I recently told a friend of mine who is a journalist that I was doing online PR. “Ah”, she said, “you’ve become the enemy!” We had a good old giggle, but this illustrates perfectly the love-hate relationship journalists have with PRs and why it is such a challenge for us PRs to pitch to them.
Just to explain how it all works, here is what I do. As a PR, it’s my job to ‘manage the flow of information between an organization (my client) and the public (target market)’. Just like with offline PR, I need to create personas, or target market segments, find out which publications they read (in my case websites) and then get their products onto these websites, for free. Some people think this means pushing out an offline press release on a news wire, but it is much more than that and with online PR particularly, the relationship with the journalist is key.
We are increasingly aware of how customers are looking to get the best price for the best product, but how can us online marketers ensure that we reach these potential purchasers and get under the skin of what really motivates their buying habits?