Cision: Less is more when it comes to media targeting

Submitted by Ruth McFarland, Senior Vice President and Publisher, Cision, a sponsor of the 2008 PRSA Sunshine District Conference.

A few high-visibility journalists and bloggers have made headlines in the past year by publishing “blacklists” of PR people who once-too-often approached them in the wrong way. Authors of blogs, because theirs is such a personal, conversational medium, are especially sensitive to being “spammed” with news releases and one-size-fits-all pitches sent to mass-email lists.

At Cision we are on the front lines of this controversy, because we maintain the media research database that many PR professionals use to develop their editor contact lists when they are planning campaigns. For that reason we decided early on to take the lead in advising our customers on best practices in reaching out to both the mainstream media and online worlds. In fact, before every entry in our database describing a blog, we state the following cautionary note:

“The fundamentals of working with bloggers are the same as with traditional journalists at traditional media outlets: respect their schedules; take time to read their material to learn their interests; and only contact them if/when they want to be contacted.”

We also send our clients a white paper we authored on media targeting: “What NEVER to do When Targeting the Media.” The white paper gives commonsense advice on the right ways to build long-term relationships with editors, versus the too-frequent practice of using a shotgun blast instead of a rifle shot.

Behind these efforts at education is a single, simple thought: less is more. The better your media research—the more information you have about the editors you are trying to contact, including who their readers are, how they align with your target customers, and how those editors do and don’t want to be contacted by PR people—the more efficient you will be with your time and the more success you will have with your pitch. Why send out 100 news releases, when sending personal notes and making follow-up calls to the 10 editors and bloggers who really want to hear from you will get better results in less time?

With more PR people competing as hard as ever for mainstream media attention while they tackle an entirely new set of targets in social media and the blogosphere, the age-old issue of how to effectively communicate your stories in helpful ways without wasting editors’ time has come to the fore once again. With the right kind of research and care in targeting, you can be part of the solution, not part of the problem.