This Is Why You’re Not Securing Your Desired PR Coverage - Insight Blog

When you work in PR, there is no greater feeling that being able to email or call a client to share that you’ve managed to secure them an amazing piece of coverage on a popular website or national newspaper.

As awesome as this can be, the reality of having a conversation to explain why a client campaign or story hasn’t been featured within target media is not one us Yetis enjoy taking part in; and luckily, they happen rarely!

If you work in the ever-evolving world of public relations and find yourselves needing to have these awkward chats on a regular basis with your clients, here are some reasons why your efforts aren’t quite translating into all important coverage, and some tips on how to turn your luck around!

Your hook/angle isn’t engaging enough

Perhaps the story that you’ve sent out to the press isn’t quite as engaging and newsworthy to news editors and reporters as you thought a few months ago during your team brainstorm. Or maybe the client suggested the idea and seemed so passionate about adding it into your campaign plan that you simply didn’t have the heart to tell them that it’s not as strong an angle as they may think.

Either way, one of the most important stages in any PR outreach is ensuring your creativity can shine through and that the story stands out amongst the thousands of other brands also trying to steal those precious columns and follow links.

Your media lists are out of date

If you’ve worked in PR for a while, like many of us Yetis have, then you’ll no doubt have noticed just how often journalists like to switch job roles, titles and even publications.

As a result of this, it’s imperative that you are constantly updating the media lists you’re sending your client pitches and stories to, by adding in the latest junior reporters and editorial assistants, and removing the contacts that have since departed your target publications.

Here at 10 Yetis, we’ll often divide up the different key lists (consumer news/lifestyle/technology/motoring/food & drink/health/fashion etc…) to ensure that all bases are evenly covered, and we’re not missing out on any good opportunities for clients.

You’re not embracing social media

I cannot begin to tell you how much of a godsend Twitter has been for me when it comes to generating client PR coverage during the last four years as a member of team Yeti.

Quite often I know that there is a journalist that would find one of my client’s stories or products right up their street, but find it near impossible to locate a correct email address or phone number to contact them on. Searching for said journalist on Twitter and either requesting their email address or sending them a direct message (providing they’ve set their inbox to ‘open’) to pitch a story has resulted in some amazing coverage, all of which I owe to the wonder of Twitter!

You’re not selling in properly

You’d be surprised at the difference a sell-in can make to the success rate of a client campaign. I’m not going to lie and say that I love ringing up journalists to pitch them what is probably their 500^th story of the day; but the fact is, if utilised properly it can work.

If you’re someone who tends to get flustered and talks too much on the phone, jot down the main bullet points of the story and what you want to convey before dialling a number. Also, try not to be put off if the journalist sounds grumpy or miserable, they ultimately know that (like them) you are just trying to do your job and secure your client coverage, and most should give you the chance to at least pitch a story.

Just try to make sure that you’re ringing a contact that’s covered stories with similar topics and themes in the past, and that they’ve not moved departments or jobs since!

You’re not making life easy for journalists

We very regularly will circulate a range of different cross-platform PR stories for our clients, such as interactive microsites & widgets, infographics, concept images and short videos, which journalists often find extremely newsworthy and are happy to run for us.

It’s vitally important, however, that during our outreach of such stories, we provide journalists with everything they might need in order to run the client story, such as an accompanying news release, editor’s notes, shareable links, embed codes, hi-res and low-res images and anything else that could keep them from cutting our story at the last minute in exchange for something from a savvier PR!