12- The Ultimate Tactic

After finding your key words (why people want to talk about you), writing your press release, and identifying the journalists and bloggers that you need to reach, what is your next tactic?

The next tactic, one that is too often ignored, is really quite simple: follow-ups and reminders.

In other words, the sales pitch.

How many times have we heard companies tell us: "We sent them a press release but got no response: PR doesn’t work." Reducing our profession to sending out press releases is simplistic, to say the least.

Public relations for consumer products are like sales.

To reach a journalist or a blogger, you need to develop sales techniques.

At NATA PR, we like to say that we use soft-sell techniques.

There is no point in repeatedly harassing a targeted journalist.

Don’t reveal everything in the first email you send.

Keep key information for your next mailing, such as: Did you know that Product X is an innovation in its industry, that it has garnered awards, etc.

You have to be creative with your reminders, keeping in mind that journalists can receive hundreds of emails a day.

Your press release could be completely unnoticed and might not catch the attention of journalists simply because the subject of your email is too long or not clear enough.

We all receive a lot of emails, so we need to figure out what will catch the eye in a fraction of a second.

For example, if vitamin C is a topic of interest to beauty journalists, your release will be ignored if the subject line doesn’t mention that ingredient.

So it is clear that a single mailing may not generate the expected results.

Do not hesitate to schedule several mailings, but using a different subject line, for example.

You need to be creative and resend to the journalists and influencers that you want to reach.

And if emails are not doing the trick, there’s always the telephone...