The latest post on The Business Marketing Institute's (BMI) Tuesday Marketing Notes gets straight to the point of what we frequently see in marketing and communications - the common practice of churning out "press releases" with the misguided notion that this action makes for an effective communications campaign or is the recipe for public or media relations.
I couldn't have written a better post so we're summarised some of the important bits from BMI that are worth noting:
Activity does not equal effectiveness
Ironically, when creating an effective public relations program, press releases may be among the last things you need to worry about. Nor does a whole string of press releases issued on a weekly basis mean you’re creating an effective publicity program.
Shotgun media ignores "relations"
Press releases remain today's single most over-used and abused public relations tactic. Whatever happened to the concept of using the press release as a "silver bullet" when you have really significant news rather than something amounting to “my cat had kittens?” Today's all too prevalent shotgun approach ignores the "relations" part of the profession as well as the "news" part of news release not to mention the "public" part of PR.
Know thy media
Automated distribution techniques and services help further alienate professional business communicators from the media they should be attempting to understand and perhaps influence.
Effective PR pros know or should find out exactly who wants their clients' or employer’s news.
More is not better
The attitude of "some releases are good, so more are better and the most must be the best," pervades thinking. This entirely ignores the way publications and journalists think. Not to mention the public or your stakeholders.
One of the main problems with overdosing the media with too many press releases is that editors have to chose which one to use. Send them several in a short period and they may run one of lesser value rather than another you were really hoping to see published. But you shot yourself in the foot by sending out too many in the first place. Again, less is more.
The Upshot
We think the importance of what BMI has said is stop churning and burning media releases and start focusing on media relations. However let's not forget that PR is not solely about media relations. It's about public relations. Be more strategic and considered in your approach and don't forget the "public" in PR.
You may also like to read "PR Doesn't Stand for Media Relations" by Craig Pearce just to round out the discussion.
