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Saturday, 12 June 2004 |
When authors or public speakers (i.e., clients) hire a PR firm or
promotion company for the first time, they are often taken aback
by the large number of "messages" that the firm leaves with radio
stations. The clients view the situation as, "Hey, why are you
just leaving messages, and not promoting me to them?!"
Well, there are several answers here. The first is: Messages
ARE promotion. What has happened is that the client assumed
that (1) the firm is not including the client's info in the messages,
and (2) that messages are of absolutely, positively, no use at all.
And let's not forget the "receptionist" factor (also known as the
"assistant" or "producer") factor: Anyone who thinks that
leaving messages with these folks (and thus warming them up to
the idea of having the client as a guest) is a waste of time has
obviously never had to work their way through business
situations in the past.
Suppose you loaned your next door neighbor $500. You did not
know him that well, and now you hear that he might be moving
out soon. You want your money back, so you knock on his door,
and you call, but no answer. So what do you do? You leave a
message. But wait.. why would you leave a message if
messages are so useless? Then, you hear he might be moving
out as soon as tomorrow, so you try again but can't reach him.
So you leave ANOTHER message. The chances of you getting
your money back are based on how many times he hears your
messages, of course.
But some clients still just don't like messages. Some PR firms
skirt this issue by changing the words "Left Message" to
"Pitched" (giving the impression that a phone conversation about
the client occurred,) or, by not putting the messaged-stations on
the report in the first place (waiting instead until there is
human-human contact), or, by not giving reports at all, and just
letting the client see the end results. The advantage to this is
that a client won't complain of all the messages, since the
messages are invisible. But the disadvantage is that the client
does not know what is going on with these stations either, or,
that the firm is doing any work at all.
Also hidden in some reports is the fact that many people
(especially at talk stations) are involved in the possible booking of
a single client. Matter of fact, if the client is a general-topic client,
there are some talk stations that have over THIRTY separate
hosts and producers (not to mention the assistants and
receptionists) that need to be pitched individually, by phone. But
on the report, it may only appear as "Left Message" for that
single station. This type of report is easy to read, but it does
make it look like there is less going on than there really is.
One client made our point for us; he said "I've booked myself
before, and I had a 70% success rate AFTER I GOT THEM ON
THE PHONE." Yes, of course... and how do you think he got
them on the phone?.... Messages! And that's how we do it.
Messages are especially important with the only non-visual
medium: Radio. Radio people work best with sound, and they
are just not going to react as well to visual press releases.
Depending on how much you are paying your firm, they might try
to reach each station once, or they might try twice (this would
cost twice as much,) or they might not try at all, as is the case
with some lower cost campaigns. With these, they just send a
press release.
Point is, the more attempts and messages that are left, the more
responses are obtained, and the more people are spoken to (as a
result of the messages.) And thus, there are more results.
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 12 June 2004 )
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