Thoughts
It makes it too hard to start slow with the media - Thought leaders get the most headlines
Monday June 28, 2010
My job is to get clients good media coverage in the financial planning, funds management and financial services sectors. A key part of this work is properly
positioning a new client with their key media. I have 24 years experience in doing just that.
The traditional way of starting a media campaign by buying a journalist a good lunch is over. No journalist has time unless the lunch will give them a good
story and a potential new piece of media talent – you.
Your competitors are targeting specific media contacts with exclusive topics that they know will lead to good media coverage at the front of the magazine. There is no time to burn journalist relationships with half-baked story angles – they will simply stop taking PR calls if your material is self serving or proves to be ordinary.
The editor of one of the largest circulation trade magazines in financial services gets over 350 emails a day so there is no point sending junk. The art in effective financial public relations is getting the message right for each journalist and being a thought leader.
Or thought leadership can be seen in terms of ‘getting’ you inside the tent. The commentators in the tent are the ones that journalists call when an issue breaks and they want cogent useful explanations for their readers; they call those commentators who have already won their trust and who already deliver.
That is the ultimate: when a story needs explaining the goal is to be one of the Top 5 that they first contact for help.
It takes time to build such trust; time to win a place in the Top 5 that get a call for assistance.
That is my job.