Quality of Follow Up is What Counts
One of the comments to my recent blog post was: “Quality of follow-up is what counts.” What does it mean to do a good follow-up? It is difficult to understand when you just start doing PR. I remember myself pitching hundreds of journalists and then calling them a few days later. It seemed to be a good follow-up to me – calling journalists and asking if they received my press releases. They would say: “Yes. May be. Haven’t seen it yet.” I would say: “Ok, please let me know if you have any questions or need more information.” Of course they never had questions, or just a few of them. Yes, I followed up, but results were almost similar if I didn’t.
I understood back then that emailing 1,000 people would not bring me the results. Quantity is not what we should look for when we pitch media. Usually quality converts into quantity, quality can be scaled and converted into better results. It takes more time in the beginning, but it pays off by saving hours and hours afterwards.
Before jumping into follow-up I want to emphasize that there is work that precedes follow-up. What I realized first was I had to do a good quality outreach, which helps save time spent on follow-up if the majority of my targets reply me after the first approach. As I already mentioned in my previous posts I would research very well about the media that I target. I would find what news they post, format of the news — if it’s small announcements, original articles, or may be just images.
I remember that I researched one blog with very good traffic and the target audience that I needed. I figured out that they took only well-written articles covered the full story with interesting images supporting the article. My client was from the fashion industry, precisely millinery fashion. We all wear hats, but when it came to writing an interesting post it took some time. I did my research, looked into history, used quotes, briefly mentioned the client — just enough not to sound very commercial, found good images, and etc. I spent a lot of time to create that story and was happy with what came out in the end. I posted only on that particular blog and decided to post on our company’s blog. In the end my article was deleted as it popped up on our blog and was not considered original anymore. But if I paid attention to that small detail I would have had my article seen by much more people and would have gotten a targeted traffic to the website.
Do your research first and check every single detail that may help you during your outreach. If it says original, it should be original, if it says only images, don’t waste your time on a text.
When I plan on sending news for the first time I always pick the sources that are most important for that particular news. I believe it’s not a discovery for you, but just as a reminder — after the news is picked by influential sources in the industry then the smaller ones will pick it as a chain reaction. When I say influential sources I don’t mean big media outlets. I mean the media that matters in your industry. Since my target audience is end users and all my campaigns are very time sensitive that’s why action has first priority for me. That’s why I go for media, which are read by the audience with the first priority, the next will be sources with secondary audience, and third — just for some additional buzz around the campaign.
The whole outreach strategy should be viral by covering all media targets. Information should be taken and passed from one media to another like a chain reaction. To be able to do that you need to understand what format of communication your media targets prefer. For some of them it might be press releases, for others – original articles, interviews, quotes and comments, success stories, and etc. If you find the right key to each door it will help you with follow-up afterwards.
After a good quality outreach I move to good quality follow-up. As I mentioned if you don’t receive an answer after first email, don’t think that your story is not interesting to post. Perhaps a journalist hasn’t read your email and you need to find a way for your pitch to be read. When I follow up I usually come up with a few story angles. See what’s going on in the industry or what other hot news from big fishes of the industry are actively discussed. Then I try to see how my story complements the news scenery. Sounds easy, it’s actually not that hard and the only thing that it takes is your attention to details, time, and some creativity. It’s like a game, where you follow the rules until you set up your own.
I also noticed that sometime there is confusion between the target audience and fans of the brand or celebrity. Lady Gaga has so many followers, but when it comes to an action like creating a video for her next performance, the majority of those followers don’t count because they don’t usually have the right skills. That’s why it’s important to understand who to target and then take the next steps: choosing media targets, writing pitch, and working on the whole outreach strategy.
Briefly saying, by quality I mean attention to details, caring about whom you write to and who you target. It will pay off even though it takes a lot of time.
Remember:
- quality is more important than quantity;
- good follow-up is a result of good preparation and good outreach;
- big media are not always influential.
- clarify your target audience — loyal readers of the media and fans of the brand are not always the target.
