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Research reporters who cover your company's industry and study types of stories that they like to write.
Learn their deadlines and how they prefer to be contacted. Introduce yourself by phone and make it a point to speak with them regularly -- not just to talk about your company, but also about industry in general. Use those conversations to offer up source materials that will help reporters write terrific stories. If you are able to do this successfully, you will become a trusted source that reporters return to repeatedly, and you will significantly increase your chances of gaining coverage for your company.
Always Return Media Phone Calls Immediately.
Keep yourself and your organization at ready to receive phone calls from press. Make sure that reporters know how to reach you in a 24-hour cycle. This means they should have your office, cell, home, and pager numbers, as well as a contact e-mail address. If you still happen to miss call, return it ASAP. Always prepare yourself or members from your organization to conduct interviews from anywhere, at any time.
Conduct proper follow up after interview.
This is not a call to find out when a story will be published, but rather a call to make sure that reporters have everything they need in order to write a favorable story on your organization.
Whenever our company executives were interviewed by reporters, one team member would always accompany them to interview to take careful notes. Alternately, other team member would remain in office on standby. If, during interview, reporter indicated a need for specific information, an urgent message would be relayed back to office so that team member had time to gather information. Without fail, we always had requested information waiting in reporter's e-mail inbox before they arrived back to office. This may seem like a small task, but getting it right could really decide whether or not a reporter selects your story, or moves on to a new one.
The important point to remember here is this. Never underestimate power and dedication of your in-house staff. Before you make investment in retaining a PR agency, look at your internal talent first. What you find just might surprise you, and their drive to succeed will become contagious throughout your entire organization. And when time comes to hire a PR firm, you will have a ready-made collaborative team in place to work with your outside agency. Your in-house team knows your company better than anyone and that's where you, as a small-business owner, have an advantage over "big boys" at large PR agencies in getting media's attention.
Carolyn Davenport-Moncel is president and founder of Mondave Communications, a global marketing and communications firm based in Chicago and Paris, and a subsidiary of MotionTemps, LLC. Contact her at carolyn@motiontemps.com or by phone in the United States at 877.815.0167 or 011.331.4997.9059 in France.