Reporters, journalists and editors are very busy people. The nature of their business is that it is deadline-driven. They are forever chasing the latest news story, looking for the elusive "scoop." Every day they wade through a deluge of press releases from marketing executives and PR firms, searching for the occasional pearl among the oyster shells. To a certain extent, your success in getting your story published depends on how well you package it for the news media.

I hasten to point out that packaging alone is not enough. The story itself must have news value. You can't "sell" a stale and un-newsworthy story with gimmicks or slick packaging.

That being said, it's still a challenge to make sure your news item rises above the noise threshold and gets the editor's attention. The average boating writer gets hundreds of press releases every month - new products, new gadgets, new management appointees, plant expansions, plant closings, new dealers - you get the picture. When I was a trade reporter, I used to open my mail with the trash can between my legs. At least 90 percent of the press releases went straight into the can. Now that most press releases come by e-mail, it's even easier - you just keep one finger always on the delete key while browsing your in-basket.

So here are a few practical suggestions that I hope will help you get better press coverage for your company, based on 25+ years in the PR business:

1. Make sure it's newsworthy. If it's not news, don't bother.

2. State the news clearly. Your press release or media advisory should summarize the key news message in the first paragraph. Keep it straightforward and businesslike. Save the flowery creative prose for your ads and sales brochures.

3. Build relationships. Cultivate personal relationships with key editors. Get to know them. Learn about their lives, their families and their interests. You don't always need to have an "agenda" when meeting with the press, other than just building and sustaining friendships.

4. Call a press conference. If your news is sufficiently important, you might want to consider holding a press conference - either at a major trade show or in a media center such as New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Paris or London. But remember, journalists are very busy - especially when they're covering a big boat show. Don't waste their time convening a press conference to make a trivial announcement that could be covered by a simple press release.

5. Hit the road. Take your story to the press. Schedule a trip to the major publishing centers, and meet with editors and journalists in their own offices. This gives you a great chance to establish personal relationships and also lets you present your messages in a less formal atmosphere. Reporters often prefer a private interview over a formal press conference, since they can develop their own "angle" on the news without sharing the story with their competitors. Obviously, this works best when there's a concentration of appropriate media in a relatively small number of cities.

6. Make it easy to cover your story. You'll have a better chance of getting your story into print if you do as much as you can to save extra work for the journalists. Provide straightforward, well-written copy and interesting photos. Give them everything in electronic format, and don't forget that image files must be high-resolution (300 dpi JPEGs are preferred). 

7. Finally, I refer you back to Item #1 above. Make sure it's newsworthy. No matter how nicely you dress up a dog, it's still a dog.

By: Jim Rhodes, President

I am a great fan of co-op advertising.
When it works smoothly, a co-op advertising program is a classic "win-win" proposition. It extends the manufacturer's advertising budget, and helps dealers compete in their local markets. On the other hand, I can tell you from experience that co-op can become an administrative nightmare for both parties if the rules are not spelled out clearly and followed thoroughly. The most important thing is to have a written plan, which states the rules for eligibility, reimbursement, qualifying media, reimbursement, approvals and documentation.

Let's dissect a typical co-op plan.

Company X sells its Brand X widgets through a national dealer network. The company agrees to reimburse authorized dealers 50 percent of qualified advertising costs up to 2 percent of the dealer's annual purchases of Brand X widgets. At the beginning of each year, the company's co-op ad manager computes the amount in each dealer's co-op account, based on the previous year's sales volume. Co-op reimbursements are made in cash, until the account is depleted, providing that the dealer's account status is in good standing. The dealers must "use it or lose it." Amounts do not carry forward into the next year.

The co-op program covers magazine and newspaper ads, direct mailers and flyers, yellow page display ads, radio and television. Company X reimburses up to one-half of the actual costs incurred by the dealer, but only for that portion of the ad medium actually promoting Brand X. For instance, if an ad features three different products, the dealer is only reimbursed for one-sixth of the actual cost -- total cost divided by three, then divided by two. (I'm sure you've seen ads that have a dozen different logos - in those cases the dealer only gets reimbursed for that portion of the ad featuring the Brand X logo.) For yellow pages, only "display ads" showing the Brand X logo qualify. Simple listings do not count.

The co-op plan extends only to retail dealers. Two-step distributors are reimbursed at a flat rate for featuring Brand X in their catalogs.

Company X also provides co-op funding for trade shows. Dealers are reimbursed for 50 percent of actual booth fees (space only). If the dealer shows products from other manufacturers, the reimbursement is pro-rated accordingly.

All advertisements must be approved by Company X prior to publication. The plan includes guidelines for the proper use of Brand X trademarks and logos. To ensure consistency and quality control, Company X furnishes dealers with pre-approved ad blanks and templates. All the dealers need to do is strip in their names and contact information in the space provided. The selling messages and ad layouts dovetail with the company's own national advertising campaigns.

Good record-keeping is a must. Dealers must submit complete documentation, including invoices and "tear sheets." Company X provides dealers with standard forms to compute reimbursements and submit claims.

My experience is that with co-op advertising the old familiar 80-20 rule applies - 20 percent of the dealers typically generate 80 percent of the co-op claims. In other words, dealers who use co-op tend to use it a lot, while the rest seldom use it at all. It always amazes me that more dealers do not take advantage of this subsidized advertising opportunity.

So my message to manufacturers is this - if you don't have a co-op plan, you should write one. Make sure it is comprehensive and thorough. Be specific, and don't leave any room for interpretation. Encourage your dealers to use it. Most importantly, reimburse their claims promptly and cheerfully, as long as they follow the rules. And to dealers - if you're not using co-op ad dollars, you're missing a great opportunity. Contact your manufacturers and ask about the availability of co-op money.

By Jim Rhodes

I am writing this on October 10, 2010, or 10/10/10 for short.  This is something that only happens three times in a century – October 10, November 11 and December 12.  After December 12, 2012, it will not occur again for 98 years, when October 10, 2110 rolls around. I’ll probably miss it.

You might be able to make a case for January 1, 2101, or February 2, 2002, but purists would point out that 2/2/02 is not quite the same thing unless you insert zeroes before the first two twos as in 02/02/02.

If you’re close to my age, you might remember that at the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month (November 11), schoolchildren would stand beside their desks and bow their heads for a moment of silence to honor the date and time when the guns fell silent across Europe at the end of the First World War. We called it Armistice Day.  Later it was corrupted to Veterans' Day.

Interestingly, next year will be the only time since the Armistice that we will be able to observe the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month in the 11^th year.  Cause for celebration, I’d say. Pass the bottle.

There are other ways to play with dates.  For instance some people are fond of symmetries, as in 12/22/21 or 10/11/01. If you have time on your hands, I challenge you to make a list of all the possible 6-digit symmetric dates for the rest of the 21^st  century. There are surprisingly few, especially if you disallow preceding zeros as in 01/11/10.  (Of course, if you include European style dates, with the day preceding the month, it opens all sorts of new possibilities.)

And if, like me, you are fascinated with words as well as numbers, you might ponder how the noun “date” transferred from the occasion to the object and eventually became a verb.  As in…

By Jim Rhodes

Can you buy PR with advertising? And do you need to advertise to get PR? The answer, I am happy to say, is a guarded "no" -- at least not in the way you might expect.

Let me explain. In most media, the advertising and editorial departments are separate. Editors make editorial decisions. Advertising salespeople sell space. In some publishing companies, the editorial and advertising departments report to someone called the publisher, who has overall profit-and-loss responsibility for the publication. In other companies, the publisher has no direct control over the editorial staff.

Naturally, the two departments consult frequently with each other. The editors pass along advertising leads to the sales staff, and the advertising department feeds information to the editors about their customers. But the final word on what goes into the editorial section belongs to the editor, and I can tell you that many editors are fiercely protective of their journalistic integrity.

Of course, editors aren't stupid. They know who pays the bills, and they are certainly aware of who their major advertisers are. If you are an advertiser, it may help you get their attention, and it probably improves your chances of their returning your calls. But that's as far as it goes.

Sure, we are all familiar with some publishing houses that overtly swap free editorial for ads. Their sales pitch is direct and unambiguous. Buy an ad, and we'll publish your article for free. Everybody knows the game, including the readers, who are not likely to take seriously anything they see in these "advertorial" publications.

My personal opinion is that advertorials are generally a waste of money. I would prefer to advertise in a publication that has credibility with its readers. Most readers are smart enough to know the difference between independent editorial content and advertorial sales messages. I believe publishers who indulge in the practice of selling editorial space do a disservice to their industry and in the final analysis to themselves. Sooner or later, this practice must inevitably lead to loss of credibility, and ironically diminishes the value of the medium as a vehicle for advertising.

There has been increasing pressure to sell advertising space in traditional print and broadcast media as the Internet and other non-traditional outlets have encroached on marketing budgets (which do not expand at the same rate as marketing opportunities). I also believe that the survivors in the publishing business will be those who build value in their brands, and real value lies not in short-term advertising revenues but in maintaining a strong relationship with their readers. And that relationship is built on trust.

By Jim Rhodes

I ran across an interesting Web link the other day. It's called "Care and Feeding of the Press." It's a guide for public relations professionals written by members of the Internet Press Guild, and it's packed with practical advice on how to communicate effectively with the press. Although it is aimed primarily at IT and software PR professionals, the guidelines apply equally to the boating industry. You can read the full document at www.netpress.org/careandfeeding.html. I'll summarize a few of their pet peeves.

Pet Peeve Number One is PR people who insist on following up a press release to a reporter with a phone call asking if he or she received it. This is a major gripe. Here's what the "Care and Feeding" writers have to say on this subject: "Nothing sets a writer or editor's teeth on edge more than an eager young voice saying, 'I'm calling to see if you got the press release we sent.' (It is, alas, common practice to have follow-up calls made by the most junior [read: clueless] members of an agency." They continue: "Possibly the worst phone call is when the PR person just reads from a document, and actually has no idea what he's talking about." And if you must call, make sure it's not deadline day (if you don't know the magazine's deadline day, you should find out before you make the call).

Pet Peeve Number Two is large binary files attached to unsolicited e-mails. (The "Care and Feeding" writers put it bluntly: "Let's make this clear: unsolicited attachments merit the death penalty... Do not send us e-mail attachments unless you are willing to bet your job that we want that file.") Put your press release in the body of the e-mail as an ASCII file instead of an attachment. Binary file attachments can carry viruses. Moreover, you never can tell when the journalist is trying to download e-mails from a slowpoke dial-up connection in a hotel room. The best way to make large graphics files and images available to journalists is on a Website, where they can download at their leisure.

Pet Peeve Number Three is e-mail press releases with the entire media address list in the header. 'Nuff said.

Pet Peeve Number Four is press pages on company Websites with incomplete contact information. Most reporters do their research online. You should make it easy for them to find the information they are looking for about your company and your products or services. Make sure there is a direct link to the press page from your home page; don't make them search through multiple layers of links to get there. And on your press page, make sure you list all of the key PR contacts, their areas of responsibility, their phone numbers and e-mail addresses.

Pet Peeve Number Five is PR people who do not understand the technologies and products they are supposed to be promoting. When a reporter asks for information, if you don't know the answers put him or her in direct contact with someone who does. Don't forget that writers work on deadlines, and they usually need a response right away. Too often, say the "Care and Feeding" writers, PR people create obstructions and do not follow through when asked for additional facts, photos or technical details.

Pet Peeve Number Six is long PowerPoint presentations. If you must send a PowerPoint, limit it to no more than five slides.

Pet Peeve Number Seven is asking to review an article before it is published. Most publications have a policy forbidding it. So don't ask. All you do is convey to the writer that you don't trust his or her reporting. Sometimes, the writer may agree to let you read the actual quotes that will be published, to give you a chance to confirm their accuracy. But don't count on it. If that's what you want, you should ask before the interview.

And finally, Pet Peeve Number Eight is - you guessed it - attempts to link editorial coverage to advertising. We've talked about this subject before, and I won't flog a dead horse. I will simply refer you to the code of ethics adopted by the Boating Writers International organization (www.bwi.org). Most boating industry publications and PR agencies subscribe to these guidelines.

By Jim Rhodes 

My marine marketing column "Pet Peeves of the Press" apparently struck a responsive chord, since I received a number of attaboy e-mails from marine journalists and editors. My article was derived largely from a paper called "The Care and Feeding of the Press," which was published  by the Internet Press Guild. You can download the entire 20+ page document, which is loaded with solid, practical advice, at www.netpress.org/careandfeeding.html. 

I'd like to continue along the same lines with some advice on PR e-mail etiquette.

For most of us, e-mail has become at the same time a blessing and a curse. It's a great way to communicate information quickly and inexpensively to a large group of recipients. On the other hand, spam (unwanted e-mails from the electronic equivalent of telemarketers) has reached epidemic proportions. Editors and reporters get hundreds of press releases by e-mail, and most of them review their e-mails with one finger on the delete key. So how do you make sure your e-mail press releases break through the clutter?

The Internet Press Guild offers some dos and don'ts on communicating with the press by e-mail. I have also added a few of my own.

1. Do use meaningful subject headers. Avoid personal greetings like "Hello Jim," or "Hi there." Likewise, a subject line that simply says "Press Release" doesn't convey much information. Better to say something like "Press Release from XYZ Company –Introducing New Line of Widgets for Boating Industry."

2. Don't use subject headers that look like spam. That means anything with repeated exclamation points, dollar signs or all caps. Many spam filters will automatically route it to the trash bin.

3. Don't use Hotmail, Juno, Yahoo! or AOL. It looks unprofessional and seems to say, "Hey, we're too small and poor to have a real business e-mail account."

4. Don't send attachments. Put the text of your press release into the body of your e-mail as an ASCII file. If there's a photograph to go with the press release, you can insert a "thumbnail" of the photo at the bottom of the release, with a note explaining how to order a high-resolution image for publication. Remember, attachments can carry viruses. You won't make friends with the press by overloading their mailboxes with unsolicited 3MB image files. (Believe me, I learned this lesson from bitter experience, and I won't do it again. Honestly.)

5. Do use a signature file with full contact information. Don't attach a v-card (see #4 above).

6. Don't send a press release to your entire media list with the entire recipient list visible in the header. Learn to use the "BCC" address line.

7. Do copy yourself on your outgoing e-mails for quality-control purposes. Send a copy to your home e-mail address. It's a good way to check and see how it's coming through on the other end.

8. Do honor requests to be removed from your e-mail list.

9. Do answer all legitimate e-mail queries from the press. Even if you don't know the answer to the question, or if you are unable to divulge the information, have the courtesy of sending a reply and saying so. We try to respond to all e-mails every day, even if it's just a matter of saying, "We received your query, and we'll respond by Friday with an answer."

By Jim Rhodes

One aspect of marketing communications that is too often neglected is proofreading.

I am amazed at the number of e-mails I get containing misspelled words, poor grammar and improper syntax. For instance, it seems to me that at least once a day I get e-mails from people confusing "there" and "their."

I suspect the problem is that computer spell-checking software has made people lazy, especially when it comes to e-mails. People just don't take the time to read through their messages before hitting the "send" button.

The point is this: If you are sending out direct mailers, broadcast e-mails, press releases or any other form of written communication to your customers, you ought to take proofreading seriously. No matter how compelling your prose or persuasive your message, if it is full of mistakes, your readers will judge your professionalism accordingly.

Like most PR firms, we take proofreading very seriously. Our product is the written word, and proofreading is an essential element in our quality control.

That's why we have a tough proofreading policy. Every press release or article for publication must be proofed aloud by two people before we release it to the media. Ideally, neither of them should be the person who wrote the original copy. It's a practice that catches most mistakes, and I recommend it to you.

Even a relatively minor mistake, such as a misplaced modifier, can cause a great deal of mischief. I still have a yellowed news clipping from the California Newspaper Publishers Association over 25 years ago concerning a typographical error in a classified ad and subsequent attempts to correct it.

(Monday) FOR SALE - R. D. Jones has one sewing machine for sale. Phone 958-0707 after 7 p.m. and ask for Mrs. Keely who lives with him cheap.

(Tuesday) NOTICE - We regret having erred in R. D. Jones' ad yesterday. It should have read: One sewing machine for sale. Cheap. Phone 948-0707 and ask for Mrs. Kelly who lives with him after 7 p.m.

(Wednesday) R. D. Jones has informed us that he has received several annoying telephone calls because of the error we made in his classified ad yesterday. His ad stands correct as follows:

FOR SALE - R. D. Jones has one sewing machine for sale. Cheap. Phone 948-0707 after 7 p.m. and ask for Mrs. Kelly who loves with him.

(Thursday) NOTICE - I, R. D. Jones, have no sewing machine for sale. I SMASHED IT. Don't call 948-0707, as the telephone has been taken out. I have not been carrying on with Mrs. Kelly. Until yesterday she was my housekeeper, but she quit.

I rest my case.