- Exposure for your company and products in the media is a highly credible and lower cost form of marketing. A feature article referencing one of your customers, a product review, or a news coverage on your new product release help to build “buzz” about your brand name and can be transformed into highly effective tools for your sales force. In this blog posting, I’d like to impart some of the knowledge I’ve acquired over my 15+ years as a software marketing executive and closet PR pitchster.
Press releases and news coverage
Journalists receive a massive volume of press releases each day from companies seeking coverage for themselves or their products. There are some releases that will elicit coverage – the vast majority will fall on deaf ears – but still have value (more on this a bit later). Here are some general rule of thumb pieces of advice about press releases:
- If your press release is centered on a new product release, think hard about the news angle – what is fresh, different, a first for the market – this might be the release that catches a news editor’s attention. But even with a news angle, you need to package up your story to make it very easy for the editor – they are just too busy to chase down the details. Reach out and schedule briefings with key news editors at least a week in advance of issuing the release and offer them a draft version. Understand who you are targeting and what they are writing about and make sure you align. Have customers they can talk to (some product editors will insist on this before they will accept a briefing with you on your news), as well as industry analysts who will provide comment, screenshots of your product and if possible industry data points and research that can be wrapped into the story.
- If your release isn’t “picked up” by an editor, don’t despair. Inclusion of stock trading symbols if you are a public company will allow your release to be picked up by online vehicles such as Yahoo Finance so the ‘buzz’ reaches investors. Press release frequency also contributes to natural search engine optimization – helping your company to rise in the rankings on Google, MSN, Yahoo and other search engines. High rankings tend to put you at the top of a prospect’s search list so this is a very good thing.
- And finally, don't annoy editors by calling and asking them if they got the release. That'll guarantee you end up in Bin13.
Feature article coverage
Feature articles are lengthier stories that investigate a topic in depth, and may run multiple pages in a magazine or online. By monitoring editorial calendars of target publications you can get a general sense of topics the editor wishes to cover. The trick is then to develop a pitch for that story that offers the editor a fresh angle, or all the ingredients (customers, analyst research, access to an executive for an interview etc) to help figure you prominently in the story. Keep in mind this is not about you. Even the very best pitch and all the ingredients in the world do not guarantee you inclusion. You have to serve the editor better than any other contender. And feature stories – particularly in technology media will focus on the end user, not the vendor. So your customer will receive the exposure, and your technology hopefully is mentioned as the solution to a specific business challenge. R
Submitted articles
Technology and vertical industry publications are often very lean, have a small editorial staff, and depend freelancers for story writing, and even for conducting product reviews. By checking the editorial mast head online, you can often quickly determine if a publication is open to editorial submissions, and if this is the case, this offers you an opportunity to contribute a full article to that publication under a by-line of someone in your organization (CEO, VP Product Strategy etc). Once again, you develop a “pitch” to the editor for a story. The angle and subject matter must be topical, informative, and not a commercial for your company or technology. The exposure for you comes through the byline, and the thought leadership.
Product reviews
In the good old days (gee about ten years ago) most of the technology magazines employed a full staff, and maintained a large lab to perform testing on software products and hardware devices. They still do exist, but more often than not, your product review will be performed by a consultant outside of the publication who has offered to be a freelance ‘reviewer’. If you decide to pursue product reviews for your technology here are some words of advice. First, think about developing a reviewer’s guide, to help bring the reviewer up to speed quickly on your technology. This should outline the positioning for the product, list key features and functionality, offer installation and implementation instructions and contact points. I used to go one further step with my reviews as our product was quite technical and assign a dedicated support rep to the reviewer to assist with any necessary troubleshooting. Also if the reviewer is willing, coordinate a call with the product manager before the review begins to go through the reviewers guide and deal with questions up front.
And a final word on targeting your message and plain old customer service
Journalists are crazy busy people, with email in boxes bulging with press releases and phones ringing off the hook. First and foremost, invest in some serious targeting of your message. Do your homework. Has the journalist written on this subject before? How recently? How do they prefer to be contacted? Make sure your information is aligned to the and their publication’s focus. Think rifle shot, not carpet bombing. Next, invest in building a relationship. Not easy to do in a virtual world, but when given a opportunity for story participation over deliver on customer service. Have all the ingredients at hand before you reach out and be ready to stand and deliver. Go the extra mile, make the reporter’s life easy and you’ll become a valued source for future writing efforts.
