Getting Heard Over the Noise

With 3 active kids, a dog the size of a small pony, and enough hard surfaces to create a veritable echo chamber, you can imagine that our house can get a little chaotic and noisy on occasion. Ok, who am I kidding - this is a regular occurrence. When in the midst of this chaos, my two youngest kids have a couple of "go-to" techniques that they employ to get my attention: volume and frequency (aka nagging.) The first technique is simple: yell louder than your siblings. The motivating belief behind this technique is similar to "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" - I think. Usually it doesn't elicit the parental response the technique practitioner was hoping for. The second technique my little ones use in this situation is nagging. It comes in the form of "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, MOMMY!!!!" Again, the technique does not usually produce the desired result.

My eldest, having the benefits of age and experience, employs different tactics. Her approach might come across the hub bub something like this:

1. She crosses the room and stands directly in front of me.
2. She addresses me directly to get my attention, "Mom"
3. She tells me what she wants, "Can I go to XYZ with Ashley?"
4. Sometimes she even includes information about the greater impact of her request, "I wouldn't be home for dinner."

Now, only one of these techniques gets my attention consistently and I'm sure you can guess which one it is. So, let's translate this over to the world of PR. Only, you're the kid and you are trying to get the attention of a very specific "adult," the media. You are competing for attention against a variety of other organizations who are also trying to get their stories heard. This brings us to our...

PR tip of the day: To get heard,you first have to get noticed.
Journalists are bombarded by constant "noise" from news releases - ones that fail to consider the interests of their recipient, grab the recipient's attention, or tell a compelling story. This is what you are up against and what you have to distinguish yourself from. Like my kids, organizations try different techniques to get their news release picked-up by the media. Some folks send out blanket releases to every media contact they have ever made in the hopes that a few will pay attention. Not only is this highly inefficient, it lessens the potential impact and reach of your story. With a little extra thought and effort on your part, you could create multiple angles for your story, target your pitch to select reporters and end up having your story told from different perspectives in numerous media outlets - end result: bigger impact for you!

Another unfortunately common practice is the "regularly scheduled release" approach in which some executive dictates that the organization will send out a release every month, every week, or every day that _____ (you fill in blank.) This equates to the aforementioned "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, MOMMY" approach to getting heard - highly obnoxious and a sure-fire way to increase the odds that all future releases from your organization will be forwarded directly to the circular file. If the timing of your releases can be easily predicted, you are not writing about news, you are doing a creative writing exercise and trying to fabricate something that will be mistaken for news.

In sending out a news release and trying to garner media attention, look to the example of my oldest daughter. Here are a few suggestions:

• Make it specific. Avoid relying on blanket releases and chance. Identify the different angles of your story and then identify the best media outlet for each of those angles. Is your story industry specific? Warm & fuzzy human interest? Geographically exclusive? Pitch accordingly - get in front of the right media outlets and specific reporters.
• Get to know your reporters. Find out what interests them and cater to that. I once worked with a reporter that was only interested in numbers: budgets, populations, statistics. I never sent her a story that didn't include cold, hard numbers front and center. As a result, she covered almost everything I sent her.
• Get their attention. Once you know what interests that reporter, make it stand out in the headline of your release. Remember your release has a lot of competition, so if you don't grab their attention up front, the reporter may never read past headline.
• Identify the impact. So you've just developed the latest, greatest widget. Wonderful. But why does your reporter care? How will it impact them or their audience? If your headline opened the door, this is where you need to close the deal in order to get your story heard.

Develop your reputation as a "media friendly" source of information by following these steps every time you have a story to pitch and over time, you will see your coverage rates increase.

In short: if your story is newsworthy, it deserves to be heard. Make sure to tell it in a way that will make your media contacts want to pass it on.