Relationship building is vital to success in this industry.  PR professionals need to continuously nurture the relationships they have with their media contacts, not only when they have a newsworthy story to pitch, but, also, when they or their clients see trends or new laws come out in their particular field or industry.  It’s truly a two-way street:  When you help reporters by providing them with great leads, fresh trends, and new topics of interest, they are more likely to turn to you when they are in need of a source.

Today, it’s also important that your firm is on the breaking edge of technology.  Firms can do this by first creating a powerful online presence. Journalists, after all, are turning more and more to the Internet for gathering research on their stories.  Having your company appear high in search engine results will have reporters and editors continuously encountering your name.  Adding informative links to your site along with having a continuously updated blog can greatly increase your SEO. Another easy way to increase your SEO is by submitting your press releases to online press submission sites.  Many of these sites are free and it takes just minutes to post your release, which is often viewed by numerous journalists and industry experts.

E-mail and RSS are becoming powerful tools in the PR industry as well. Learning to stand out is a key when submitting e-mail and story pitches to the media.  Reporters, editors and producers are bombarded with story pitches all day long – as many as 75 -100 e-mails an hour!  How can you make your story stand out from the rest?  First, it’s important to carefully craft your pitch, making the news “hook” easily recognizable to the contact and not buried in an endless stream of words.  Second, don’t forget about a captivating subject line that is the first thing the reporter sees before opening your e-mail.  Third, it’s always important to keep them wanting more.  Intrigue reporters and editors by leaving an important piece of information out that will prompt you (or them) to call back and get more information on the event or story.  We hope these points have helped. We believe we have mastered them at Pristine PR, and have had tremendous success by following them ourselves.

– Kristine Bruner