Educational Brief

Module: PR Pitch
Section: Methods of Contact

As your media list may contain an array of different types of contacts (journalists from established publishers and newer media outlets, freelancers, bloggers, etc.), be aware that each one will want to be pitched according to their preferred means of communication, based on each topic or area of interest he/she covers. If you don't do your homework here, no matter how relevant your pitch, chances are high it, and future pitches, will end up ignored.

Keep in mind, though, that for journalists — even those with a heavy social media presence — ninety percent would rather receive a story idea via email, as it allows for a single message containing the information they need to make a rapid judgment call, and which they can review on their own schedule. In addition, regardless of how ubiquitous it may seem, journalists are less likely to trust what comes from social media. Plus, their social media activity could be specific to their own personal interests (and not the topics for which they get paid).

Also, most journalists do not want to get pitched by phone, given that newsroom resources, and the time they can spend on individual stories, keeps shrinking. Unless it is urgent breaking news (or a tip about a highly sensitive topic), many journalists perceive phone calls, especially follow-up calls, as a nuisance and a sign that you do not respect their time. With regard to following up, do so by email, and only once, if you have not heard anything back after a few days.

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Educational Brief

Module: PR Pitch
Section: Overall Formatting

Developing a media pitch is a basic element of public relations, but there are right and wrong ways to go about it. Place yourself in a reporter's shoes when writing a pitch and understand that on an average day, reporters receive upwards of 200 pitches via email. As such, you will need to make sure that yours stands out.

In regard to an e-mailed pitch, do not include attachments or embed graphics or HTML in the pitch. A plain text format is best. It should be fairly short and to-the-point (2-3 paragraphs at most), and designed to pique the media contact/reporter's interest so that he or she will want to contact you for additional information.

You should have background information ready to send (when a reporter contacts you), but you do not need to include ALL the information on the product or announcement in the media pitch. Shorter is better.

Address a reporter with whom you do not have a relationship and when circumstances require more formality, by using a title, such as "Dear Mr./Ms. XX." For a less formal context, even if you have not had prior contact with the reporter, it is acceptable to address the reporter with "Hi [First Name]." Make sure to include your full name, as well as your contact information (best two methods) in the pitch.

If you will be traveling when you send the pitch, make sure to include a cell phone number, or some way that the reporter can get in touch with you. Nothing is more frustrating than to miss a story opportunity because the reporter was on deadline, and you couldn't be reached because you were out of the office. It is perfectly OK for you to send the pitch, but do include both your and another contact's information so that the reporter can reach at least one of you if he/she is on deadline.

Spell-check and proof your pitch. It is best to draft the pitch, look it over, then walk away from it for a while. Come back to it later and proof it again before sending it out. Also, remember that a second pair of eyes is useful in reviewing your media pitch.

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Educational Brief

Module: PR Pitch
Section: Content

Get to the point early. Some reporters will not even open the message if the subject line doesn't intrigue them. Try to include why the reporter should care in the subject line and first sentence or two of the pitch. Otherwise, the reporter may not continue reading, and you will have lost your opportunity.

You can also include a "call to action" in the pitch, such as requesting a meeting at a trade show you will both be attending.

Reporters also like to know you have their interests and their readers' interests in mind, so you can open the pitch with a line such as, "I thought your readers might be interested in the following story idea...," or, "I'd like to query your interest in X topic..."

Be selective about pitching the media. In fact, before you pitch any media, study it. Check out the publication/show/outlet. Figure out the media that covers similar topics and the formats they prefer. Whether pitching to a conservative news outlet, a women's fashion magazine or a morning talk show, determine whether your pitch: has news value for the reporter; helps build a relationship by bringing this information to his/her attention; and allows your company to serve as a resource to the reporter, by sharing this information.

Try to customize/personalize the pitch to the specific reporter's interest or beat. For example, don't send a reporter who covers healthcare issues a story idea focused on the manufacturing industry. Try to research the reporter online at the publication's website, or invest in an online service which provides such information as a reporter's beat, the way he/she prefers to be contacted, etc.

If you've seen an article the reporter wrote on the industry, feel free to mention that in the opening paragraph. "I saw your article on XX and thought this might be of interest." Or "I saw an article you recently wrote which covered our competitor X, and thought you might like to know that our company also offers solutions in this industry. We hope the next time you are writing about this topic, you might think of us as a resource."

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Educational Brief

Module: PR Pitch
Section: Style

Media contacts/journalists appreciate honesty in your pitch — understandable when you consider the number of pitches they receive every day. While you want to avoid the overuse of hyperbole, a certain amount of excitement in explaining your product or service is acceptable. However, keep your pitch within the constraints of professionalism.

Be honest about the newsworthiness of your article. Don't exaggerate or come across as melodramatic. Doing so will make your company look so desperate that you will stoop to anything to get publicity. You will also badly jeopardize your future relationship and PR possibilities with that media, since you may not be able to get publicity when you do actually have something substantial and interesting to report.

When you pitch, keep in mind that, the more and deeper you get involved in explaining secondary advantages, the more impact you take away from highlighting the primary advantages. Media contacts/journalists, like anyone else, have a limited memory and retention capacity. Therefore, you should pitch your primary advantages first. Be very succinct and to-the-point. Don't cloud their retention of these primary advantages with information that isn't that important. You can always refer them to supportive information sources (or links) for more details.

At the end of your pitch, whether written or verbal, briefly recap the major advantages of your product or service. However, be careful — don't repeat yourself too much to the point where it can get condescending.

Keep in mind that the "tone" of your pitch, whether written or verbal, will also influence the media. Select words that speak up to the people you are pitching to: i.e., "Speak to them, not at them." If you have a difficult product to understand, don't come off as a schoolteacher giving instruction — inform them in a way that acknowledges their qualifications and level of comprehension.

Strive to be different and create the unexpected. If you can capture the imagination and interest of your media contact/journalist, he/she will realize that your news will elicit the same reaction from his/her media target market.

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Educational Brief

Module: PR Pitch
Section: Verbal Contact and Responses

Even though email will likely be the usual means of communication between you and the media contact/journalist, you should have a condensed version of the pitch that is ready to give over the phone in approximately 20-30 seconds. This concise pitch can also come in handy if you should be face-to-face with your contact.

Also, make sure you have spokespeople (two or three is probably a safe number, in case of travel, etc.) who are prepared to give this pitch over the phone, have practiced it, and are ready to answer questions that the pitch may raise.

Preparing an internal Q&A document can help guide your spokespeople, and make them feel more comfortable in fielding questions. Basically, no matter what you or they have to say, make sure that it's said simply, and to-the-point: Beating around the bush, or overusing cliches and hyperbole, effectively tell the reporter that you have nothing pertinent to say.

Know your story well. You'll need to know how to revise your pitch when objections come up: And they will come up. You don't want to be in the position where you don't have an answer. Have practice sessions, where you and the spokespeople (and other members of your staff) pelt each other with questions so you can get used to providing off-the-cuff answers.

Journalists/media contacts, like anyone else, have personal preferences about how to contact them. While researching online, obtaining contact info through a specialized service, or via a variety of other techniques are solid practices, if you do get them one-on-one, don't forget to ask about their preference. Not only will this verify the information you have, but also help you avoid looking pushy.

If your verbal pitch develops into a request for additional info, always remember to ask if a reporter is on deadline. In most cases, they will appreciate your being considerate. Your aim is to get a relationship going with them that will benefit your company. Since they regularly confront people that get on their nerves, your being considerate could end up being valuable.

When pitching to reporters that you do not know, be up front: Say "We haven't spoken before," instead of pretending to know the reporter. If you do otherwise, the journalist will miss the first valuable minutes of your pitch in trying to figure out who you are, and will be irritated. However, if you've gotten to know them, be a little more relaxed, particularly with your tone of voice. In turn the journalist will end up being more relaxed with you, which could improve your chances of getting published.

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Educational Brief

Module: Brand Strategy
Section: Overview

Creating a strong brand is one of the most effective strategies you can undertake in becoming successful. But branding takes the investment of quality, consistency, messaging, and trust over many years. An effective brand strategy addresses Objectives, Target Audience, Brand Development, Brand Equity, Brand Loyalty, and Evaluation.

A brand becomes valuable to both the customer and the company. It is about a respected relationship with your customer that begins at product development and is reinforced throughout the life of your product. The investment that you make will result in loyalty and equity for your brand.

Unfortunately, many companies sketch out a logo, write a few lines of copy, place ads in trade media and think they’re done. Effective branding involves matching your company’s main strengths with the needs of its audience. Companies miss the point when they jockey for market share only on the basis of price, quality and features.

Your brand must become memorable in the mind of your loyal customers, so that your product is unique to them, and they feel compelled to buy. WD-40 is a good example of branding excellence. There are several companies that produce a similar product, but they don’t stick in the consumer’s mind. The company even provides a club and a forum on its website.

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Educational Brief

Module: Brand Strategy
Section: Target Audience

Rely on the target audience portion of your situation analysis to form a clear picture of your target audience. Focus on the segment that is most likely to be your core customer (those who have potential to be most loyal to your brand). As early as during development, you should understand which emotional and visual triggers most positively affect your target customer. This is an effective marketing technique that will extend to other customers as well. t.

These core customers can become influencers and help to persuade others to purchase your product. For instance, if you target chefs with your kitchen product, and chefs become a big proponent of your product, then they will influence everyday cooks to purchase it because of the perceived quality and value by the chefs. Build a quality and trusted brand and these core users are not only likely to remain loyal customers, but be responsible for the greatest part of your revenue as well. Accordingly, this is a very effective way to target and market your brand.

Be sure to court this core target market while both developing your brand and reinforcing your brand message continuously.

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Educational Brief

Module: Brand Strategy
Section: Objectives

Your brand marketing strategy should be driven by your brand campaign objectives and should reflect the goals and messaging of your overall marketing plan. The development of a distinct brand through visuals (such as logo, packaging, advertising, and graphics) with combined emotional messages will uniquely position your brand in the marketplace.

Competitive research will help you to understand how to differentiate your brand. Most importantly, understanding your core target customer is key. This will allow you to create a brand personality that emotionally triggers your customer to purchase your product through habit. A successful brand can only be realized through time and reinforcement of a positive relationship for your customer through quality, consistency, and trust.

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Educational Brief

Module: Brand Strategy
Section: Brand Development

Your brand is much more than the physical product. It is a mixture of visual imagery, quality product, emotional attributes, and the experience a customer has with your product. A brand should have a distinct personality that helps to position and differentiate your product. The positive reinforcement of all these elements over a period of time is what makes a strong brand. Your brand should be distinctive and memorable. Important parts of your brand include tangibles (name, logo, slogans) and intangibles (personality and emotional features).

The brand development process is the stage at which marketing messages and visual images are tied together. The more successful brands evoke emotional reactions. So imbue your brand with characteristics that will invoke a unique, likeable personality. Use your situation analysis during this process to understand your target customer as well as your competition. The visuals should trigger the emotional messages that you want to convey to your customer. It is this branding that will drive your product's message.

Your symbol (also known as brand, logo, or mark) should form a single, appealing unit that is easy to remember and not confused with other products. An extremely successful brand is a logo that can stand alone without even a brand name to identify it and still be recognized and evoke all the brand messaging. Creating a unique personality and look for your brand will give it a distinctive position in the marketplace with special appeal to your target customer. If you create a strong brand, your messaging will take on a life of its own.

Your logo should be developed so that it can be used on a number of different materials, colors, and sizes. You want to be sure that your symbol is clear and recognizable even at its smallest size. Also, your naming and taglines should be assigned these same brand qualities and considerations. Create a style guide that describes details of font style, colors, size, etc. Be sure that your style guide is kept up-to-date and communicated to all.

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Educational Brief

Module: Brand Strategy
Section: Brand Equity

Brand Equity refers to the value of your ownership in your brand. Brand equity includes both tangible and intangible elements: name, logo/symbol, slogan/tagline, awareness of your brand, customer loyalty, established relationships and perceived value of your brand by your customer. Brand equity results after years of investing in your brand's message, and the associations that are made with that brand name. These elements represent actual cash value to your company.

Look to brand names like Apple, Nike, and Netflix, and you will see how the name alone represents all the tangible and intangible elements behind the name. These are critical brand elements that you want to nourish and protect in order to maintain and control the value of your brand, making investment in trademarks to protect the value of your brand and individual elements worthwhile. Obtaining trademarks is a process that requires the assistance of a lawyer specializing in Intellectual Property. You can get more information on trademarks at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Brand equity gives you several platforms from which to outsell your competitors. The first is financial, which measures how much more the consumer will pay for your brand name alone (in preference to a generic product). Promotional costs must be figured into this measurement method.

Another is brand extensions, where your brand is useful as a springboard to launch associated products. You can leverage the awareness and image of your existing product, and save money on advertising as well. The consumer perceives a less risky transaction in trying your new product. Another benefit of branding extensions is heightened awareness of your original brand.

The third is consumer-based. As the consumer gets to know and trust your original brand, they are building what is called ‘attitude strength.’ They will pick up a trial size and use it with an expectation of high quality.

Watch out for negative brand equity! Once a product has acquired a bad reputation, formerly loyal customers will require a deep discount to purchase your brand over generic.

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Educational Brief

Module: Brand Strategy
Section: Brand Loyalty

Brand loyalty is about your brand's emotional and trust relationship with your customer. Brand loyalty kicks in with the continued patronage of your customer who purchases through habit and without needing any further information about your product. Brand loyalty can be so strong that your customer loyalty will extend to other company brands.

At this point, your customer trusts the consistency and quality of your brand, so shopping is made simpler. Brand becomes the key component in the purchase process when a customer will spend more on your product over a sale by a competitor. As a matter of fact, special promotions don't create brand loyalty and can actually deter it, since consumers will become conditioned to waiting for the special promos.

Brand loyalty must continually be reinforced. Every time your product, company, or staff interacts with a customer, it is a reflection upon your brand. Accordingly, your brand qualities should extend to all points at which a customer will come into contact with it.

Openly seek feedback from your customer and then act on it. This is key to creating brand loyalty. While you can't control all points of contact that your brand may have with your customer, influence all those that you do control. It can take years to build a brand, but it can take only one bad experience to lose a customer.

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Educational Brief

Module: Brand Strategy
Section: Evaluation

While sales is one way to determine the success of a marketing campaign, to be sure that your brand campaign is on target, you should listen to your customers, particularly your core target. Use quantitative as well as qualitative methods of collecting information.

Traditional market testing methods such as surveys, focus groups, etc. are beneficial, but also find ways to observe customers in the purchasing environment. If your product sells in grocery stores, hang out there. If selling online, and/or your product’s web presence has a direct influence on sales, monitor online activity, such as reviews, customer message boards and social chatter. Listen to your customer service and salespeople who are on the front lines.

Most importantly, take the feedback seriously and find ways to implement needed changes in a timely manner. When customers know that you really hear what they have to say, and when they have a true investment in your product, then this will have a positive influence on your brand.

Whatever your methods of evaluation, the ten results of an effective brand strategy are:

1. Your brand strategy has brought you a competitive advantage.
2. You have overcome apathy in your end user.
3. You have created a totally unique brand, clearly distinguishable from those of your competitors.
4. You have used a clear and simple branding strategy. It is aligned with core beliefs of your target user.
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5. Your brand and your target audience have bonded emotionally. Users have a gut reaction to your brand equity.
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6. Your brand promise is so credible as to be above suspicion.
7. Your brand strategy addresses the person(s) who actually plunk down the money for your product.
8. Your brand development and message are so consistent that consumers can relate to it, no matter the vehicle.
9. If your product previously sold under a different brand, you have built upon and maximized its former brand equity.
10. Your brand becomes more effective over time.

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Educational Brief

Module: Managing Remote Employees
Section: Enhanced Management Basics

When managing remote employees, you'll need to become a stellar project manager. Some of the key factors to consider are: pooling of acquired information, knowledge management, being proactive and monitoring processes. To be an effective manager in this scenario (even more so than for a "regular" manager), you must be adaptable, exercise good judgment, make hard decisions, possess a dollop of humility, and be accountable for your mistakes. Also, proactive managers are constantly building leadership skills in themselves and others.

A cornerstone to success for your remote operation is to have a work plan put together for the employee that should be completed immediately after the job is filled (or you take over for a previous manager). First, determine what reporting method makes the most sense for the new arrangement. Next, help your employee to set measurable goals, not only for the work output, but for their career development as well. Assure them that they will be given equal opportunities for advancement, and that they will be notified of all key onsite developments.

Also, don't forget about the importance of setting clear performance standards and measurements for your remote employees. One of the most important distinctions of remote workers from onsite employees is that their manager cannot see their effort, observe their interactions or follow their progress throughout the workday. Remote employees must be judged on results, not perceived effort. Other considerations for the remote manager fall within establishing appropriate methods for reporting accomplishments, career development and fair and comprehensive assessment methods.

While remote workers, in general, tend to be more productive, the lack of quick, direct feedback or physical oversight (i.e., as when collaborating together at the office) could result in work taking longer than anticipated. In this case tools used for virtual communication may exacerbate the issue, particularly if an instruction is misunderstood. Dealing with this scenario efficiently means requiring your team to get approvals or feedback at specific points before going onto the next stage, and that you (or the designated lead) provide a response within a specified timeframe that works for their schedules, as well as yours. Even if not dealing with different time zones, ensure that everyone on the team understands: 1) the deadlines for when work has to be submitted for review, 2) the required timeframe needed to provide feedback and get responses, and 3) the specific circumstances when you (and they) should connect one-on-one for urgent or complicated requests. You will also need to include that review time in the overall timeline, in order to forecast the potential for delays and/or when your employees could end up waiting with nothing to do.

To also minimize other time-consuming snags, it's important to have standardized procedures in place so that the administrative aspects of managing are performed efficiently. These administrative aspects can include documents, such as timesheets, expense reports, invoices and purchase orders. Aside from standardizing due to worker ease and efficiency, remote employees essentially have to be able to "self-manage." No matter how much you would like to be available for them, due to time zones, schedules, etc., essentially no one will be there to oversee the process.

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Educational Brief

Module: Managing Remote Employees
Section: Virtual Communication

Some managers face a difficult transition when their workers disperse from the main facility. Visual cues, such as facial expression and body language, are no longer available. Email that is too abrupt and “all business” can be misconstrued as anger. To minimize the potential for negative interpretation, take the time to build niceties into your remote communiqués.

However, don’t feel that you have to go overboard, and pretend that you are your employee’s best friend. Something as simple as asking about the family, using humor, tailoring the conversation to the temperament of the individual and/or being aware of cultural differences can help develop the manager-employee relationship.

Also, even without such an awkward context, it's a good idea to explain the bigger picture of why you are making a particular request, so that you are not interpreted as merely issuing orders. Or, if you tend to jam your emails with technical jargon, tone them down if that specialized language is not necessary to get your point across. The point is to communicate and come to an understanding between you and your employee.

In a similar vein, making sure to solicit feedback from your remote staff can yield money- and time-saving results, and is well worth the effort. Also, include behavioral information, when analyzing this feedback. As an example, say your remote staff and traveling salespeople have difficulty reporting current performance metrics. With their input, you could lower costs and increase efficiency by buying them access to cloud-based applications that automate the “crunching” of their raw data into a usable format you could view at any time, helping you make strategic decisions more accurately.

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Educational Brief

Module: Managing Remote Employees
Section: Provide Training

For employees with no experience working under remote conditions, you'll need to orient them first of all. Besides the time-honored method of shoving the employee out the door and letting him/her sink or swim, a more effective method for setting up the manager-employee relationship is to put them in an onsite home office "laboratory," and have them communicate solely through virtual means for a set period of time. By doing so you'll both work out the kinks in relaying information without actually having face-to-face contact.

Even for employees that have a lot of experience working remotely, you'll also need to keep a closer eye on them at the start: You don't want to micromanage, but like the inexperienced employee, you do need to establish the manager-employee relationship. One of the greatest obstacles with managing remotely is miscommunication, no matter how many fancy communication tools are available. If you set the ground rules for the working relationship at the beginning, miscommunication is less likely. You will also need to train them to meet your expectations.

A good manager makes sure that his/her employees can develop professionally. To avoid the remote employee feeling left out of the opportunities available to onsite employees, make sure they have the opportunity to come onsite when possible. Also allow them to attend the functions/events that they need to perform their jobs. However, when you do so, attach performance measures to your okay.

Aside from professional development, even though you may have no control over your employee's environment, you and the employee could potentially still need to take into account a myriad of required (legal/regulatory) and safety issues. Both the legal and safety requirements will depend on the job; however, while OSHA has not yet won the heated battle over home workers' privacy vs. the need for home safety, some companies do require home office safety inspections.

If you publish guidelines, be sure to include proper use of stepladders, storage and materials access, safe installation of wiring and trip prevention methods. Find out if you should provide protective equipment and ergonomic workstations. Consider the underlying causes of unsafe behavior when establishing your safety policy — fatigue, carelessness, etc. Special training such as defensive driving, equipment handling and basic home safety may also be necessary and/or required.

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Educational Brief

Module: Managing Remote Employees
Section: Evaluating Costs

When you move employees offsite, be sure and reassess office space needs on a regular basis. Make sure that you have the right amount of space and that the cost of having the employee work remotely is offset by lowered overhead and good performance. Consider that workers who are only onsite part of the time may be able to share offices. Traveling salespeople may be able to use a conference or meeting room if they are around only on rare occasions. You may also save in other ways, such as reduced utility bills or fewer parking and maintenance demands.

No matter your savings, you want to make sure that you do not come across as a cheapskate with the remote employee. As much as you would like them to understand your bottom line, they may harbor some resentment at not being onsite.

As such don't shy away from letting them know about the costs that come when you set employees up in their home offices. They don't need to know every detail, but you can be subtle in how you handle information on what you've budgeted for hardware maintenance, broadband bills and software licensing fees. Also, when you communicate this information, use this situation as an opportunity to show how much of a good investment you consider him/her.

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Educational Brief

Module: Managing Remote Employees
Section: Provide Collaborative Tools

Since “trading up” from inferior equipment can be expensive, if the set-up is part of their work/compensation package, keep your remote worker happy and choose high-quality computers, devices and furniture at the outset. Providing faster internet access, a dedicated mobile phone/landline, and a good office chair may enhance productivity and make the family/office boundary more distinct. For employees who must travel, such as salespeople, be sure they have the latest, lightest laptops with enough battery backups for their longest flights. Rapid access to the company’s online tools can save sales staff headaches and your bottom line. Provide excellent technical support.

With communication so essential, investigate the tools/technologies that make the most sense (depending on your budget and set up) for how the remote employee would work. Also determine the appropriate levels of security, accessibility, user-friendliness and cost. Evaluate this information along with the remote employee’s feedback. In addition, provide the reasoning for selecting these dedicated technologies (to ensure compliance), along with the ground rules for their use.

You and the employee will be sharing information, via typical shared objects such as Word documents, PowerPoint, Google docs, encrypted messaging, etc. Cloud-based or not, the applications chosen should be able to interact with each other, as well as with audio and video tools if need be. Security, confidentiality and usefulness, along with the remote employee’s work practices need to be considered here as well, so that data sharing takes place as effectively as possible.

The choices are plentiful for app- and browser-based tools that allow for real-time conversations, in addition to dedicated videoconferencing equipment. When putting together the set-up, consider the type and quality of the basic components that you will both need, including: user interface, video cameras, microphones, video display, speakers, sound dampening, backgrounds and lighting.

High-speed access is at the heart of running an effective remote operation, and allowing these workers to use virtual private networks (VPNs) can help them stay in the loop by providing company intranet access, etc. Regardless of how good the connection though, both you and the remote employee should be prepared for more frequent problems with the internet and network access due to set-up glitches and increased traffic. In addition, keep in mind the type of connectivity required, security requirements, location for connectivity (client site, airport, hotel), and Wi-Fi options.

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