33 PR Tips – part II – Media

Dealing with the Media

The answers to the questions in 33 PR Tips – part I, should help you refine your PR goals. Next, you’ll be able to plan an effective PR calendar. While, of course, you can never guarantee which papers and stations will run your stories, you should decide what messages you want to promote and plan a schedule that promotes those messages strategically.

14. Sound bytes: be sure that you, your staff, faculty, and parent ambassadors can articulate your school’s mission and clearly and concisely.
15. Illustrate your points through stories about individual students and successes. 
Click here to read my past article, What’s Your Story?
16. Collect facts and statistics and use them creatively. Take a look at the way I used numbers on the back cover of a magazine I created for the Les Turchin Chabad House at Rutgers University. Note how a unique compilation of date yields a page (which could also be a story, a release, or an article in your weekly newsletter during a quiet week) where the sum is definitely greater that the total of its parts.
17. Develop relationships with editors.
18. Prepare phone pitches. Assume that you will have 30 seconds to convince reporters that your story idea will be compelling to readers.
19. Be super prompt about supplying any information, pictures, and additional contacts that reporters request.
20. Put procedures in place that outline office policy for dealing with the media during a crisis situation.
21. Summer is a significantly easier time of year to get publicity. Prepare a calendar of summer pitches now. These should include: looking back, graduation, accomplishments, and looking forward to the coming school year.
22. Don’t neglect nostalgia marketing. Many people who are still hurting from the economic downturn find comfort in looking back to the “good old days.” Share your school history with them. Old photos work wonders!

Click here to read 33 PR Tips – part I

Click here to read 33 PR Tips – part III

PR that is guided by a carefully articulated plan, will hit the target! If you have any questions about laser-targeted PR please feel free to send me an email or call 516.569.8070.

Kol tuv,

Candace Plotsker-Herman