New edition of ‘Ignition’ out now
The latest issue of our newsletter, Ignition, is out now. You can read it here. Email trina@ignitepr.com.au if you want to be added to our mailing list.
Top tips for media interviews
Ultimately, we recommend any executives who will be undertaking media interviews to undergo professional media training to hone key messages and delivery – it’s you and your company’s reputation on the line after all – but we thought it would be worth sharing just a few pointers to bear in mind if you’ve got a big interview coming up.
1) Meet deadlines: journalists are busy people and the story they are working on is the most important thing (to them) at that time, respect that by responding to requests in a timely manner, and when a big story breaks make sure you are available.
2) Preparation is key: never ever wing it. Always try and get a full brief on the questions that will be asked, have your key messages ready to go, try and actually practise an interview with a friend or colleague asking the tricky questions.
3) Know what you want to say: shape your message(s), work out what you want to say and how you can say it as simply as possible, always avoid jargon and don’t over complicate. Stay on track with your message(s) throughout the interview and learn how to bridge – i.e. when the question doesn’t necessarily cover what you want to say you can add your own extra bits. For example, “It’s important to remember that…”, “Before we get off that topic, let me just add…” etc. Try and think about two or three key ‘take-away’ points you want the journalist/ viewers/ readers to remember.
4) And how you want to say it: body language and eye contact are important, often (for television and radio) it’s not really what you say its how you say it.
5) Tell the truth: stick to the facts, distinguish between fact and opinion, if you don’t know the answer to something say so.
6) Take written information: reporters often need help putting an issue in perspective, so feel free to provide them with written information to highlight the key facts and figures.
7) Never say “No comment”: if you can’t answer something or choose not to, just give a brief explanation why otherwise it can be a little like a red rag to a bull.
8) Silence is golden: don’t talk to fill any silences, say what you want to say and then it’s the reporter’s responsibility to keep the interview going.
9) Nothing is 100% off the record: it’s worth remembering that a journalist is always on the lookout for the next big story, don’t let your ‘off the record’ comment become that; nothing is ever fully off the record.
10) Get performance reviews: everyone can get better so make sure you review resulting articles or the broadcast coverage and seek comments and feedback from friends and colleagues
Good luck!
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How to be the perfect client
Let it be said that obviously all of our clients are wonderful to work with, but everyone has their ‘moments’ so we thought it would be a useful exercise to look at what clients can do to help their PR agencies so that time is being spent in the work that will get the best results possible.
Believe it or not, you play a crucial role in ensuring our success with your organisation. We will show enthusiasm and understanding for your business and listen to your daily pressures, but similarly in a perfect world there are certain criteria that go towards making the perfect client.
1) Let’s work as a team: don’t make it be you vs. us, we want to be part of your team, like an extension of your in-house department, so let’s work together like that. We might be able to bring a different perspective to the table as well, so use it. We want to be a partner, not just another supplier. We’ll need input from you as well; if you think we can work in silo you won’t get the best from the relationship
2) Trust us and listen to our advice: you hired us for our insights and expertise, so please listen to us. We might not always tell you what you want to hear, but we never said it was going to be easy.
3) Share and share alike: share your information with us as much as possible as early as possible, if we don’t know the full picture we can’t sell your stories.
4) Don’t set us up to fail: give us reasonable timeframes and reasonable budgets to allow us to do the best job possible and have realistic expectations of what can be achieved.
5) Appreciate the value of PR: you hired us so hopefully that means you have an understanding of PR and what it can achieve.
6) Give us time: it will take a while for us to establish relationships with you and your audiences, give us at least six months. If you’re not happy after that, then you need to have serious words with us.
7) Work out how you will determine success: work with us to come up with some measurable goals so we’ll both know whether something’s worked and has been a success, for example just because it’s a big media title doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right one for your business, so, if you’ve told us who your audiences are, listen to us on that one.
8) Speak up: if you don’t like what we’re doing, at any point, tell us. We’d rather hear it and try and fix it than not know and have you suffer in silence or worse still, sack us.
9) Know what you want: the better the brief, the better the solution.
10) Make your mind up: if you must change your mind about something make sure you understand and appreciate the implications.
11) More work means more money: we’re a business too and much as we love you, we don’t work for free.
12) Pay us on time: slow payers get slow workers.
13) Give credit where it’s due: it’s nice to get a thank you.
And on the nitty gritty day-to-day stuff:
14) Appreciate deadlines: you have deadlines, we have deadlines, journalists have even tighter deadlines and generally if we don’t hit them we’ll miss the opportunity.
15) Be prepared: if you’ve got an interview and we’ve given you briefing notes, please read them.
16) Know the value of a good picture: good photography is very important; it can make or break a story.
17) Understand the bigger picture: you or your product aren’t always going to be the main event, there’s a lot of news and competing information out there.
18) You might need to wait for coverage: we’re pitching to long lead and short lead media, stories might not appear straight away.
19) Be available: if a story is breaking, make sure you’re available should journalists need to talk to you.
20) Have a laugh: everything’s much better when you have a laugh with us.
Obviously no-one’s perfect, but hopefully the above points have given some food for thought. Do you agree with us?
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