Praveen Singh’s Post

Protecting the brand's reputation against damage is a key objective that clients want to achieve through Public Relations. But how to go about it? A brand's reputation can be protected in two ways: 1. Managing the risks after it has come to the fore. 2. Preventing the risks from emerging. I prefer preventing the risks from emerging as a go-to strategy because it keeps the brand reputation intact. The reason for my preference is simple: Any brand's reputation takes a beating once a crisis has already happened. This is so even if the communications team burns the midnight oil to manage it. I am not the only one who feels so. The PR industry feels the same. In a poll I conducted last week, 79% of the respondents said they prefer preventing the risks from emerging. A question may be asked: If so many PR professionals believe in this, why do we see so many crises happening? In the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world, we can prevent reputation risks but not all. Some risks will still emerge and lead to crises. We should focus our energies towards what is doable. The problem is something prevents us from doing that. We focus only on managing the crisis after it has happened. It is an interesting phenomenon. The prime culprit for that is the human tendency to undermine what we haven't experienced yet. This makes PR stakeholders undermine the value of action to prevent crises. "Why to work on something that has not happened" becomes the go-to reason. Having said that, there are signs of change in the PR industry, as indicated by the poll results. Clients want their PR partners to focus on preventing crises from happening. How should we go about it? Let's talk about that in the next post. #PublicRelations #StrategyVerse #Marketing #CrisisPrevention

Getting an interview opportunity is tough. But let's suppose your agency has sourced a good opportunity... What should you do to make it a successful interview? It's unbelievable how many spokespersons go for interviews underprepared. They feel if they can speak with their teams, their vendors and customers effectively, they can speak with journalists with ease. Not a surprise that they fail to get a story published afterwards. Blaming anyone at that stage is a futile exercise. What works is preparing well for the interview and offering chewable information to journalists. Here's how you can do this: 1. Study the work of the journalist you are meeting. 2. Find out the focus of the said publication. 3. Go through the PR FAQs about your company. 4. Be ready with the answers to probable questions. 5. Keep all relevant data with you. 6. Appear for a mock interview. 7. Bridge the gaps that surfaced during the mock interview. Walk these steps for every interview and rest assured you will see positive results. P.S.: Don't worry, your agency should be able to help at each step of the way. If they can't, you should find a new one before it's too late. #PublicRelations #StrategyVerse #Marketing #MediaRelations

Is The Wall Street Journal a relevant publication for an unlisted grocery store chain in Detroit with no immediate plans of going public? No. Metro Times may be relevant. Is The Economic Times relevant for a B2B courier service in Delhi? No. Smart Logistics, a B2B magazine covering news on the logistics industry, may be relevant. Is The Times of India relevant for a hosiery store chain in Kerala? No. A regional publication like Manorama or Mathrabhoomi may be relevant. There is a difference between our personal aspirations and business needs. I may aspire to see my name in The Times of India tomorrow but it would not translate into business gains as my target audience would not even read that. The purpose of PR is to get the attention of your target audience. Therefore, it is necessary to be present on platforms where the target audience goes for authentic information. Let's look at 'relevance' from another angle. Journalists don't write on any and every topic. They decide based on what's relevant for their core readers. Editors spike news left, right and centre in producing a newspaper valued by their readers. You don't want your news to be part of the 'spiked' deck. Or, do you? Now, the question is how to decipher relevance while planning a PR campaign. Every case is different and a thorough assessment is needed to decide the relevant publications. That said, the following parameters help in making a decision. 1. The sector you operate in. 2. Nature of news you want to share. 3. Intended impact of the news on the target audience or a segment of the target audience. Remember, relevance is the soul of PR. The target audience wants to read relevant information. Journalists want to supply relevant information. And you can't be an irrelevant cog in this wheel. #PublicRelations #StrategyVerse #Marketing

PR = Media Coverage ☝️This is what most clients feel about PR. It's a self-limiting belief. Here's why: - Today, press coverage is difficult to come by as the demand for media space is rising and its supply is shrinking. - This makes the journalists apply various filters to decide what to cover on a given day. - 90% of media pitches make way to the trash bin. When this is happening on the media's side, clients are still fixated on the archaic idea of 'PR = Media Coverage' Naturally, after a few months of trying the limited idea of PR, clients start feeling they have burnt their fingers in PR and vow to not touch it again. Look at the irony -- Clients vow to stay away from PR without experiencing PR in its entirety. It makes clients miss out on so many opportunities to connect with their target audience. At this juncture, one may ask: What is PR if it's not a tool to get the media coverage? Here's a simple statement: PR is a tool to connect with your target audience primarily through organic communication channels. The organic channels are: - Media - Social Media - Influencers - Blogs - Newsletters - Podcasts - Whitepapers - Case Studies - Events & Conferences The list is only widening as we speak. PR professionals are involved in all of these channels. And, clients can benefit from this. All they have to do is move beyond press coverage and discuss the wider possibilities. #PublicRelations #StrategyVerse #ClientServicing

PR is not about media relations. It's about ideas that can generate positive press. Coming up with such ideas is a difficult task and there are no shortcuts. But everyone can do it if the following steps are followed: 1. Develop a thorough understanding of client's business. 2. Understand client's priority areas for the year. 3. Study the media and research papers for industry trends. Speak with a few senior journalists to find out what stories will work in relation to the client. 4. Ask questions without fear or prejudice. 5. Take detailed notes throughout the process. These notes are everything you need. 6. Cull out PR ideas from these notes. 7. Discuss the ideas with the client and prioritize their implementation. The work will not end with the generation of ideas. You have to move on to the next phase of media pitching. That's a different sequence of activities. More on that later. But for now you have the list of activities you have to do to start your PR engagement on the right foot. What else should one do to generate ideas like a pro? #PublicRelations #StrategyVerse #ClientServicing

Here’s a tip on how to get the maximum out of the PR agency you have just onboarded. Your PR agency is an outsider and would have little knowledge about your brand. This is a limitation and an advantage. It’s an advantage because of the agency’s vantage point. Since they are outsiders, they can help you with insights on how external stakeholders would look at your brand. From the outside, they can soak in the information about your brand from secondary sources like published news, website, and social media, and help you from the unique vantage point of a customer consuming information from the same sources. They can give you critical inputs on the positives of your communication throughput, they can also underline the gaps. 1. How would a customer look at a particular piece of information? 2. Is the given information sufficient for a prospective customer to decide? 3. What platforms are missing from your communications arsenal? 4. Does the social media conversation point to possibilities of operational inefficiencies? The PR agency can share these insights. All you have to do is listen intently and make the engagement work for you from the very beginning. #PublicRelations #Marketing #ClientServicing #StrategyVerse

Top 5 areas where clients want the support of their PR agencies: 1. Coming up with practically workable publicity ideas. 2. Helping them understand the scope of PR beyond media. 3. Handholding them about relevant publications. 4. Guiding them on how to succeed in media interviews. 5. Being their eyes and ears for reputation risks. These are based on responses to yesterday's post from brand custodians. I have heard these before. Clients don't know the full scope of PR. They lack information on relevant media. They want to understand how to engage better with the media. I will address these areas through LinkedIn posts in the days ahead. #PublicRelations #StrategyVerse #ClientServicing

Clients and PR agencies ought to be partners. But more often than not, they are at loggerheads. Both sides blame each other for deficiencies. This doesn't have to be like this. I am attempting to resolve some of the pain points. Tell me what change would you like to see and I will help you make it happen through my content. Let's start from client side. As a client, what change do you want to see in your PR agency? Share your thoughts in comments or DM. #PublicRelations #StrategyVerse #ClientServicing

Clients are ready to pay a sack full of dollars to agencies that claim to be good at crisis management. But they won't move a limb for agencies that want to help them in crisis prevention. This is puzzling. To me, crisis prevention is so much better than crisis management. - It helps your business sail smoothly to say the least. - It enables continuous flow of revenue. - It keeps the employees happy. - It maintains the trust of board members. - It makes the policymakers supportive of your goals. The list goes on... Running in front of a train to save yourself is doable but you have to run faster than the train. Not stepping on to the track is a better option. What do you think? #PublicRelations #StrategyVerse #CrisisPrevention

If there is one statement about Public Relations that is accepted by everyone it is this: 'Public Relations is the means to get positive stories.' But if you focus only on this, you would be looking at half the picture, and that would make you commit mistakes. PR generates positive stories but before that happens, you have to - understand media - study the work of target journalists - share meaningful information with them - trust their news sense Engage in PR with full knowledge about the craft. PR looks effortless from outside but it is a lot of tedious work on the inside. #PublicRelations #StrategyVerse #ClientServicing