« ATTACHMENTS ARE EVIL! EVIL! AHH AHHH.... | Main | Wire into Techorati »
April 06, 2007
MR 101 - Education for PR - 1 Day Event - Draft Vision
Shopping for a new PR firm? Looking to learn more about PR? If you're going to spend thousands of dollars per month on an external PR firm, shouldn't you spend a day and some (smaller) amount of money learning the most effective ways to work/use PR in the first place?
My vision is to have (currently hypothetical, nothing committed) an event whereby you, the designed marketing/PR person, staff or executive charged (i.e. stuck) with PR duties can come and learn more about media relations.
MR 101 - (MR = Media Relations) - would occur during the July/August time frame, with perhaps one session happening on the East Coast, one on the Left/West Coast. I know, it's during your "vacation"/downtime, but that's the POINT for two reasons: 1) If it's trade show season (i.e. September onward) you don't have the time and 2) Quite frankly, you should be doing strategic marketing and PR planning for the Fall and Spring "seasons" way before September.
MR 101 would provide context to what "PR" means, how it fits into the overall framework of marketing/marketing communications, what a reporter does, different techniques for pitching your story, and the like.
Let's face facts: If you are talking about press releases just the week before a big event, you've already lost the battle.
Dirty little secret: (with respect to Jim Dunnigan) A certain number of companies end up in print more often than others because they 1) Plan in advance, 2) Build a comprehensive 6-12 month plan 3) Steadily execute on their plan.
Dirty little secret #2: If you hire a PR firm and expect them to instantly get you in print in 90 days or less, you have, shall we say, unreasonable expectations. (For one thing, print cycles alone can be 60 days)
Speakers would include a combination of media people (i.e. like me) from different publications and principals from select PR firms. Participants would hear from media DIRECTLY, unfiltered by the spin of a Big-Name PR firm. Participants would also hear PR principals talk about the CUSTOMER'S responsibilities when it comes to PR, both what they should expect from a PR firm -- if they need one -- and what the customer should be expected to provide in terms of education, information, and oversight.
Sure, you can wind-up a PR firm and let it go off without supervision, but if you do so, doom on you, baby.
Do you like the idea? Are you interested? What would you want to learn about? If so, e-mail me; dmohney@vonmag.com is easiest.
I think the biggest problem in this hypothetical event is to keep it tight and functional, so you walk out of there with enough tools to be effective, rather than a heavy toolbox with stuff you don't have the time to use.
Posted by dmohney at April 6, 2007 04:10 PM