Old News Can Get New Coverage

Reverse-engineering your stories
Reverse-engineering a press release means starting with a story that’s making headlines and finding a way to connect it to your company. There are dozens of news events happening every day that can be logically tied into your business. Don’t miss those opportunities.

Help the reporters do their jobs. Tie your local angle into national stories. Help newspapers, magazines, blogs, websites, radio and television shows sell their stories by bringing in a human-interest angle whenever possible. If you can provide the media with real news, they will be delighted to feature your company.
 
To develop real news, you must keep refining your news hooks until you find one that really meets a need. Don’t send out press releases highlighting your wonderful company, hoping for coverage, unless you can show that you provide at least one benefit to potential readers or viewers—whether that benefit is entertainment, information, instruction or enlightenment.

At The Investor Relations Group, we specialize in breaking national news stories whether or not there is currently “new” news from a company. We do this by coming up with several angles that tell our client’s story in different ways. Below is a simplification of the formula we use to produce news releases about a company that actually has no “new” news:

1. We simply work on a story about the company and put it out in a release.
2. We do a “hook” announcement. This is where we somehow tie our client company to some breaking news story or event.
3. We do a key issues and solutions announcement.
4. We write an announcement highlighting a client’s website address and what that site offers.
5. We write an educational roundup release. (The Ten Things You Can Do in Order to …) We then prominently weave our client’s product, service or company into that Top Ten, Top Five, The Single Most, etc.
6. We send out an interview we did with our client company president or product developer.
7. We initiate and publicize a survey that applies to our client’s target market.
8. We write and offer targeted publications an article on alternative uses, perspectives, etc.

By the time we finish this whole cycle, our company most likely has real news. This allows us to put out a new feature or milestone announcement, and so forth.
 
Remember to Keep it Simple…
According to author Robert Slater in Jack Welch and the GE Way (McGraw-Hill, 1998), “Keep it Simple” was the blueprint followed by Welch in transforming GE. Welch is quoted as saying: “Simple messages travel faster, simpler designs reach the market faster, and the elimination of clutter allows faster decision making.”
 
Simplicity takes on several meanings in business. To an engineer, it means clean, functional designs with fewer parts. In manufacturing, it’s judging a process by how understandable it is to those who make it work. In marketing, it means clear messages and clean proposals to consumers and industry customers.
 
In public relations, it means clear, forthright messages.