Think Like the Media
Success feels good. Often success at a public relations agency means the agency has pitched something to the media and a reporter has responded to the pitch to set up an interview. (High five!)
For any marketing or PR pro, pitching to the media can be one of the most difficult things to do. Your media relations team should be adept at, obviously, having media relations, knowing who to pitch to and crafting an intentional subject line and actual pitch; but, the reality is, once the team sends the pitch into the email ether, they are simply hoping a reporter sees the client, brand, product or event in the same light the team and the client do.
The Kane Way
Kane approaches every project with a focus on building strong relationships with clients– we call it The Kane Way. The Kane Way process begins with an Intelligent Start, a phase designed to ensure we gather the intelligence needed to develop an effective strategic marketing plan and meet the client’s needs and expectations throughout our work together. We are firm believers that in order to pitch client stories, we must think like the media and be curious to learn all we can about the client.
Media Relations
At the heart of a successful media pitch is someone who thinks like the media. Kane Communications Group founder Kimberly Kane is a former TV news journalist. Vice president of client services Shelly Schumacher is a former newspaper journalist. Senior account manager Rachael Glaszcz is an Emmy Award-winning TV news executive producer. Combined, they have more than 80 years of journalism experience.
That media relations expertise is crucial when a client comes to Kane for anything from crisis management to brand awareness because being on the receiving end of thousands of media pitches puts a person in a good position to write media pitches. Kane employees think like the media because they know how a newsroom operates, how to structure a media pitch so it gets noticed, how to assist a reporter with story development and perhaps, most importantly, how to train the client’s spokesperson to speak to the media.
Media Training
No company or organization is too big or too small to have media relations training. The training can help at all levels of communication, from one-on-one conversations to networking to speaking in front of a large audience, employees or the media.
Kane’s media training specializes in crafting a client’s core values, mission and purpose into memorable and succinct key messages and supporting points. We use the analogy, every spokesperson should sound like they’re singing from the same song book.
Media training also includes preparing for an interview, handling curveball or hostile questions and controlling the narrative. It goes back to thinking like the media– if you have been trained in how the media thinks, you will be prepared to handle most any question or situation.
What Does Success Look Like?
If you’ve read this far it is easy to understand why success at a public relations agency goes way beyond a reporter responding to a media pitch. To Kane, success is client and media relations, media pitching techniques, training clients to think like the media and media monitoring, and, most importantly, it is ensuring clients achieve the level of success they are seeking.
If you are looking for a partner to help your organization develop a successful media relations strategy, the team at Kane Communications Group can offer a robust toolkit to help your company reach its goals.
