A well-crafted response can help to prevent further damage to your brand and protect your customer base. Likewise, a poorly-written response can erode your customer base, damage your brand and position your company as “whining.” Here are some steps you can take to make certain your response is a winning one.

1.  To respond or not respond? Sometimes, the best response is no response. If an opinion piece or story is so over-the-top that a rational reader won’t give it any credence, then the “ignore and it will go away” approach may be best. There’s no need to give a lousy article any more attention that it deserves by dignifying it with a response.
2. What’s the response? If your company does decide to respond—and depending on the size of the company, this decision may be made at any of several levels—what will the response be? Analyze the offending work and determine the most egregious errors. If you choose a letter to the editor as a response, your word count will likely be quite limited. You’ll need to address only the key faults. With an op-ed, you’ll have more room to expand on your points and address lesser points as well.
3. Be factual. Point out what’s incorrect about the offending piece. The goal is to set the record straight.
4. Don’t make it personal. Remember, lowering yourself to name-calling and excessive sarcasm doesn’t help your cause, and may result in the letter or op-ed being rejected outright by the publication’s editors.
5. Let it sit. Whoever is assigned to craft the response within the organization should do so, and then let it sit for a day. He or she should then go back to the work, review it for errors #3 and 4 above, and then get final approval of the response from the necessary manager. This might be the marketing director, the corporate communications director, the CEO or someone else, depending on the size of the company and your corporate structure.

By carefully drafting up a smart response, your company can turn bad press into a home run. And you don’t have to do it alone—Trade Press Services is expert at crafting all kinds of communications for your company. Call us at (805) 496-8850 or e-mail gerri@tradepressservices.com today.

1. Contact them on deadline. It’s a little like asking to speak with a restaurant manager during the lunch rush. Find out when the publication goes to print from the editor’s assistant or the receptionist, and don’t call at those times.

2. Know your stuff. Didn’t expect the editor to answer the phone? Don’t have a clear idea of your story idea, or don’t have your notes in front of you? When you call editors, you can’t always expect to talk with them then and there. But be prepared if they happen to have a moment for you.

3. We already covered that. Take the time to see if the publication has covered the topic in the recent past. If they have, you’re not likely to score.

And here are six practices to follow that will greatly increase your chances of success:

1. Do your homework. Investigate the publication’s readership profile to make certain the audience is a good match for your story idea. Does the publication accept contributed pieces? What is their editorial calendar?

2. Keep it newsworthy. Make certain your story idea isn’t self-promoting—for example, “XYZ Company provides novel IT solutions to security problems”. Instead, use this approach: “Five novel IT solutions to security problems.” The byline will be all the promotion the company needs and positions the author as a subject matter expert.

3. Use query paragraphs to create interest. Start with a catchy headline, and follow it with a short description of the proposed article. Emphasize what’s new and controversial, and what questions it will answer for readers.

4. Limit the number of topics. Five is the maximum. Editors don’t want a shotgun approach, or “throw it against the wall and see what sticks.” Make sure each topic is coherent and well-thought out.

5. Let them know the company’s reputation and credentials. What makes the company worthy of space in the publication? Let the editor know about the company’s experience in the field and if they have written for other publications.

6. Fulfill your end of the bargain. Turn in a good story, on topic and on time. Follow the publication’s editorial guidelines and whichever style manual they prefer (ALA, AP, etc.). Doing so will place you and the company squarely on the editor’s good side and not in the mix with those other contributors who are always late, sloppy or both.

Following these six steps—and avoiding the three pitfalls—will help your pitch be a success and avoid the editor’s death sentence: the delete key!

For an assignment in my news writing class in college, we were asked to attend a local “happening” and write a basic news story on it. Simple enough…but I couldn’t leave it at that. Somehow I managed to convince the professor to let me write a press release instead of a hard news story. Ever since, I’ve had a soft spot in my heart for the lowly press release. Spurned by big newsrooms, welcomed by small weeklies with two-person staffs, the press release can be an effective tool for getting your message out.

A press release is not an advertisement or a way to drive people to your website. It is, however, a way to inform the media about the aspects of your product, service or company that may be newsworthy. News editor consider something to be newsworthy if it’s new, timely, controversial, unique, humorous, interesting or different.

First off, know this: news editors could care less about helping you promote your product or service. That’s left to the folks in the advertising sales department, and the two groups are like oil and water. From an editor’s perspective, advertising sales is a necessary evil. Of course, without paid ads, there would be no magazine or newspaper.

What editors do care about is news. That’s why your press release can’t focus on business as usual. Put yourself in the editor’s shoes—what can you share with them that their readers want to know? What is new at your company? What interesting stories can you tell? Do you have an employee who is an Iraq war vet? What does your business do that no one else does? What has your business helped a client do well? What is time sensitive that needs to get published now?

News editors are literally bombarded with press releases from all over the country, and even the world. What separates your message from the rest of the pack? Even if your release is about the latest trend in communication devices, an offering of affordable health insurance, or a personal injury lawyer who can get you money for your injury, you still have to have a “hook.” Ninety-nine percent of press release content is focused on what the writer wants to say and not focused on what the customer—the news editor—wants to read. News people call PR folks “flaks,” a derogatory term that refers to the annoying anti-aircraft fire that World War II bombers had to fly through on the way to the target. Is your story “flak” material, or news?

Every company should keep a supply of story ideas on hand that will make for great press releases (and great newspaper articles) when business is slow or when there’s a slow news day. If you build a reputation as a great source of legitimate news stories, you’ll have editors and reporters calling you for ideas. Remember, small newspapers and magazines are always desperate for content and short on people to generate it. As a result, sometimes they will often publish your entire press release verbatim!

Now that you know what to put in a press release, we’ll focus on how to structure and write in it part II.