4 Ways to Avoid Miscommunications with the Media

“You just don’t understand.”

How many times have you spoken or been on the receiving end of those four words? Misunderstandings stem from miscommunication. And although communication is the one skill every public relations professional must have, we’ve all been guilty of missing the mark one time or another.

“‘Controlling’ the message is one of the things many PR folks struggle with. However painful it is to admit, the reality of media relations is that you can’t control everything. Period.” writes the author of our white paper How to Make Sure the Media Gets Your Story Straight. “You will never dictate what gets covered and what gets tossed. You’re not paying for coverage—that’s what advertising is for. And you don’t work in the newsroom, so you don’t make those calls.”

However, there are things you can do to limit media relations misunderstandings. The biggest of those things: Understand that you can’t be everything to everyone all of the time.

Targeting your media outreach isn’t a new concept. Breaking down media lists by geography, media type, etc. is a best practice most PR professionals are familiar with.

However, the size of a media outlet, where they’re based out of, and a journalist’s coverage area are only a few things to consider.

Even if you’re reaching out to a fairly small group of journalists and influencers, that audience likely consists of a spectrum of values, behaviors and opinions. And understanding individuals’ psychographic and behavioral differences can help avoid misunderstandings in your media outreach.

Here are four tips to consider when researching and pitching journalists.

Understand their interests and attitudes.

Even when two journalists report on the same topic, they typically have different takes on the same story. Understanding different journalists’ interests will result in more pitches crafted to their unique needs. It also can be a win for your brand. No story is one-dimensional. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see the different aspects of your brand story covered across the media?

Interests, attitudes and preferences don’t stop at type of story, either. For instance, our latest Social Journalism Study delves into the different perspectives journalists have on the channels PR pros use to pitch them. Understanding the nuances of channel preferences will lead you to reaching out and building relationships with journalists in the most effective way possible.

Address their challenges.

Your mindset when pitching a journalist should not be how they can help you, but how you can help them. The journalists you’re reaching out to aren’t suffering from a dearth of story ideas. In fact, the opposite is true – they suffer from an overload of pitches. Most journalists are also facing the pressures of smaller newsrooms and shorter deadlines, the never-ending pursuit of higher audience numbers, and the mandate to do more with much less.

This is one of those times when it’s important to be real with yourself. Is your pitch actually going to help them with their challenges or add yet another email that needs to be deleted from their inbox? Are you able to provide the resources they need (background information, expert quotes, photos, video, etc.) at a moment’s notice?

If the answer is no, it’s ok to remove that journalist from this particular pitch list and move onto the next one. If the answer is yes, what can you offer this particular journalist in your pitch to be a truly helpful resource?

Appeal to different relationship stages.

When drafting up marketing content, we’re called on to think about what stages of the buying process the content will address. And similar to the stages of awareness, consideration, purchase, adoption, advocacy, etc., there are different stages to your relationships with journalists.

While you could jump straight to a cold pitch and still get coverage, we hear from more and more journalists who are looking to build relationships. And relationships start with an introduction, they build by giving and giving before asking. Try reaching out with an offer of resources before pitching a story and asking for coverage.

Prepare for factors outside your control.

Even if you achieve success in everything above, there is still a lot of potential for miscommunication. Outside of the relationships you build with the media, there are other influencing factors determining what gets covered and how it gets covered.  The time of day you reach out, other news or events that are happening at the same time, the way a story may be edited or the visuals that are selected to run with it. These are sometimes outside the control of even the journalist you’re working with.

While additional research will help you identify and prepare for some of those factors, there will always be surprises. Understanding this and taking steps to help other brand stakeholders understand it can limit and resolve issues in the future.

To succeed as a public relations professional, there are many more things you can do beyond paying attention to journalists’ differences and similarities. Media relations is a learning process that never ends.

Get more tips with our guide How to Make Sure the Media Gets Your Story Straight. Download it now and learn how to focus on building positive relationships with key media and what tools will help.

Author Amanda Hicken is a senior marketing manager at Cision, where she directs the demand generation content strategy for PR Newswire’s and Cision’s blogs. She believes the key to successful content is balancing creativity, analytics and commonsense. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow her on Twitter @ADHicken.

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