Client Tips From A Dichotomous Viewer

By Karl Stetson, Senior Account Supervisor, Seattle  


By way of introduction, my name is Karl Stetson and I am a Senior Account Supervisor on the technology team in Seattle. Prior to joining Edelman, I spent seven years on the corporate side of the equation, with tours of duty that included Rational Software, IBM and a unique start-up in Silicon Valley called Noosh.

During my seven years on the client side of the table, I hired, worked with and on several occasions, fired six different agencies. I realize that all clients are not cut from the same cloth and that our collective experience with them varies, but I can share with you what I have experienced. More specifically, I'll share some of the key items that I needed as a client to achieve my goals and have a positive relationship with my agency partners.

The Devil is in the Details 

As a client, I was always very aware of how well the agency paid attention to details – small and large. Of course agency and client alike are constantly focused on the big picture items such as strategy and implementation. However, I often found that a lack of attention paid to the smaller things could get in the way of larger objectives. As corny as this may sound, the devil really is in the details and some of you would be surprised to find out just how much the "little" stuff can derail or enhance the client/agency relationship. Whether it's the formatting of e-mails, the consistent or inconsistent style in which we communicate our counsel or even the frequency of contact with clients – it is always paramount to pay attention to the details.

So what is it that I mean by the "little things," or the "small" details – what was it that I cared about as a client? Below, in no particular order, are three things that frustrated me about working with agency X.

• If you can find the answer to a question with some research or by simply asking a teammate, please do so. Your client should never be the equivalent to ask.com, especially if the question is in regards to media strategy, next steps, etc. Present your best recommendation instead of simply asking your client what course of action they think is advisable. They are paying good money for our strategic counsel and that is exactly what we should provide them.
• The other side of that coin is to make sure that you always ask if you don't know something. The key, however, is knowing when and who to ask. Raising a question with the wrong person at the wrong time can expose you to clients and possibly make them doubt your value. I do subscribe to the idea that there is no such thing as a stupid question, but like I said before, timing is everything. 
• If the client asks you to change the formatting of an e-mail, briefing document or media plan, jump on that as soon as possible. It always frustrated me when I had to ask several times before the changes were made. Take the time to determine the best possible way to optimize your clients' ability to process the information that you provide them. Some like it short and sweet. Others like a novel. Some like bullet points. Others want you to spell it out in a conversational tone. Find out what works best for your clients and be consistent in how you communicate with them.
  
  

No Order Takers Allowed 

Here are a few additional items to consider as well. These don't fall into the category of "small" details, yet as a client, I've seen them overlooked or simply forgotten many times. We all know how demanding clients can be and at times our workloads can be daunting – but no matter how crazy it gets, these are things that should never be forgotten. Speaking from a client's perspective:

• Don't just tell me yes – if it’s not realistic to arrange a one-on-one deskside with a particular outlet, or if a strategy won't serve my best interests – step up to the plate and tell me. Be professional about it and frame your feedback appropriately, but don't just go along with everything that I say. Invest yourself, put some skin in the game and bring your best recommendation to the table. None of us can see 360 degrees around anything and that's why we work as a team. Honesty and collaboration are the keys. 
• Don't just be an order taker – demonstrate to the client that you are invested in this as much as they are. They pay for our counsel and ultimately to help them achieve their business goals. You can't do that by simply taking orders and being a worker bee. No matter what your position on any given team, we can all make a difference; we can all add value. Don't ever be afraid to bring your ideas to the team in an effort to put your best foot forward with clients.

Join the Dialogue! 

Do you find that attention paid to the even the smallest details enhances your working relationships? How do you and your teammates ensure that there is a constant focus on details – large and small?

Five Media Resolutions for the New Year

By Lisa Kovitz, Executive Vice President, New York

While experts say most resolutions are doomed to fail, I think you can often succeed with ones you make related to work where you tend to be more “goal oriented” than you might be in your personal life. For the past four years, I’ve made some very public “media relations resolutions” as a way to motivate myself and inspire my Edelman colleagues.

Here are five really simple “resolutions” you can do that will help you be better at doing media relations in today’s 24/7/365 environment.

• Start or Keep Tweeting: If you think Twitter is only for Kardashians or for people who like to tell you what they had for lunch, you‘d be wrong. Twitter is the social media of choice for journalists all over the world and where many of them not only keep track of news, they also source experts and eyewitnesses to events through this channel. Journalists are trained by their newsrooms how to increase their followings and be more efficient. In the same way they tell journalists to “Tweet their beat” – to become subject matter experts, we like to Tweet or re-Tweet good content from our clients or related to our clients’ expertise. We like to make the “lists” of different journalists (e.g., small business, CNN, arts & culture) so it’s easier to remember who we might want to pitch. Learning to Tweet well also will make you a better writer – writing briefly with style is a tremendous achievement.

• Think Visually: The New York Times just did a spectacular multimedia feature called “Snowfall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek” which had tremendous engagement as well as media industry chatter – creating a new kind of “book” (an e-single). The Times also trotted out their “year in graphics,” which shows you the variety of visuals it puts forward through the election and other events. You should always remember – “Could I tell this story with a single image or graphics versus hundreds of words?”. Visuals like video or photos are like candy to the Google spiders and your story will be more findable, and, often shareable.

• Be “Content”-ed: “Content” is one of those buzzwords you hear but you’re not sure what it means. Often, it can mean video (or photos or graphics) but in our world, it can also mean pieces you write specifically for other outlets. For instance, pieces you write for the HuffingtonPost.com, Forbes.com or CNN.com. We’ve linked to a few we created for our clients last year. But there is an art to writing letters to the editor to respond to an issue or even the classic “op-ed” in more traditional media. A good way to do that is to start very local; if your company is located in Denver, focus on the Denver Post.

• Work on the “Relations” Part of Media Relations: I am on the board of the Publicity Club of New York, which hosts regular “meet the media” luncheons (here’s a link to one we did with top tier tech media and audio of their remarks). While many of the panelists tell us they are “too busy” to go to lunch or to attend events during the day, sometimes, they can make 15 minutes for you to come by for a cup of coffee when they are not on deadline. A number of our colleagues from the West Coast come to New York a few times a year to arrange such meetings and come out with good information and opportunities for their clients. If you can’t make that trip, develop a great email or phone relationship, maybe by complimenting a reporter on a story you really liked that had nothing to do with your client or pointing out something you noticed in the community. For example, I commute through Grand Central Station every day and noticed they completely re-built a restroom just for women. I told one of the NY TIMES’ top metro reporters and she wrote a great piece for their CityRoom blog with over 100 comments (and a quote from yours truly). It had nothing to do with any client – I just knew she’d write a great story.

• Improve Your 24-Hour Media Diet: Try to get more and different kinds of media into your “daily diet” so you can be more literate in both new and old media. You can do this through RSS feeds of the most important blogs, podcasts from top tier media (like NPR or ABC News) to make better use of your commuting time. Set up Google alerts for the key reporters who cover your clients so that even though you might not have time to read the Wall Street Journal or USA TODAY every day, you’ll know what your key contacts have been writing about. Read newsletters like MediaBistro’s Morning Media Newsfeed or Cynopsis, which aggregates news about TV news and entertainment programming from a variety of sources.

Will you keep all of these? Probably not all of them every day…but having a few key goals in mind when you have that nice clean slate of a new year to work with can be inspiring.

Pitch Perfect: Six Tips to Improve Your Media Outreach Efforts

By Allison Francis, Account Executive, Dallas

Pitching. This word, while innocent enough, can strike fear into the heart of even the bravest PR professional. What If the reporter yells at me? What if they say no? What if I forget what I’m supposed to say when I call?

As daunting as pitching may be, any communicator worth his or her salt will tell you that media relations is of the most important aspects about our job.

And they’re right.

In many cases, at Edelman our primary objective is to secure strategic media coverage to highlight our clients’ brand and key messages. But it’s not as easy as calling a reporter and asking them to write a story. So how do you conquer the hurdles that stand between you and a terrific piece of coverage? As someone who conducts media relations almost every day, I’ve compiled a list of a few tips that I have found work well for developing good pitches and securing strategic media opportunities.

1. Do Your Homework: Once you have found the appropriate reporter to target, research the publication and the reporter before you contact them. Learn what they write about and read some of their recent articles to get a feel for their beat and writing style. This is especially important when you call a reporter. They will appreciate that you are knowledgeable and are able to connect your story with their topics of interest.

2. Give the Subject Line Extra Attention: Think of a subject line like a headline. Be concise and to the point, but make it intriguing! As small as the subject line may seem, it’s one of the most important aspects of your pitch. The subject line alone can mean the difference between piquing a reporter’s interest and having your pitch fall on deaf ears.

3. Keep it Short and Sweet: Two or three short paragraphs are all you need. This is a hard one – my tendency is to write a book (there is just SO much to be said!). Resist this urge. Be snappy and to the point. Bullets are also a handy tool if you have any facts, data or information that you want to emphasize.

4. Pick up the Phone: This is my preferred method to connect with reporters. Email is great, but calling a reporter and having a one-on-one conversation is an excellent way to sell your story and get instant feedback.

When calling a reporter, start the conversation by asking if they have time to talk. Reporters are flooded by calls all day and have deadlines to meet, so being courteous won’t go unnoticed.  As you continue with your conversation, the research you’ve done will come into play. I know I’m repeating myself, but I cannot stress this point enough: You absolutely must know your publication, reporter and topic BEFORE you pitch.

5. Personalize Your Pitch: Don’t send mass email messages! Media are keen to this and can smell a “blast send” a mile away. If you don’t take the time to personalize each message, your carefully selected words and fascinating bullet points may very well end up inside a virtual trash can.

6. Spotlight the New and Noteworthy: Find intriguing angles and unexpected stories to help make your pitch more relevant to target reporters. Give them something they can sink their teeth into!

Media tours: When the Event Ends, the Real Work is Just Beginning

By Amy Noesser Lee Account Executive, Houston

Nothing beats coming back from a grueling, yet successful, media event and basking in your shortened to-do list and back-to-normal work days. Realizing a stressor, like a media tour, is not only over but also done right is one of those feelings that makes this job worthwhile.

I returned from a rather arduous media tour in December and bounced happily into the office the following Monday, letting out the relaxed “ahhhh” of knowing that the New York trip was over, we met with more than a dozen key media, and better yet the client was happy. Of course, I planned on sending out quick and sweet thank-you notes to all the media we met with, hoping that our meetings opened the door for them to think of my client for any future stories. After that, I planned on mentally checking that trip off my to-do list and looking forward to those relaxing holiday weeks where we all clean off our desk tops and reorganize our file folders.

However, I got some advice that made me realize how wrong – but common – this train of thought really is. It’s our tendency to focus whole-heartedly on a project, but then move our attention to the next as soon as it’s “over.”

What I learned is – when a media event is over, the real strategic media relations is just starting. We tell our clients that we have to make that initial launch of their brand in small markets before they have a shot at anything like The Wall Street Journal or CNN, and really the same walk – crawl – run roadmap applies to building media relationships.  Completing a media tour is only the first step toward building a strong media relationship.

So, from there I stepped back, thought about each media conversation, and plotted out what exactly I could give each reporter to keep them on the hook. I had the best insight possible – I knew what they were interested in, they knew who I was and the brand I was representing. It should be an infallible pitch (well, theoretically).  And in fact, I’ve already gotten some traction with my targeted post-media tour follow-up.

My New Year’s Resolution is to never again check a box and be satisfied, but rather to only stop when those placements start rolling in. Try it. Locking down hit after hit is an even more rewarding feeling than reveling in the calm after from a long and stressful media tour.  

Consider The Source

Helen Vollmer, President, Southwest

Over the holidays, I was visiting with my sister, a retired newspaper journalist (aren’t they all these days?), and we were talking about the ongoing demise of journalism. The conversation was not so much about fewer readers or outlets.  It was about the quality of journalism today: the lack of impartiality, the dearth of fact checking and the all-too-frequent proofing and editing misses.

Yeah, yeah . . . I know about real-time news, but shouldn’t we consider at what cost? It’s bad enough that we declare our President before the polls close, but the rampant misreporting that was occurring as the Newtown tragedy unfolded was just wrong.  No other word for it.  The race to get content out quickly ethically challenges even the best reporters and results in countermanding why news journalism exists in the first place:  to accurately and objectively communicate information to the public.

Over and over again this year, we’ve seen journalism gone amuck from reputable media outlets:  from misreporting on the Trayvon Martin case from the New York Times, ABC and others, to wrongly misinterpreting the Supreme Court’s Affordable Care Act decision by CNN and Fox News.  And, of course, the news gets amplified by all of us in our own posts and tweets.

Case in point: the horrible prank by two Australian radio personalities seeking details on the Duchess of Cambridge’s hospital not only invaded privacy, but may have contributed to the suicide of the nurse who took the call.  According to CNN Tech, the hashtag #royalprank was retweeted more than 15,000 times on Twitter after the radio station began promoting the call, and the retweeting continued after news of the nurse’s death.

As true journalism spirals out of control and more of us get our information from a variety of sources, we must look to ourselves to consider the source of news we get and what we believe to be true.  In 2013, as you hear and view breaking stories, try to remember the code of ethics that those of us who went to journalism school were taught at the beginning of our careers.

Ask yourself to carefully consider the source in terms of truthfulness, fairness, objectivity and public accountability. Are both sides represented in the reporting?  And then, as you retweet or post what you believe to be true, understand that you now are a reporter, too, and have a role in communicating accurately and responsibly.