The clock is ticking and there’s less than 3 weeks to go until Infosecurity Europe 2017. So, you should be well on your way to developing your big news story for the show.
Once you’ve got your story, it’s vital that you follow a few golden rules to give your organisation the best possible chance of getting the journalist’s attention. You need to make sure your team has set aside some time to put in place, update or source the following essentials so that you can really make the most of the media profiling opportunity presented at Infosecurity Europe 2017:
1. Named media contacts:
All too often press releases never get to the intended recipient because they are sent to generic email addresses like news@publication.com. You need to have a ‘named’ contact to send your press release to because generic email addresses are rarely monitored at busy times, if at all. By personalising your email your organisation comes across as being far more switched on, thoughtful and interested. If you want a journalist to use your story shouldn’t you, at least, know their name?
2. A picture speaks volumes:
Good quality photography, or graphics, which bring your story to life can give you the edge over your competitors. This is because good images provide you with an opportunity to dominate the page and side-line other stories. Magazines prefer to receive images as Jpegs and PNG files so make it is easy for the publication to use your material by sending your images in this format. Images should be sent as attachments to the email, not pasted in to the body of the release.
3. Make it a headline worth reading:
The headline is going to be the first thing the journalist reads which means that it needs to be short, informative and attention grabbing. Remember, news editors will receive hundreds of emails a day – so don’t try and be clever, keep to the point and let the editor jazz them up if they think appropriate.
Three simple things that can provide you with significant marginal gains.
With images, videos and dynamic content currently having a major contribution to the success of your posts, you need to make sure that the images you are using are the right fit, below are three tips for you on resizing images.
1. Selection is a key process – Choose the highest resolution available, this makes it easier to manipulate or resize. I have found that Photoshop or Microsoft Office Picture Manager are the most useful programmes to edit images. Photoshop can be used for more complex editing of photography but I prefer to use the Microsoft Office Picture Editor due to its simplicity and suitability for my needs. However this programme is unavailable on the current Microsoft Office Suite but is downloadable using these instructions.
2. Make it a perfect fit – When uploading images to a blog or social media all your images should be the same size to create a more fluid look. Here is a handy link that outlines specific sizes for individual websites and the sizing for their posts/updates etc. use these and your images will look great.
3. Check, check and check again – When uploading your images always ensure that your image quality hasn’t been impacted. If your image seems to have changed in any way and your images appear blurred you may need to resize your image (ask your website manager for suitable sizes).
Where can I find suitable images?
To ensure you get the best images for your website use suppliers that have a wide selection, are cost effective and have high quality stock. I like to use the following sites: Pixabay – Free images that are downloadable and includes permissions that allow you to use for your blog and social media posts. Freeimages – This site also has free downloadable images for use on your blogs and social media posts with permissions. Shutterstock – Depending on your budget this option has an endless selection of great images but at a pretty penny.
The clock is ticking and there’s less than 3 weeks to go until Infosecurity Europe 2017. So, you should be well on your way to developing your big news story for the show.
Once you’ve got your story, it’s vital that you follow a few golden rules to give your organisation the best possible chance of getting the journalist’s attention. You need to make sure your team has set aside some time to put in place, update or source the following essentials so that you can really make the most of the media profiling opportunity presented at Infosecurity Europe 2017:
1. Named media contacts:
All too often press releases never get to the intended recipient because they are sent to generic email addresses like news@publication.com. You need to have a ‘named’ contact to send your press release to because generic email addresses are rarely monitored at busy times, if at all. By personalising your email your organisation comes across as being far more switched on, thoughtful and interested. If you want a journalist to use your story shouldn’t you, at least, know their name?
2. A picture speaks volumes:
Good quality photography, or graphics, which bring your story to life can give you the edge over your competitors. This is because good images provide you with an opportunity to dominate the page and side-line other stories. Magazines prefer to receive images as Jpegs and PNG files so make it is easy for the publication to use your material by sending your images in this format. Images should be sent as attachments to the email, not pasted in to the body of the release.
3. Make it a headline worth reading:
The headline is going to be the first thing the journalist reads which means that it needs to be short, informative and attention grabbing. Remember, news editors will receive hundreds of emails a day – so don’t try and be clever, keep to the point and let the editor jazz them up if they think appropriate.
Three simple things that can provide you with significant marginal gains.
My task this week was sourcing and adding video to our website, as well as reporting back on this b2b PR blog what I learnt in the process. So here’s my quick guide to help you on your way to finding, choosing and uploading great video to communicate your message.
Be clear about what you want to achieve: There are a lot of videos out there. So, to save time and energy have a clear idea about what you want your video to say or demonstrate to your audience. Ask yourself – what’s its purpose on my website.
Do I need permission to use this video: Approach with caution… Using video from third parties on your website that is not covered by the ‘Creative Commons Licence’ can land you in some very hot water. Here’s a link for more information about Creative Commons Licence https://creativecommons.org/
My top three sources of high quality video content: You can find videos on websites such as Youtube, istock and Vimeo and depending on your budget you can either share or purchase videos that are most suitable to help achieve your desired result (Tip: You can locate video material covered by the Creative Commons Licence using this search tool https://search.creativecommons.org/?q)
What is effective content: For your video to be effective it must outline or demonstrate your key messages clearly. Try to make sure that the video you use is of reasonable length and maintains your audiences’ interest.
Ask for feedback: After completing your search, it is always extremely valuable to get the feedback of others. Showing colleagues your short list of videos before embedding or publishing content can you help you establish whether you have achieved your desired outcome. Give it a fanfare:
When embedding or publishing your video it is always useful to put together a few words and use an attention grabbing title to compliment your post.
My chosen video features Dr. Genevieve Bell from University of Melbourne she is delivering a keynote address entitled ” The Internet of Things” at 4YFN in 2014. Geraldine’s speech lasts for just 14 minutes. She is informative, engaging, humorous and insightful and although this talk was delivered in 2014 it stands the test of time because it is so well executed. Genevieve delivers informally but with complete authority keeping the subject moving so that you never lose interest.
Emmett & Churchman Ltd is a private limited company registered in England and Wales.
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Phase three: The Bee Hive
PR Delivery
The Bee Hive is all about creativity and delivery, intelligently and proactively performing. There are no new whiz bang tools – just careful, consistent and disciplined delivery, including:
Brilliant Ideas Bank – we create an engaging, on-strategy content calendar, ideas for thought leadership, white papers, comment & insights
Media relations – we build relationships on your behalf to identify, develop and place your stories
Event support – we deliver a structured package of activities to make your 2-day event last six months
Technical authorship – our writing is second to none. We will develop, place, interview experts, draft and gain approvals as part of the deal.
Press interviews – we develop, secure, brief experts, facilitate and follow up opportunities
All editorial writing – whether it’s releases, features, white papers, blogs or ad hoc content, we’ve got it covered.
Project management – meetings, admin, monthly ROI reporting. We’re methodical and love a good project report!
Evaluation – in order to improve campaign design and performance.
We take great pride in delivering CEOs and CMOs of tech companies with certainty through accountable, effective and thought-provoking PR consultancy, underpinned by a proven phased approach and a performance guarantee. Let’s engage.
Once you have your strategy, we need to activate it by introducing it to the wider team, embedding it amongst stakeholders and making sure the available Marcomms tools are updated and aligned. There are six key tools in The Forge, which can be selected according to individual client needs:
An engagement programme ensures internal stakeholders understand and buy-in to new comms strategy by demonstrating how it will make their jobs easier/better/more productive
An audit of all Marcomms materials to make sure all the tools required to communicate with your target personas are updated or created and fully aligned.
Develop a messaging matrix to ensure that all Personas have collateral serving appropriate messages at each stages of the buying cycle.
Collaborate to design individual campaigns to achieve specific business objectives amongst target personas such as cross-sell, upsell, customer acquisition etc.
PESO modelling delivers integrated marcomms, extends reach and optimises investment. This helps to determine internal marketing team and external agency campaign deliverables.
Tailored media training ensures your spokespeople are equipped to engage effectively with the media and conduct themselves with confidence.
…and to complete the package here’s a summary of our PR delivery process – The Bee Hive.
The tangible outcome of the Messaging Lab is a fully-validated communication strategy which is aligned to your sales requirements including: a value proposition, segment prioritisation, target personas, positioning statements and messaging.
The Messaging Lab comprises a series of structured workshops and consultancy engagements that deliver actionable insights comprising:
Comms workshop
– focuses on developing and evidencing your value proposition, segmentation priorities and target personas.
This process hones your understanding of potential target segments in order to decide which ones to proactively address. It ensures we know who we are engaging with and why; better targeting reduces waste and promotes marketing/sales collaboration.
Messaging workshop
– concentrates on forming and refining your positioning statements and messaging.
This helps you to save time and money by providing focus and specificity, rigour protects reputation against false or loose claims and elevates the communication.
It ensures that compelling messaging is developed for every stage of the buying cycle for each persona with whom you wish to engage.
Validation
– Comms strategy research with external stakeholders
This ensures the strategy is the best it can be, peer feedback is considered and on-boarded or actively rejected. Several iterations of the comms strategy may follow to ensure the strategy fits and resonates both with external stakeholders and sales and marketing stakeholders.
