and securing (or expanding) budgets. Realistic goals and metrics are at the center of that effort.

How can you showcase your ongoing work in the best light and set the stage for an even more successful 2016?

Unfortunately, there is no “silver bullet” measurement tool. That does not mean we have no resources to help define PR success and set the agenda for an even more data-driven PR program in the coming year.

Let’s review what you can and should be doing today:

Tracking key indicators

Beyond number of clips or unique visitors per month, what did all your hard work translate to, regarding:

• Number of new followers: Your expanding audience means you’re generating interest and expanding your sales potential.
• Coverage traffic: This shows how media outlets’ mentions of your brand boosted consumer awareness and helped you target influential figures.
• Engagement metrics: Which content made the biggest splash with fans and followers? How did it affect social media traffic and SEO?

Many of these metrics are found via tools in the Moz suite, through the native social media platform dashboard and through Google Analytics. If you don’t have Google Analytics access, make the case for setting it up in time for 2016 benchmarking.

Download this free white paper to discover smart ways to measure your internal communications and link your efforts to business goals.

You have gathered the data to defend your program, you’ve run data-driven analysis, and you’re ready to create an even better PR plan for 2016. How do you make the most of those data? How can you improve your plan?

Include amplification

The value of media coverage is still unquestioned, however it’s harder and harder to get those messages in front of your ideal audience. Propose syndication for that great business hit.

Pilot the A/B testing of remarketing coverage and content on multiple platforms. Figure out where your audience is, and don’t be afraid to remind them with targeted advertising.

Think about the content/sales relationship.

Have a great but highly technical white paper? Maybe it’s not a great piece to pitch as is, but you can break it up into blogs to promote awareness. Then use other avenues (syndication, targeted social advertising) to drive potential customers toward a purchase.

Track, track, track.

Track everything that moves to measure how a campaign or a piece of content performs. Cross-reference same-subject content in different formats to see how to craft your outreach and content for deeper engagement.

Creating your PR plan in this way helps your client (your agency contact or internal marketing chief) start to draw a cleaner line to your work and how it is affecting the business.

Derek Lyons is senior vice president of integrated services at Shift Communications, where a version of this article first appeared.

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REI’s Black Friday gambit: Will closing its stores woo consumers?

For REI, “Black Friday” won’t describe a shopping frenzy, but rather its stores’ windows.

In a bold move to be “authentic” during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, all 143 REI stores will be closed Nov. 27.

The company, which sells camping gear and other outdoorsy wares, encouraged its employees and customers to spend time in nature. It created a microsite where people can type in their ZIP code and find a nearby trail to hike.

The company explained its decision in an email to customers:

This Black Friday the co-op is doing something different. We’re closing all 143 of our stores. Instead of reporting to work, we’re paying our employees to do what we love most—be outside. We want you to be the first to hear—not just what we’re doing, but why. We’re passionate about bringing you great gear, but we’re even more passionate about the experiences it unlocks for all of us. Perhaps John Muir said it best back in 1901: “thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home.” We think Black Friday is the perfect day to remind people of this essential truth. And don’t worry, you’ll still enjoy great deals on great gear all holiday season long. But on this one day, we’re going to #OptOutside and we want you to join us. While the rest of the world is fighting it out in the aisles, we hope to see you in the great outdoors. Visit optoutside.rei.com and you’ll discover great ways to #OptOutside from coast to coast. Let’s get out there, REI.

“For us, encouraging people to get outside maybe was one of the most authentic things we could do,” REI President and CEO Jerry Stritzke told “CBS This Morning” on Tuesday.

Download this free white paper to learn how to tell compelling stories that navigate through the noise, boost your brand and drive sales.

In addition to generating publicity, the move has resonated with consumers:

if it was possible to love @REI even more, it’s just happened. Thank you for ignoring the most heinous shopping day of the year #optoutside

— Christina Baker (@CVicenzi) October 27, 2015

.@REI FANTASTIC decision to close on Black Friday. Reclaim #Thanksgiving and nature. #OptOutside

— z (@zebrafinch) October 27, 2015

I’m going to #OptOutside on Black Friday this year. Find me hiking the local trails in Blaine, MN., to work off the the turkey and stuffing.

— Greg Merritt (@GregScotMerritt) October 27, 2015

Last year, Home Depot, Costco and Burlington Coat Factory refused to open on Thanksgiving Day, but REI is the first to announce it will be closed on Black Friday, USA Today reported.

What do you think about this adventurous move, Ragan readers? Is REI being foolish to close on one of its 10 busiest shopping days of the year, or will this move deepen the loyalty its customers have toward the brand?

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How thank-you notes can transform your career

From 2001 to 2011, Douglas Conant transformed Campbell Soup.

As CEO, he took “a beleaguered old brand” (Businessweek’s words, not mine) and turned it into a thriving success in the global food industry. In 10 years at the helm, Conant cut costs and innovated and increased the company’s marketing efforts.

He also wrote 30,000 thank-you notes.

A thoughtful thank-you is more than an Emily Post-type platitude. Make writing thank-you notes a habit, and you will improve your career. It worked for Conant.

It’s also a habit of titans like George H.W. Bush, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Welch and James Thomas Fallon. You don’t have to commit an hour each day as Conant does, but below are three types of thank-you notes you should be writing. Shoot for one a week.

Don’t be the parent who never said ‘I love you’

Here are the metrics. When Conant took over at Campbell’s, a Gallup poll found that employee engagement at the company was the lowest of any Fortune 500 firm ever polled.

• 62 percent of managers considered themselves not actively engaged in their jobs.
• 12 percent of managers considered themselves actively disengaged in their jobs.

“We had a toxic culture,” Conant is quoted saying in a case study for the Harvard Business School. “People were understandably jaundiced with management. It was hard for me to imagine that we could inspire high performance with no employee engagement.”

Conant set about changing things. He created a leadership development program and a scorecard to evaluate each leader’s performance. He ushered in new faces and said goodbye to old ones. In the first three years, Conant replaced 300 of the top 350 leaders at the company, according to a 2009 piece in Forbes. Conant also started saying “thank you.”

Each day, Conant would write 10 to 20 thank-you notes to employees at all levels of Campbell’s. It took about an hour each day. According to a 2014 piece in The Washington Post, he made time during commutes and while traveling. He had a staffer help him look for success stories he could praise. The notes were so appreciated that they were often hung in people’s offices or above their desks, Conant told BusinessWeek.

“We’re trained to find things that are wrong, but I try to celebrate what’s right,” he told the magazine.

In 2010, Gallup did the engagement poll again, and found that 68 percent of Campbell employees said they are actively engaged. Only 3 percent said they are actively disengaged. This gives Campbell an engagement ratio of 23-to-1. For context, Gallup considers a 12-to-1 ratio world-class.

Network to get work

“I approach business the same way my father has done for many years. He was a banker, and he made his way through life really connecting to people.”

That’s a quote from one of my favorite salesmen. His name is Patrick Blanchard. Full disclosure: He’s a good friend and was formerly the director of emerging opportunities at Nebo. He’s a real mensch.

For Patrick, networking is part of the gig, but that doesn’t mean it’s disingenuous. The thank-you-for-your-business email is pretty standard, but Patrick also sends thank-yous when he doesn’t win business—and those are the important thank-yous.

When you don’t win business, that’s when the journey begins, Patrick says. After an unsuccessful RFP, he’ll write to thank the company for their time and the opportunity to present. He’ll address the recipient by their first name, because if you’re not on a first-name basis by that point, there probably isn’t much of a relationship to build upon.

“Ninety percent of people don’t respond,” Patrick says. Down the road those relationships—even with the ones who don’t respond—can yield referrals, speaking engagements, new hires and maybe even friendships.

For handwritten thank-you notes, Patrick recommends no more than three sentences. The card should not be full of text. Don’t worry about your sloppy handwriting, but be cautious of your spelling and grammar.

Another great thing about a handwritten note is that it doesn’t require anything of the recipient. They don’t have to think of a kind way to say thank-you-for-saying-thank-you. It provides closure to all parties involved.

President George H.W. Bush was a big thank-you note guy. Some say it helped him advance his career. He wrote thank-yous to world leaders, politicians, and celebrities, but he also wrote thank-you notes to everyday people.

You never know who will affect your career and how. Be kind to everyone. Thank everyone. People appreciate it. There’s a fine line, though, between gratitude and toadying.

How do you ensure your thank-you notes fall on the side of the good guys? Make yourself feel genuine gratitude. For help on that, we’ll look to Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

A gratitude adjustment

In 2014, Mark Zuckerberg wrote one thank-you note every day, via email or handwritten letter. It was a kind of personal challenge for the young billionaire. He expounded on it in a January 2014 interview with Bloomberg Businessweek:

It’s important for me, because I’m a really critical person. I always kind of see how I want to make things better, and I’m generally not happy with how things are, or the level of service that we’re providing for people, or the quality of the teams that we built. But if you look at this objectively, we’re doing so well on so many of these things. I think it’s important to have gratitude for that.

Saying “thank you” requires taking a moment to acknowledge the great work being done around you. Not everything needs fixing—and once you get that, you become a better manager, leader and person.

Hopefully, thank-you notes make the recipient feel good, but it’s a meaningful exercise for the writer as well. Quid pro quo aside, write thank-you notes to practice empathy, humility and joy.

It’s good for business, and it’s probably good for you, too.

Drew Grossman is a copywriter at Nebo. A version of this article originally appeared on iMediaConnection.com.

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Enter now: 2015 Corporate Social Responsibility Awards

 

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8 reasons lists are the worst form of content

We live in the age of the list.

We’re processing thoughtful reporting and intelligent discussion into bite-sized chunks of information with the intellectual value of a Chicken McNuggets meal.

BuzzFeed and its imitators have made lists the most successful content form on the Internet, to the point that list articles are rapidly replacing Web journalism as the No. 1 source of knowledge distribution.

In a last-ditch effort to halt lists’ domination, I’m commandeering the format to explain why lists are a blight on humanity.

With no irony intended, here are eight reasons I hate lists:

1. They’re everywhere. A quick Google search for “Internet lists” turns up around 674 million results, with the top hits including lists about lists: “Best and worst lists,” “The 7 types of Internet lists,” etc. I refer to this phenomenon as list-ception. If we go any deeper, we’ll end up in limbo.

2. They control our minds. Lists subtly manipulate us so they can seize our attention and stick in our heads. The New Yorker’s Maria Konnikova argues that lists “tap into our preferred way of receiving and organizing information at a subconscious level.” As a result, when we see a list, “we are drawn to it intuitively, we process it efficiently, and we retain it with little effort.”

Lists are basically junk food for the mind. We’re drawn to them, gobble them up quickly, and, when they’re gone, have trouble shedding the tripe they leave in our system.

3. They rob us of free will. Lists remove what Claude Messner and Michaela Wänke describe as the paradox of choice. This is the notion that the more options we have, the worse we feel. A list offers a clear objective and end point, sparing us the bother of that pesky little thing people used to have—freedom of choice.

Download the free white paper, “Creating a Consistent Message,” to discover how to keep your organization’s message and voice on track across all your internal communications platforms.

4. They’ve spawned demo-listicles. If the list article is the tyrant of the Internet, the demo-listicle (demographically-targeted list article) is the maniacal acolyte recruiting at street level.

Slate’s Will Oremus first identified this grubby little phenomenon. He cites the BuzzFeed list “40 Signs You Went to Berkeley” as an example:

Let’s assume the Berkeley story’s authors are Berkeley alumni themselves. According to LinkedIn, they are. They post the headline on their Facebook feeds, where a bunch of their former classmates see it, like it, and, in a fit of nostalgia, pass it on to their own networks, which are full of other Berkeley grads. Before long, a significant portion of the nation’s half-million living Cal alumni have clicked on the piece.

For websites like BuzzFeed, the beauty of the demo-listicle is that this kind of success is easy to replicate. Oremus writes, “Posts like [the Berkeley list] require little to no reporting, only a tiny bit of writing, and, evidently, minimal imagination. All they require is a very specific target audience and an author who can relate broadly to some of that audience’s shared experiences.”

That leads us to …

5. They tell you what to feel.

Generation Y’s nostalgia is BuzzFeed’s bread and butter, to the point that not a day goes by where BuzzFeed doesn’t post a list article lamenting the loss of a sitcom, boy band or product from the 1990s. Does this look familiar?

X [insert ‘90s things] that will make you feel [insert emotion]

I lived through the '90s. I’m probably the middle-class 20-something that BuzzFeed identifies as a core user. However, lists about Pokémon, “Friends” and Nesquik don’t make me nostalgic.

Reading about toys and TV shows that barely entered my radar 15 to 20 years ago and no longer exist doesn’t make me feel old; it makes me angry that BuzzFeed promotes this garbage.

6. They exploit SEO loopholes. For a long time, we assumed Google’s algorithms were biased against thin content (e.g., pages containing fewer than 500 words). However, social media’s success has proven this false, leaving the door open for a tidal wave of bare-bones content to flood the Internet.

Furthermore, lists like this are spread over multiple pages, artificially boosting page impressions because the user must click several times to read the entire article. This makes a poorly researched piece of clickbait look far more interesting to Google than a legitimate article.

7. They’re killing Web journalism. In a digital landscape in which users will click off a page after one second of inactivity, Web-based journalists have to fight for mere moments of their readers’ attention. This has forced reputable news sources to form a Faustian pact with lists. For instance, the Guardian Online wrote an article about producing news content in a list-format to accommodate for “news snacking.” Alex Wynick (former writer for the Mirror Online) also reported on her experiences with lists:

As an online reporter for the Mirror, these “listicles” immediately became part of my working life. I have written dozens, and very, very rarely do I have to visit more than two or three websites for enough information to write a complete piece. Lists lower readers’ expectations of what journalism should be, and it is sad that they are more popular than real features.

It’s sad, but true. Lists are cheap content, but they’re an easy way to practically guarantee engagement. I’ve unfortunately used lists for the sake of driving a few more clicks in the often-challenging gaming sector. (This little travesty even comes with a clickbait headline: “7 Freaky Drugs for Vegas.” Don’t judge me.)

8. They’re a symptom and a cause. Lists form a self-perpetuating cycle with a societal languor you can see elsewhere, as in the shortening of fiction and Wikipedia’s increasing popularity as a resource.

We live in a world of perpetual digital engagement, where reams of content are just a finger swipe away. This strains our attention spans and patience, meaning we demand more at the expense of less effort. Most worrying is that we now have a generation of people who have never known anything different.

How long before the list replaces well-researched, thought-provoking journalism, presenting the complicated realities of life, culture and politics in digestible chunks with a plenitude of funny GIFs thrown in for “lulz”?

Sam Miranda is a content strategist for a network of gaming websites. He also writes about business, marketing and general entertainment for a range of online publications. You can follow him on Twitter. A version of this article originally appeared on Muck Rack, a service that enables you to find journalists to pitch, build media lists, get press alerts and create coverage reports with social media data.

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Should you let your CEO go unscripted?

Business leaders must connect with key audiences through speeches, talks and presentations.

In Weber Shandwick’s study of corporate reputation, The CEO Reputation Premium: Gaining Advantage in the Engagement Era, executives surveyed said, “It’s most important for CEOs to speak at industry-related events.”

CEOs might be tempted to make a radical change in the way they speak at the podium or in front of cameras.

If they have been paying even a little attention to the presidential race, they are certainly aware that Donald Trump’s stunning rise to the top of the polls is in large part because he comes across to audiences as “genuine” or “authentic.”

Moreover, one of the keys to that authenticity, the pundits say, is that Trump always wings it, never using prepared remarks when speaking to a crowd, to a reporter or in a debate.

Putting forth the ‘real you’

Carmine Gallo, the well-known communications coach and author of several excellent books on Steve Jobs’ presentation techniques, recently noted that both Trump and Joe Biden come across as genuine, displaying their real personalities, unfiltered by pretense (or high-powered image consultants). In large part, that’s because they speak without a script or a teleprompter (Biden often, Trump always).

“Voters crave the 'real you’ in their political leaders just as employees want to see the 'real you’ from their corporate leaders,” Gallo said.

So should CEOs “go Trump” and toss away their scripts?

As a professional speechwriter, I tremble at the prospect, needless to say. My self-interest aside, most executives and other leaders, when they are unscripted, do not communicate well with audiences. For many, the absence of written remarks can mean disaster.

When I was working with one high-profile CEO, for example, the staff told me their boss did fine when sticking to the script, but it was pretty awful when the boss started ad-libbing. I went to the videos, and the staff was absolutely right.

An Apple debacle

Probably the most famous example of the extreme dangers of “winging it” is from Walter Isaacson’s bestselling biography, “Steve Jobs.”

In 1997, Isaacson writes, Jobs had returned to Apple but was technically just a “part-time” adviser under then-CEO Gil Amelio. Amelio’s place at the helm was in danger, but he was afforded a great opportunity to rally the Apple troops behind him: He was due to be front and center at Macworld, delivering the keynote address before he introduced Jobs.

Isaacson describes what happened:

Amelio had gone on vacation, gotten into a nasty tussle with his speechwriters and refused to rehearse…. Amelio stood on the podium bumbling through a disjointed and endless presentation. Amelio was unfamiliar with the talking points that popped up on his teleprompter and soon was trying to wing his presentation. Repeatedly he lost his train of thought. After more than an hour, the audience was aghast.

The result: Amelio was gone before the end of the year.

However, it is also very true that many CEOs come across as boring at best, and phony at worst, when they read from a script or a teleprompter. How, then, can they speak effectively if both throwing away the script and reading from one can be detrimental?

For most executives, the key to engaging audiences and sounding genuine is the same one that is so crucial to other areas of business success—'assemble a good team.

[RELATED: Discover how to harness the power of communications to transform your organization into a Best Place to Work at this upcoming conference.]

That team should include a writer who produces text that captures the executive’s voice. That kind of a script helps the speaker relax, the first step to sounding natural. The speechwriter also has be to be flexible enough to modify the form and structure of the speech to meet the specific needs of the executive.

Alternatives for glib speakers

Not every speaker wants a complete script, containing every word of the presentation. Some want outlines, some want bullet points, some want a partial outline with text, and some want a partial text with bullet points, etc.

For one client, I started out writing complete scripts but realized he was at his best, and sounded most natural, with a good outline. That helped him give a tightly structured presentation, while encouraging his natural gift for improvisation.

The team should also include a presentation coach. Great presentation coaches can help even the stiffest CEOs take another step toward sounding authentic by using techniques to relax and communicate their “real selves.”

Finally, the CEO’s role on the team is to practice, practice, practice.

One irony of speechmaking is that, for most executives, the more rehearsed they are, the more natural and “off the cuff” they sound. In that way, effective speechmaking is a lot like great acting. When you see terrific actors give convincing performances, when they sound like real people voicing genuine emotions, you can bet they have spent hours in rehearsal.

That was certainly true for one of the greatest business communicators of them all.

A few years ago, I interviewed Lee Iacocca’s speechwriters for an article on Ragan.com.

Mike Morrison, who wrote more than 600 of Iacocca’s speeches, told me, “He always spoke from a script, never spoke off the cuff.” However, because Iacocca put in the hours to rehearse and revise each speech, his delivery was so smooth, natural and relaxed that it sounded ad-libbed.

Alex Tsigdinos, who worked for Morrison, added this warning: “I think some executives think all they need to do is review a draft just before they give it, and they can waltz in there and win an audience over. Iacocca knew it wasn’t that easy.”

Going it alone at the microphone is working for Trump so far, but for most CEOs a team approach is a much better way to use the spoken word effectively.

Jeffrey Porro is a speechwriter in Washington, D.C., and the author of “Words that Mean Success.”

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