Top tips from a PR Newswire pro on how to get great news coverage

Editors are always looking for great content from external sources, particularly in these times of reduced staffing for newspapers, magazines, TV and online media. If you position your PR message to provide a solution, educate or drive action – or even better, all three – your client is more likely to get coverage.  

Kyle Frohnapple, account director for PR Newswire, discussed the ups and downs of public relations with members of the KC IABC Masters group at a dinner meeting.

Ask yourself five questions before you prepare your news release, Frohnapple recommends:

• Who is your audience?
• What’s the best format for your content?
• What value do you provide?
• What keywords will boost visibility?
• What kind of multimedia can you add?

The very best content is sharable, since social media operates on a 24/7 news cycle, he added. So always add copy for a tweet and a Facebook post to your PR release, along with multimedia – always a photo or graphic, and possibly a short video.

Here are more tips from Frohnapple on how to produce great PR content for your clients:

• Lead with the story, not the brand. Editors need original content that is useful and interesting to the target audience.
• Keep the headline brief and tweetable. The first 65 characters should be able to stand alone, as that’s the limit for Google search.
• Use a headline question and add a subhead or two. Answer the question in the body of the PR.
• Include 1-3 hyperlinks in the PR release, but never link twice to the same URL.  
• Consider what value your PR provides to your targeted audience.
• Be thrifty with word count, keeping it to 400-600 words.
• Break up copy with lists, section headers and images.
• Be sensitive to major breaking news when you’re sending out your PR release.
• Include a clean call to action in the first paragraph and in the full URL.
• Include one or two hashtags, but no more.
• Place the URL for your PR in the second paragraph, not at the end of the release.
• Do not use attachments with your release. Put the entire message in the body of the email.
• More journalists prefer to get news tips by email, rather than from social media.
• A follow-up phone call, placed at an appropriate time, never hurts. 

Freelance Exchange of KC members gear up for annual Showcase

The premiere event for the Freelance Exchange of Kansas City (#FXofKC) is coming up Sept. 29 – FX Showcase 2016. Members learned what to do and not to do to present themselves in the best positive light at the Showcase at a lively discussion at a lunch meeting.

The FX Showcase is an excellent opportunity for talented freelance writers, editors, corporate communicators, designers, photographers, social media experts and others to display their portfolios and talk about their services.

Attendees will include representatives from KC advertising and PR agencies, design firms, corporations, nonprofits and mom-and-pop shops. All of those potential clients turn to freelance or contract assistance on a regular or occasional basis and attend Showcase to search for talent.

$10 fee covers it

New this year is no-fee table/booth space for Freelance Exchange members, who just pay the $10 general admission fee for the event. Also new this year is a $10 admission fee for all visitors to the Showcase. The event takes place at the River Market event space, conveniently located near City Market and near a KC Streetcar stop.

The event starts at 10:30 a.m., Thursday, Sept. 29 with an hour-long panel discussion with FXofKC members, who will field questions about the business of hiring freelance experts for particular gigs, or as an ongoing supplement to full-time staff. Panelists are Julie Cortes, Kelly Wagner, Jason Dailey, Susan Pepperdine and Stina Hergott, all experts in copywriting, design or photography.

Trendy food on site

The exhibit floor opens at 11:30, giving attendees a chance to visit at the various booths. American Fusion, a trendy KC food truck, will be on hand for attendees to purchase lunch. The event will conclude about 3 p.m. and attendees are invited to a cash bar happy hour at Harry’s Country Club beginning around 3:30 p.m.

Some tips from the pros on how to prepare for the Showcase:

·      Bring samples of your best work, attractively displayed in scrapbook, binder, as hand-outs, or on a laptop or tablet. Include case studies, testimonials from clients, business cards, flyers, etc.

·      Collect business cards from everyone who visits your booth and take brief notes about your conversations. Follow up with an email to thank them for stopping by.

·      Be ready with a conversation opener that engages your visitors.

·      Practice your 30-second “elevator speech.” Make it sound real and conversational. Focus on what makes you different.

·      Don’t engage in long conversations with visitors – keep it short and sweet, as they have other vendors to visit.

·      Present yourself as an idea generator – someone who understands their core business and who can solve problems.

·      Be prepared for questions about rates and know how you will respond.

·      Fancy up your table to fit your brand. Tables will have black cloths, but be creative if it suits you. Bring your own table covering and any suitable decorations. Keep any table-top accessories low, so they won’t block your view, but consider adding some height to your display.

·      All display items must fit on your table. No floor displays or wall displays are permitted.

·      Consider giving out small tchotchkes with your brand; or maybe chocolates or cookies.

·      Dress as if you were going to a client meeting.

Showcase promotion

FXofKC board members are in high gear, planning widespread promotion to potential Showcase attendees. Some 3,600 postcards will be mailed by Sept. 8, posters will be placed in agencies, businesses and retail locations throughout the community and a flurry of electronic communications will be unleashed.

Registration

Watch the FXofKC Facebook page and www.kcfreelanceexchange.com for registration information, coming soon.

Hope to see YOU at FXofKC Showcase 2016!

KC streetcars rolling along with their timeless new brand

Often the simple, elegant solution turns out to be the best approach to branding, but getting there may be an indirect path. In fact, it can take a year of traveling a circuitous route to find the correct solution.

Nicole Satterwhite, left, and 

Megan Stephens discussed

branding with #FXofKC members.

Willoughby Design of Kansas City, creators of the brand for KC’s new streetcar line, rode such a journey in the past two years. Megan Stephens, Willoughby president, and Nicole Satterwhite, creative director, talked with members of the Freelance Exchange of Kansas City about the branding process at a lunch meeting at Bloch Executive Hall at UMKC.

The KC Area Transportation Authority hired Willoughby in January 2014 to create a new brand identity for KC’s regional transit system as well as the coming streetcar – the new/old, public transportation system that the metro area eagerly anticipated. The project entailed creating an umbrella name and an identity that would unite the various metro transportation operators and give the public a consistent signage system, one map, one website and one fare card. With a total price tag of $102 million for the 2.2 miles of round-trip track route and the four streetcars, the branding project was indeed high profile.

Not just another logo

So the creative minds at Willoughby went to work. “We saw an opportunity to bring all of the transit lines serving the metro area together,” Megan says. “We didn’t want to create just another logo to add to the mix.”

Within a week of winning the contract for the branding work, the Willoughby firm was told it was time to pick the color for the streetcars, which were being manufactured in Spain, with final assembly in Elmira, N.Y. “It was a classic case of putting the cart before the horse,” Megan explains. “We didn’t even have a name yet for the streetcar and we faced this impossible deadline.” The firm pushed back, saying it needed more time, but the manufacturer was insistent and offered three options – red, blue or green. None was acceptable and the Willoughby team held firm that “Kansas City can do better.”

Months of research followed around the country and across the pond, with Willoughby creatives looking at what other cities use for colors and branding of their light rail systems. “We didn’t want to be gimmicky,” Megan says, and the brand had to be timeless, sophisticated, progressive and confident.

An elegant palette

The elegant solution, Nicole says, was to keep the colors simple. “So we chose pearl, graphite and platinum, and we specifically decided to not call them black, white and gray.” The simple palette created a neutral canvas that can hold graphics when needed.

Colors finally decided, it was time for the team to name the streetcar. Again the creatives went to work researching, testing and inventing various names – dozens of iterations in all, Megan says. “Line” was seriously considered, along with “Trax,” since KC already has the Max bus system and the Connex system in Johnson County.

Two-letter solution

“But very few cities have a claim for a two-letter identity,” Megan explains, like NY, LA and DC. And KC. Since KC is recognized in surveys by 80 percent of respondents across the country, “RideKC” was ultimately declared a winner. But RideKC what? RideKC Line? Maybe just RideKC with a logo? And then a flash of inspiration came to the Willoughby team. “What if the streetcar is just called a streetcar?” Megan says.

And so it became RideKC STREETCAR.

Then came logo development. The team looked at the universal symbol for rail transportation, adapted it, market tested it, revised it, streamlined it and made it resemble the actual streetcar with its sleek front end. Voila! The brand was finished, ultimately approved and rolled out across the metro area, in time for the early May debut of the streetcars.

If you have not yet had the experience of riding the RideKC STREETCAR, do hop on for a spin around downtown. It’s free and fun.

How to set up a clear path for the Buyer’s Journey

The traditional Buyer’s Journey, which relied on personal recommendations followed by a phone call to a company, has been largely replaced with technology that yields impressive amounts of information.

Today’s buyer, in fact, doesn’t even directly contact the company until late in the game, maybe sometime around the 7^th inning, says Sheri Johnson, President of Morningstar Communications.

Sheri shared insights about “Customizing Content through the Buyer’s Journey” for B2B businesses, with members and guests of KC IABC at a breakfast meeting. She quoted research findings from several sources that increasingly point to buyers’ needs for online research, social media, data and statistics before they’re ready to make a purchasing decision.

Four stages plus one

At least three of the four traditional stages of the Buyer’s Journey – Awareness, Familiarity and Consideration – can be completed before the buyer even contacts the target company, Sheri added. “By the time they contact you, the buyer has done extensive research on your firm,” and may even be nearly ready to make the Purchase decision. Once the buyer commits to doing business with your firm, it’s then time to build that fifth stage of the Buyer’s Journey – Trust, she added, the stage where they turn into a loyal customer or client.

Since potential customers are largely doing their own purchasing research, it’s incumbent on the company to create great messaging that provides the data needed to capture attention and draw the customer in. Great messaging covers the What, So What and Now What of their research journey. “Describe what’s important for them to know using facts, features and benefits and tell them why they should care and what they should do,” Sheri said.

“Use everyday language that’s direct and easy to understand. Avoid acronyms and make sure your content is oriented toward the buyer – not what you want to say, but what they need to hear,” she recommends. “And content should be informational with news and social media. Don’t try to sell them immediately.”

Messaging strategy

Depending on the size of your company, various channels can be used to deliver your marketing message:

·      Paid channel – Ads: sponsorships, advertorials, trade shows

·      Earned channel – PR: news, publicity, speaking engagements

·      Shared channel – Social media: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter

·      Controlled channel – Collateral: website, events, blog

If it all sounds like a lot of work, it is, and the journey may be lengthy – anywhere from a few months to a year or more. But content delivery can be streamlined through marketing automation. Automation includes scheduling, segmentation and tracking of marketing campaigns, creating a systematic approach, instead of manually gathering data and trying to sort it out.

Automation tools

Several tools are available commercially to automate marketing, including HubSpot, Eloqua, Marketo, Pardot, Act-On and others. “The beauty of marketing automation programs is you can segment your list and get the data to support your case,” Sheri says. But, first, lay the foundation for success in automated marketing by making sure you’ve covered the following:

·      Clear positioning of your company and brand

·      A strong list of prospects

·      Commitment to creating 3,000 words of fresh content monthly

·      Seamless integration of website, CRM (customer relationship management) and automation technology

·      Focus on measurement