Public Relations And Selling: How To Be A Modest Self-Promoter

by Rob Keane

'Articles, not advertisements.' This is the first rule I learned in journalism school. Eight years later, I made the move to public relations, where I learned that it's still good advice.

If it seems to be a confusing concept, it's easy to see why. When someone hires a firm to write press releases in the hope of increasing business, many clients expect flowery, horn-blowing praise with every sentence, ending in double exclamation points. As many view it, press releases are simply ads without graphics that are placed in the paper for free. There's just one problem: Press releases created with this philosophy don't make it to the media; they make it into the wastebasket.

Even though the client is paying the tab, writing a press release should never entail lugging out a thesaurus to look up variations on the word 'phenomenal.' While public relations efforts ought to portray the client in a positive light, the distinction between news copy and ad copy is a matter of style, substance, and presentation, not just head shots and coupons.

The idea behind public relations is not to sell, but to inform. This may seem somewhat confining at first, but press releases can perform a number of tasks. Introducing a new product, store location, or staff member are just a few uses for a good release. Here are a few things to keep in mind when starting a public relations program:

• What do you want to do? This simple question can eliminate huge headaches later on. For example, one chain regularly puts out press releases announcing newly promoted managers, complete with head shots and a brief bio. The manager is almost always pleased to receive the attention, and readers feel as if they know the person before even walking in the store. The point? If the idea were just to promote the chain, the release would probably never find itself on newsprint. But since the goal was to introduce a new employee to the public, the company received media exposure in the process.
• Patience! Once your press release hits the local weekly, don't double your stock in hopes of a tidal wave of new business-you'll be sorely disappointed. Press releases aren't meant to increase business overnight. Instead, they're supposed to shape the image of a company into something friendly, inviting, and familiar-the type of place where you want to do business.
• Choose your releases wisely. While media exposure is good, mindlessly cranking out releases for the sake of having something to send out can have an adverse effect. If you send four-page single-spaced releases every few days on trivialities, editors may lose interest and chuck your unread release into the wastebasket just because it came from you. Also remember that not everything has to take the form of a release. A dynamic photo with a long caption can go a long way to make the right impression.
• Cultivate relationships. Sometimes the best first step in writing a release is deciding not what you want to write about, but what your target audience wants to read. A call to your local editor will tell you everything you need to know concerning the kinds of stories people are interested in, preferred story length, and even what font you should use. (That last point is no joke; I once received a call requesting all releases be printed in Arial type, as opposed to Times; supposedly, it's easier to scan and therefore gets better play.)

Anyone in public relations worth his or her salt will develop good relationships with editors.

By stressing the importance of patience, high-quality subject matter, and good editorial relationships, your public relations efforts should be miles ahead of most of your competitors.