Insights for Leaders Navigating
Visibility, Credibility, and Growth.
From media strategy to reputation management, we explore the trends shaping public perception and share the approaches that drive measurable results for growing brands.
The public relations industry is always evolving. As such, PR pros must remain on our toes to adapt to new techniques and business trends, refresh our skills, and gain a competitive edge over other industry professionals. Central to the success of a PR pro is our ability to learn. We must keep ourselves informed about new and emerging technologies and techniques so that we are able to provide clients with the very best counsel and service we can.
What learning skills do PR pros need to be successful? Outlined below are five examples.
Translating Complex Topics
As a PR professional, it is routine to take a subject we had zero knowledge about in the morning and become an expert on it by 4 p.m. that same day. We are tasked with reducing the complexities of enormous operations with lots of moving parts into an email or even a subject line that a reporter might be inclined to click on. While the timeframe we have to do this in may be a tad more flexible, it can often be challenging to ensure the optimal outcome for our client.
Be it hosted PBX solutions, geospatial intelligence or cloud-based ERP solutions, it is essential for communications professionals to have the ability to research, understand, translate and communicate complex technology and solutions into clear messaging for the non-technical business user.
Curious Nature
While it is common to be curious about something we don’t know, what keeps us more curious is when we start learning it. Having an initial knowledge of any subject will let our curiosity flow in the right direction and help us become even more eager to learn. We will know what questions we need answered, which makes way for focused learning. To develop or stimulate curiosity, we must seek out opportunities to ask better questions and challenge conventional processes. As we do, we can find better answers outside of existing boundaries.
Asking Questions
Expert learners are also expert at asking questions. Great learners ask intentional questions that will lead them to the root of an issue so they can understand it better. All communications professionals must hone our question-asking skills. Knowing how to navigate an interview with an executive, subject matter expert, client or other key stakeholders gives us the critical information we need to communicate the message we are tasked to oversee. Preparing good questions is a start but having the background to nimbly adjust during the discussion often makes all the difference.
Listening
Once we’ve done the research and asked thought-provoking questions, it’s time to listen. Only when we keenly listen can we have the level of understanding needed to engage with key audiences. Through active listening, we can tailor messages especially for each audience, who are then able to relate to what the client is communicating. The better PR pros listen, the better we speak and write.
Assessing Outcomes
Reflection and introspection in learning are crucial, and the more accurate, the better. Both under- and overconfidence in our knowledge and abilities can lead us to fail to perform at our best. The same is true in PR. Measurement of a PR campaign reveals what’s working and what’s not – it enables us to learn from the project to drive better results in the future. Moreover, evaluating outcomes and reporting the results and takeaways of our PR efforts helps justify PR spending and value-add to our clients.
Public relations is a lifelong learning commitment. As such, PR pros must cultivate the five key learning skills outlined above in order to be successful and drive the best results for the clients we support.
As individuals advance in their PR agency careers, they are often given new roles and responsibilities around business development. Senior account executives, account managers, account directors and vice presidents may all play a role in winning new business, whether it’s leading the development of the presentation, participating in a new business meeting, or assisting with research.
Having well-developed skills in business development can be very helpful to advancing one’s career. However, for some individuals these skills don’t come naturally. In this blog, I’ll share a few tips that may be helpful for individuals looking to develop skills in this area.
Adopt the right mindset
The first thing to remember is that your success in business development depends on creating a connection and goodwill with a prospective client and uncovering their needs. It’s about identifying how you (and your team) can add value and help the prospect achieve their top business objectives.
Many people make the mistake of overselling or trying to share how their expertise might be relevant, but this can backfire, especially if they haven’t done the proper due diligence. Business development is about connection and discovery, and it’s about service before self-interest.
Given this, you’ll want to prepare your list of questions to aid you in the discovery process. Often the prospective client has a limited amount of time, so you need to focus on the things that matter most, and you need to listen carefully to responses. Develop active listening skills, which often begin with learning how to paraphrase what your client has said for better understanding.
Asking the Right Questions
Depending on the prospective client and how well you know them, it may make sense to begin the discussion with a focus on gaining a sense of how your contacts are doing both professionally and personally. What are the projects they enjoy working on the most? What are they most proud of accomplishing in the past year? What are their top objectives for the coming year? Why are their objectives important, what’s at stake and what is keeping them up at night?
Again, it’s vital to pay close attention to the answers and listen for opportunities for mutual wins. Paraphrase what you’ve heard in a way that demonstrates understanding and empathy.
Once You’ve Identified a Win-Win
Share your initial idea and insert something like, “Given what you’ve said about…, would it be helpful if we developed a proposal to help you with… .”
At this stage, you’ll be in a terrific position to gain a sense of the prospect’s thoughts and whether they have budget to support the work. If your contacts do not have a budget, you’ll want to find out who does so you can begin to relationship-build with them.
Broadening Your Network
Finally, you’ll want to ask for introductions to others you should meet within the coming weeks. To do this you might ask if they would be willing to introduce you to others in your business unit who are well connected, have budget and frequently need help.
The goal here is to connect with formal leaders as well as their deputies or influencers. The deputies are individuals who can share insight into the decision maker and help you understand their goals, motivations, interest, schedules and workloads.
Putting This Into Action
In advance of discussions with prospective clients, it’s often helpful to develop a script or an outline of the points you want to cover and commit it to memory. You may also want to role-play with a third person who can observe and critique your messages.
Measuring Success
As you self-evaluate your business development skills, consider how you’ll measure your success. Some easy ways to know if your actions are effective might include gaining an opportunity to develop a proposal for work, securing introductions to other leaders or influencers in the organization, or coming up with a new idea that you can act on to secure work.
Ultimately, you want to connect with people to understand their objectives and problems, so you can discover ways to help them. As trusted advisors, PR professionals can help clients achieve important communication objectives while at the same time freeing up their time for more valuable, meaningful and scalable work.
Earlier this year, I came across a report by Propel that analyzed 1 million pitches sent to journalists to better understand if email pitches result in media coverage. That report found that of more than 726,000 emails sent, only 29% were opened, 3% got a response and 8% resulted in media coverage.
Yet, a new report from Agility PR Solutions found that less than 30% of PR and communications professionals reported an increase in the difficulty of earning coverage between June 2020 and May 2021. And that 38% reported that it was about the same difficulty level while a combined 35% say that earning coverage has become somewhat less difficult or much less difficult.
So, why is it that, while so few emails are opened, PR professionals aren’t finding it increasingly difficult to secure coverage?
Tailored Outreach
Agility PR Solutions’ report found that nearly 75% of respondents pitch less than 100 media contacts. Which, when you consider some individuals are reporting pitching more than 500 contacts, is quite small.
With every pitch or announcement, the press list needs to be tailored. When building a media list, it’s important to stop and ask, “Why would this reporter care?” and more importantly, “Why would their readers care?” If there isn’t a clear answer, don’t pitch them.
This approach is crucial to securing media coverage, but also to building lasting relationships that you can utilize for the long-term.
Adding Value
When asking why a reporter would care about your pitch, that’s when you should uncover the value of your offering. Are you providing them with unique data, an interview with a prominent thought leader, unique multi-media assets or a compelling story angle? If not, reconsider your pitch and determine how you can offer value.
While we often view the main goal of pitching as securing coverage (because it is), it can be helpful to shift the focus to supporting a journalist’s reporting. By treating the reporter like a client and being thoughtful about what your offer, you’ll likely be more successful in securing coverage.
PR professionals are continuing to get creative in what they are offering to journalists that may be of interest. According to the report:
- 45% of PR and communications professionals provide video footage
- 44% offer exclusive interviews
- 38% provide external links to web pages, documents, etc.
- 35% share high-quality images
New Forms of Coverage
With reporters stretched thin, many outlets are increasingly accepting and seeking contributed content. This is a great way to secure coverage that supports an organization’s key messages and highlights an executive’s thought leadership platform.
When developing a pitch, consider if the angle you’re offering would also make a compelling contributed piece. If a reporter doesn’t have the time to cover the topic, but still finds it interesting, there is still an opportunity to secure coverage.
It’s no secret that media are inundated with pitches, so in order to capture their attention and be successful in driving results, outreach needs to be thoughtful, creative and strategic.
Life and work in the era of COVID-19 have taken big blows. The impact on performance at work and our rest at home has been profound, and it’s an ongoing story. The pandemic that hasn’t really ended yet has prompted mental health professionals to rethink some of the longstanding ideas about stress, motivation and fatigue – and the best ways to handle them.
In recent years, and especially in the wake of disastrous domestic events, we’ve taken to using the term PTSD to describe a wide range of calamitous emotional experiences. But the term’s use may not be accurate. When we use the term, we’re using a phrase first coined in 1915, to describe the condition of troops recovering from combat in World War I (“shell shock” was another name for it).
George A. Bonanno, a professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University, argues that we vastly overestimate how common PTSD is, and we likewise often fail to recognize how resilient people really are. In his latest book, The End of Trauma: How the New Science of Resilience Is Changing How We Think About PTSD, he offers many relatively new ideas about stress and the fact that how to handle it can actually make things worse.
No one-size-fits-all thinking
Bonanno writes: “A group of mindfulness experts recently cautioned, in a paper published in a leading psychology journal, that misinformation about the effectiveness of mindfulness can mislead people, and can even lead to harm.” Studies and case reports “have linked meditation to serious side effects, including increased anxiety, panic, disorientation, hallucinations, and depersonalization—the feeling of being disconnected from oneself.”
Bonanno says ending trauma calls for flexibility — realizing that there is no “one-size-fits-all” ways to handle trauma. “All of this research points to the same basic conclusion: coping and emotion regulation strategies are inherently neither good nor bad,” Bonanno says. “Every strategy has costs and benefits, and a given strategy is effective only insofar as it helps us meet the demands of a specific situation.”
COVID information fatigue
Among the more inescapable ways fatigue has crashed into our lives is a special brand of tiredness that we can’t seem to escape: COVID news fatigue. It’s distinct from the physical fatigue that accompanies actual diagnosis of COVID-19, but it’s no less real than the disease itself. It’s a result of the constant drumbeat of information – some hopeful, much of it depressing – that’s accompanied the worst global public-health crisis in literally 100 years.
With COVID fatigue, “You’re tired in your soul — emotionally, psychologically, socially, spiritually, you are just tired and not motivated,” said Dr. Carl Lambert, assistant professor of family medicine at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, on the American Medical Association website.
The World Health Organization offers its own counsel: “Minimize watching, reading or listening to news that causes you to feel anxious or distressed; seek information only from trusted sources … Get the facts; not rumors and misinformation. Facts can help to minimize fears.”
Lambert counsels, “[M]aintain hope that things will get better. That feeds into what’s happening nowadays with the vaccine and all these other avenues that are providing hope. If there’s anything that you can do to maintain hope, that’s really the way to go.”
Workplace: Hothouse for stress
The workplace is a main incubator for stress and fatigue, as where we do our work has changed in recent years, and certainly since COVID-19 made working from home more than a pleasant option. The disconnection from colleagues and the collegial environment of the original workplace can be corrosive, making one constantly feel outside the action. And the homebound stressors we got a break from when we left home to go to work are there with WFH employees all day long.
University of Washington recreation fitness manager Jeff Palmer suggests several exercise-focused tips for staying motivated and minimizing fatigue that include starting your day with a plan or schedule, squeezing in shorter bouts of activity, practicing healthy and mindful eating, and noticing how good exercise makes you feel.
Motivation traps
Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Bror Saxberg, vice president of Learning Science at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and Richard Clark, a professor emeritus of psychology and technology at the University of Southern California, identified four motivation traps we’re prone to in the workplace:
Trap 1: Values Mismatch
“When a task doesn’t connect with or contribute to something workers value, they won’t be motivated to do it,” Clark and Saxberg say.
How to help: Learn what the employee cares about and connect it to the task. Managers often make the mistake of thinking about what motivates them, assuming the same is true of their employees.
Trap 2: Lack of Self-Efficacy
“When workers believe they lack the capacity to carry out a task, they won’t be motivated to do it,” the educators say.
How to help: Build the employee’s sense of confidence, competence and self-efficacy by pointing out times in the past when they’ve successfully tackled similar challenges, or share examples of others who’ve overcome the same challenges.
Trap 3: Disruptive Emotions
“When workers are consumed with negative emotions such as anxiety, anger, or depression, they won’t be motivated to carry out a task,” they say.
How to help: In private, tell the employee you want to understand why they are upset, and engage in active listening. Be nonjudgmental by asking what the employee believes is causing them to be upset. Then, summarize what they said back to them and ask if they understood. If they say “no,” apologize and tell them you are listening carefully and ask if they would “please try again.”
Trap 4: Attribution Errors
“When employees can’t accurately identify the reason for their struggles with a task, or when they attribute their struggles to a reason beyond their control, they won’t be motivated to do it.”
How to help: Help the employee think clearly about the causes of their struggles with a task. Attribution errors often happen when employees hunt for excuses not to perform a given task. “Helping the employee identify exactly why the task seems insurmountable can help them move past such avoidance.”
Email can be an overlooked skill, but it’s often apparent when people don’t have control of their inbox. They may use their time inefficiently, miss emails, lose important information or fail to respond to email in a timely manner. According to Adobe’s 2019 email usage survey, U.S. adults spend nearly three and a half hours a day on work email. Email prioritization and inbox organization affects employees, their teams, and their clients, so focusing on good email habits is important for everyone’s success.
It’s important to find techniques to manage your email that work for you. Start by understanding your productivity weaknesses. You may struggle with one or more of the following:
- Capturing (identifying and remembering tasks)
- Filtering (deciding to discard, delegate or do tasks)
- Prioritization (filtering that includes an understanding of urgency and importance)
- Focusing (limiting distractions and interruptions)
- Energy (finding the motivation and making the effort required to complete tasks)
Your process for managing email will also vary depending on your role, with whom you work, and your company’s policies. A successful system will allow you to meet deadlines efficiently and predictably without missing details while maintaining email etiquette standards like timely replies, clear and direct emails and subject lines, and proper tone.
Tackling Your Inbox
Is your inbox overloaded? Tackling a mountain of emails is no easy feat, but some key strategies can make it manageable.
Start by grouping your emails by subject line or by whom it’s from, enabling you to quickly identify and manage entire conversations without having to re-read or dig through emails.
Next, go email-by-email and determine if the message is urgent or important. Urgency implies timeliness, and importance relates to relevance to your role and responsibilities or your company’s goals. Your options for action are simple: you can delete, reply, archive or add it to your to-do list. Reach this verdict quickly – for each email, limit yourself to 30 seconds per decision. When you encounter an unimportant email, delete it. Decluttering reduces stress and streamlines your focus. If you can answer an email in less than a minute, respond to it when you read it. If an email contains information that’s unimportant today but may be vital in the future, file it away.
Now, the remaining emails should represent items on your to-do list. After you take care of anything “on fire,” prioritize the rest of your inbox. Here are some techniques:
- “Eat the Frog.” Mark Twain’s quote loosely says that if you eat a live frog in the morning, nothing worse will happen to you that day. Address the biggest, scariest task on your to-do list first. The rest of your list will seem easier. The more you delay, the more you will dread starting.
- Consider your psychological readiness. Start with one or two items from your list that you would rather do before the first item, allowing you to gain momentum while still prioritizing important tasks. This strategy is iterative, balancing urgency, importance, and readiness.
- Start with the oldest. Respond to emails from the bottom of your inbox up, preventing you from getting “stuck” on an email chain, allowing older emails to sit in your inbox for longer.
While reaching Inbox Zero, the goal of having no emails in your inbox, can be very rewarding and helpful for identifying new tasks, don’t get hung up on it if it’s stressing you out.
Setting Good Habits
Set good habits to prevent email from piling up in the first place. Here are some best practices:
- Set up folders to sort your archived email. Your file structure will be unique based on your position and how you work. Keep your system easy to maintain. Consider creating a folder system based on deadlines, a folder for each of your clients, or a place for emails that need follow-up.
- Minimize how much you check your email. Email is distracting, addictive, and less efficient than other communication. Turn off notifications and schedule regular times to check email to allow for more focused work. Limit the emails you receive by reducing the number of emails you send. Prioritize other communication channels like chat or video calls.
- Set up email templates. Identify the most frequent types of email you send and develop customizable templates, allowing you to quickly reply to emails with less time and effort.
- Set up filters to automatically file incoming mail. Most email platforms have a tool like Outlook Rules, which can filter and file messages based on sender information or subject-line keywords.
- Unsubscribe. Minimize unimportant and irrelevant emails by unsubscribing from listservs you aren’t interested in or turning off social media notifications.
The idea of perfection often gets in the way of good progress. Celebrate any improvement you make toward efficiency and iterate as needed. For continued growth, here are best-practice resources from our blog:
- Making the Most of the Subject Line – January 2021
- PR Best Practices to Avoid Rookie Mistakes – January 2021
- TL;DR: How to Make Your Writing More Readable for Your Colleagues – March 2020
- Email Signatures – What do They Say About You? – January 2020
- Email Etiquette in the Workplace – July 2019
Our “Publication Spotlight” series is designed to showcase publications that resonate with clients and future clients. This week’s spotlight is on SpaceNews, a publication that provides analysis and news that surrounds the global space industry. Below is a Q&A that provides insight into commonly asked questions.
Q: When was SpaceNews established?
This publication is owned by Pocket Ventures, LLC, and resides in Boulder, Colo. Established in 1989, SpaceNews covers technologies, organizations, companies, and trends that impact the global space industry. You can find its publication in print and online.
Q: Who is its audience?
The SpaceNews audience consists of NASA, U.S. DoD and Congress, commercial satellite manufactures, launchers, operators and start-ups. According to its media kit, SpaceNews reaches 2.6 million monthly pageviews. SpaceNews printed publication reaches 45% decision makers, 46% government and military space and 45% commercial space. Their online publication audience is 66% U.S.-based.
Q: Has SpaceNews received any awards?
Yes. SpaceNews has received awards for its online content, online featured content and social media presence. The full list can be viewed on the SpaceNews website.
Q: Does SpaceNews offer a newsletter?
Yes. SpaceNews offers 5 different newsletters that readers can subscribe to for free. Those who subscribe will receive a newsletter daily. Each newsletter focuses on a different space-related topic. Readers can subscribe through SpaceNews website.
Q: How do you submit content to SpaceNews?
Those who are interested in submitting content can access its extensive media kit that provides its editorial calendar and other information. SpaceNews’s editorial calendar runs through 2022. It offers a chance to advertise in print, online, sponsored content, newsletter and through its social media. For pricing, placement, and submission dates, it provides a submission form through its website where all inquiries can be answered.
Q: Does SpaceNews distribute its magazine elsewhere?
Yes. The magazine often gets distributed at events and tradeshows.