1. Fax *and* post all press
releases, especially to freelances, who are always eager to get leads. Email them, too,
even if the journalist asks you not to. That way, they're more likely to get noticed.
2. Follow up all press releases with phone calls. Journalists often lose things, and
like to be reminded.
3. Assign your newest recruit to make all phone calls, making sure not to give them any
information about the journalists they're calling. Journalists like to talk about
themselves.
4. When you call journalists, never check if it's a good time or if the journalist is
trying to make a deadline. These things are just excuses.
5. Never send review software or other products until the journalist has asked at least
three times. Journalists like to make themselves sound busy, but these requests are never
urgent.
6. When sending review products, always send them by courier timed to arrive before
8am. This is especially true for freelances, who will be grateful for the wake-up call.
7. Choose your times to call carefully. Always call freelances before 9AM or after 7PM,
when you're sure they're home working and will be in a receptive mood. This leaves you
free to call staff during office hours.
8. Don't date press releases. Journalists like having an excuse to call up and ask for
information.
9. Same goes for product information: journalists don't like having to scan too many
details at a first reading.
10. Always be positive and firm. Journalists need you more than you need them.
11. On foreign trips, make sure to send the journalists in economy class, while you and
the client travel first class. Journalists' political views won't allow them to travel
first class.
12. Also on foreign trips, be sure to collect all travel tickets on arrival, handing
them back only when it's time to leave. Journalists appreciate not having to worry about
losing them.
13. On press trips, be sure to pack the schedule as tightly as possible. Journalists
rarely need sleep, and dislike being idle.
14. At press hotels, make sure there are no modem jacks in the hotel rooms. Journalists
like to have an excuse for being out of touch.
15. Always reward the journalist by allowing them to hear your views on politics, sex,
and religion.
16. Any journalist who has been the recipient of a client company's gift, such as a
company pen or T-shirt, is eternally in your debt and should not be allowed to forget this
largesse. Out of gratitude, they will respond with good coverage for your client.
17. Send special plastic gifts at Christmas. Pack them in plenty of styrofoam peanuts,
and ensure that the box cannot be opened without spraying these everywhere. The
journalists' children will thank you for the entertainment.
18. Maintain multiple lists of journalists according to their importance to your
clients. Make sure the journalists know who's on each list and where they rank.
Journalists like to know their place.
19. Offer to check their copy for factual errors. Journalists appreciate the help.
20. Always request two copies of every article for which you provide a product or
contact. Journalists appreciate your interest in their work. Don't hesitate to call
several times to remind them.
21. Journalists may underestimate the value of the stories you propose. Don't *let*
them make this mistake.
22. Before sending review products, always check what type of computer system your
journalist is using. Then send the wrong version. Journalists like the challenge.
23. If you have given a journalist a free Internet or other online account for review
on your client's system, make sure that when this account is cancelled it's done without
warning and email forwarding is not available. This allows them to avoid the build-up of
junk email. Also, insist that journalists give a credit card number when their accounts
are set up. This will give them a chance to test customer service's handling of billing
errors.
24. Always send gifts of alcohol to non-drinkers. They will appreciate having something
to take to parties.
25. If you've promised a journalist an exclusive interview, don't worry about inviting
along another journalist or two. Journalists feel more comfortable in the presence of
other journalists.
26. Enlist journalists' help in keeping your database up to date by regularly sending
them 12-page questionnaires soliciting personal information such as spouses' and
children's names, as well as details of their hobbies and interests outside of work.
Journalists will understand that you need to send a separate questionnaire for each client
company. They lead pretty lonely and depressing lives, so they'll be grateful to tell you
what you need to know to be their friend.
27. Press invitations should always be delivered with as much fanfare as possible. If
you can figure out a way to send three or four teasers in advance -- the more cryptic the
better -- do. Journalists love puzzles.
28. Press invitations should never include geographical aids such as the name of the
nearest tube stop or maps. Journalists don't usually get enough exercise, and will thank
you for helping them stay healthy.
29. There can never be too many press events scheduled at 8:30am, when the trains run
more often. It gives staff a chance to attend your press conference and still get to work
on time, and freelances are happy to travel during rush hour if it gets them out of the
house.
30. If you've invited a journalist on a particular trip and a more important journalist
wants to go, don't hesitate to cancel the first one. He'll never find out why you did it.
31. Always examine your list of invited journalists carefully. Be sure not to invite
too many of the leading journalists who specialise in the client's field. The client will
appreciate not having to answer so many knowledgeable questions, and it reminds the
journalists that they depend on you for material. In fact, it's always a good idea to have
one or two leading journalists you ignore completely, so that the rest who are on your
list realise how fortunate they really are.
32. Printed press releases should be single-spaced and printed on both sides of the
paper. Otherwise the journalist might be tempted to make notes on them, ruining your
design.
33. Conversely, emailed press releases should always be double-, or even triple-,
spaced. This makes them stand out from ordinary email. Be sure
to list contact and other information above the headline. Otherwise the journalist
might forget to page through the entire document. Even better, send the entire press
release as a MIME-encoded word processor document.
34. Always send pictures of product boxes or executives with your press releases,
especially to freelances. It makes your presentation look more professional, and gives the
freelances additional selling points when they approach editors with your story.
35. Never tell journalists when an account moves to or from your agency. They enjoy
testing their psychic powers of divination.
36. Similarly, never notify journalists when you yourself change agencies. Remember:
it's *public* relations, not *personal* relations.
37. When writing a press release, put in lots of background information and bland
quotes from company executives. Most press releases are too short to give journalists
enough ideas to write a whole article.
38. Never give a journalist a client's direct telephone number, especially if the
journalist claims to have a deadline and you're going out of the office for the rest of
the week. It preserves the mystery.
39. When organising press events, never give a journalist a phone number for the place
where the event is being held. It just confuses them.
40. A good strategy for handling particularly large press blitzes is to set up your fax
software to autodial every journalist in town over the weekend, when phone rates are
lowest. Make sure some voice numbers are included on the list and that the system is
configured to dial back until it gets through successfully. Fun!
41. Never acknowledge email messages from journalists. Otherwise they'll take you for
granted.
42. When the press release has finally been OK'd by the client and has your name on the
bottom as the contact person and is actually in the envelope and ready to go, take a
two-week vacation. You've earned the rest.
43. When sending review products, ensure that the package contains clear instructions
that the item must be returned in its original packaging.
44. When sending out invitations to a press event, always enclose press clippings from
its launch in the US. UK publications always appreciate knowing what their better-informed
colleagues in America have said about the product.
45. Invite journalists on a three-day press trip to California to meet the important
chief executive of a major American firm. Once they're there, either: 1) inform them the
CEO has changed his mind but they will see presentations from the company's marketing
staff; or 2) show them a live presentation from the executive by satellite hook-up.
46. Alternatively, find a journalist who never reviews things and send a bucketload of
unsolicited software to arrive before 8.00am. Wait three weeks, then call the freelance to
ask if anything has appeared yet, and if it hasn't demand the software back.
47. On foreign press trips, ensure the principal speaker delivers his piece in an
obscure foreign tongue. Journalists will appreciate the challenge of learning a new
language.
48. When organising press conferences that include lunch, schedule the deeply technical
discussion for immediately after the meal. Journalists will thank you for arranging a
siesta.
49. Journalists' name badges should be pre-printed with "Hello! My name is"
in fluorescent shocking pink and the names themselves should be illegible and incorrectly
spelled. And *never* give a journalist the correct name badge. It's more fun if you're not
too sure who people really are.
50. When accompanying journalists on foreign trips, arrange to leave the hotel before
breakfast omitting to arrange transport for the journalists to that day's venue -- which
must remain a closely-guarded secret. Journalists enjoy the challenge of playing
"hunt the press conference" in unfamiliar surroundings.
51. When planning foreign trips, always choose the routing that involves the maximum
number of changes of plane and carrier, and one that guarantees a late evening arrival at
the hotel. This gives greater scope for the airlines to lose their baggage. Journalists
love being reunited with their belongings just in time for their next foreign trip.
52. On foreign trips, provide copious amounts of documentation in large, heavy binders.
If journalists don't have to buy an extra suitcase, they won't feel they've actually been
away from home.
52. In the transportation field and other similar utilities, there are no cutbacks.
Tell the reporter that the change is a "rationalization" or "reallocation
of resources." Remind the Service Planning staff to watch their language in public
meetings with customers, lest they be caught on tape admitting that 5 minus 3 IS ACTUALLY
2, not simply "a better way of doing business."
53. If you enclose a map with your press kit, be sure that it is on an odd piece of
paper which will not fit into a copier. Better yet, print it on pink paper, so that the
print media cannot lift a copy of it for reproduction. Editors LIKE to assign staff
artists to redraw your map, and they'll be especially careful to get the details just the
way you had them.
54. It's also important to be sensitive to the needs of the ethnic press. Be sure to
send them copy in their own language, but don't worry about the fact that you don't know
what it says, because you didn't arrange for it to be proofread. It'll brighten their day,
as they pass it around the offices of Ukrainskii Zhournal, laughing hilariously at
your brother-in-law's lack of skill in their language. Better yet, send it just at
deadline time!
55. When inviting journalists to a news conference, ensure there are no sound boards to
plug into or speakers for tape recorders. Better yet, ensure there is no amplification at
all. Journalists love recorder-waving scrums around sources.
56. If a client cancels, without warning, a scheduled one-on-one interview or lunch or
dinner with a journalist, on no account allow the client to make up for the gaffe by
phoning the journalist or rescheduling the interview. Send flowers or a card instead.
Working journalists would much rather have social niceties than professional material.
57. Always make sure to send an individual copy of every press release all staff
writers and editors on a title. Otherwise they might get jealous.
58. Think of your product broadly. What *could* it be used for? Be sure to define it in
those terms to editors, especially those on specialist titles, who may lack imagination.
59. Never delete writers from your press list, no matter how long it is since you added
them or last heard from them. Journalists don't move often, and even if they do current
staff members are happy to forward mail to them. It keeps them in touch.
60. Announcements about mid-level managers who were recently promoted should always be
sent by courier, requiring a signature. Be sure to include a large, black-and-white
headshot of the person who has been promoted.
61. A journalist who asks, "Why, given the dozens of press kits and press releases
I've already received today, should I or anyone else really care about your product or
company?" is being just, plain rude. You don't need to answer this question.
62. If you sit in when a journalist is interviewing your client, always answer the
journalist's questions yourself, in an extremely long-winded way, even if the question was
intended for the other person. And always provide your own spin, even if it's not to the
question being asked.
63. Never worry about time zones, whether you're calling California at 8am Eastern Time
or London at 4pm in California. Journalists, especially freelances, will *always* be glad
to hear from you.
64. When bringing in senior executives from overseas, schedule a
press conference within two hours of their aircraft landing. This will
lend an extemporaneous quality that both journalists and client will
appreciate.
Contributors: Wendy Grossman, Mike Hardwidge, Mark Hamilton, Guy Kewney, Guy
Clapperton, Robert Rynerson, John Price, Sharon Fisher, David Kline, Mark
Frauenfelder, David Glover.
