Bedell Communications

I’ve posted about the value in meeting with media/analyst contacts prior to a briefing to ensure that you’re presenting information your contact can use. This is all well and good — assuming your contact can hear and understand your speaker, which brings me to another briefing blunder: failure to use a clear communications channel (I’m talking about the telephone line!) and/or a presenter that speaks clearly.

Most technology briefings are conducted via a conference call between the speaker, a marketing manager, a PR rep, and of course the media/analyst contact. This is understandably unavoidable. It’s difficult to get all these people in the same room. However, speakers should not be presenting briefings from a mobile phone while driving or sitting in a noisy airport terminal. If the speaker does manage to stay focused, he/she may not be heard over the background noise. This can also be a problem when using VoIP lines. Make certain ahead of time that the speaker can call in from a quiet location on a line that provides decent quality of service.

Once you’ve established that your speaker will be clearly heard, ensure that he/she will be understood. There are a lot of smart technology managers and executives outside the U.S., and many of them are non-native English speakers. Unfortunately, a heavy accent or broken English can make a highly-detailed technical conversation difficult to follow, especially if your contact is new to your product. This is not to say that your speaker cannot still give the presentation. Consider providing your contacts with speaker notes prior to the briefing, or be prepared to answer questions, clarify quotes, etc., after the briefing. — Crystal Bedell

In my experience, most technology media briefings go one of two ways: They’re either very productive or a huge waste of time. Media and analyst briefings take an incredible amount of effort to pull off. Someone needs to create the PowerPoint presentation (if there is one), schedules need to be coordinated amongst three or four people, and the speaker needs to be prepped on the correct messaging. After all this work, it’s in your best interest to ensure that your audience isn’t snoozing on the other end of the phone or daydreaming about lunch — which brings us to briefing blunder No. 1: failure to define the briefing’s objectives in terms of your contact’s information needs.

Once your media or analyst contact has agreed to a briefing, take 10-15 minutes to understand what it is they want to learn regarding your announcement. What do they hope to walk away with, and what kind of coverage — if any — is likely to come out of the briefing? How much time do they have for the briefing? This information will help focus the conversation so that you both meet your objectives.

Even after warning PR reps ahead of time that I only have 30 minutes for a briefing, it is not unusual to sit through a lengthy introduction to the company, leaving little time for the real meat of the presentation. This can be avoided with a little bit of prep work. In this case, why not send the company info prior to the briefing and have the speaker skip that slide?

While discussing your contact’s goals for the briefing, dig a little bit to get a sense of his/her knowledge of your product and related technology. Does your contact need technical details, and what level of detail does he/she already understand? Again, you’re wasting valuable time by digging into the inner-technical workings of a product that’s beyond both the contact’s information needs and understanding. On the other hand, you don’t want to force your contact to repeatedly interrupt the speaker to say, “Yes, I know how a firewall/SAN/virtualization/etc. works.”

Once you know your contact’s objectives for the briefing and the appropriate level of technical detail required, give this information to the speaker — ahead of time; not as you’re kicking off the briefing. This will give the speaker time to properly prepare and ensure that you get the most out of the time and effort that went into landing the briefing in the first place. — Crystal Bedell

Many media outlets do not publish announcements of new product releases, company partnerships or customer wins. In this case, the best way to pitch your story is to borrow a principle from marketing. Add value to your pitch by educating media contacts on issues that they do cover and that your staff has expertise.

Bedell Communications recently wrote a press release announcing the launch of ExperiorData. The timing of the launch was crucial as it coincided with a new regulation that requires health care entities to encrypt their data or go through a number of headache-inducing steps to notify customers of a data breach. By stressing the gravity of this regulation and demonstrating the client’s expertise on the subject, the press release provides the media with a story that readers will be interested in.

So, how do you do this? Find a legitimate news hook that supports your story. To find this news hook, talk to marketing or sales about what timely customer problem your solution addresses. What are they using to sell or market today? Maybe it’s an increase in security vulnerabilities, the state of the economy or green IT.

Hint at this hook in the opening graph of your press release, positioning your company/product as a solution to this larger problem. Then proceed to educate the media on this problem. Use quotes and your company’s/product’s benefits to demonstrate your expertise and solution. Remember, your goal is to emphasize the hook or current problem readers/customers face and offer your product as a solution. — Crystal Bedell

Tech editors and reporters receive countless press releases and briefing requests everyday. Making yours stand out from the rest — especially if you’re a one-man/woman-marketing/press relations-show — can be a challenge.

Hundreds of thousands of requests hit my inbox during my eight years as a Web site editor. Most of them hit my virtual trashcan because the sender didn’t understand what information I needed to do my job. In this first post of a series on how to work with the media, I offer five questions to ask journalists before you pitch your tech stories in an effort to increase your chances of getting media coverage.

Before you pitch your product release, new partnership, customer win, etc., you need to understand how the media outlets you’re targeting use such information. This requires a little preliminary effort on your part. Preface a call or e-mail to the journalists you’re targeting by saying that you would like ten minutes of their time so that you can learn how to better meet their needs. Begin by asking if they publish stories on the general topics you’re looking to promote. Some media outlets don’t publish customer wins. With this knowledge, you can avoid sending extra e-mail that would just get deleted anyway.

Oftentimes media outlets assign different types of content to different mediums. For example, a new product release might not be of interest to the news reporter, but it might be of interest to the staff blogger. So ask who would be most interested in specific types of announcements and the best way to reach them. You can then follow-up with each of these staff members to introduce yourself and go through this same set of questions.

You should also ask journalists about their deadlines. Some journalists have daily deadlines. Timing your outreach appropriately — especially if you’re cold calling — will help ensure you get an attentive ear.

If you’ll be trying to get facetime with journalists via briefings,  find out upfront what — if any — media coverage may come from the briefing. Briefings take a lot of effort and planning on everybody’s part, so you’re smart to also ask how the briefing can be tailored to the interests of those on the call.

A preliminary call or e-mail with members of the media will help set the tone for future communications. You’ll have a better idea of how to get journalists’ attention, and they will appreciate the effort you put into delivering information they can actually use. — Crystal Bedell