Articles, Presentations, & Press Releases

The Launch Pad
July 2004

The PR Game

Public relations, or PR as we fondly call it, is a necessary evil for any type or size of business. The term Public Relations implies conducting a relationship with the public, or in the case of a company, it implies conducting a relationship with your customers, your industry, your shareholders, your partners, and yes, your competition.

Public relations activities are necessary because they are an effective way to develop awareness and distribute information about your company, products and services. The act of conducting public relations means working with the media, which is not always a positive experience (this is sometimes the “evil” part of the phrase ‘necessary evil’). Media people are often hard to reach or in a bad mood because the whole industry has become very competitive which puts pressure on all media and publications to get some of the attention span of their readers. Simultaneously, we are all drowning in information, a lot of which is useless, so the pressure is on the media to print interesting and informative pieces that interest their readers. No wonder they’re all so cranky.

It’s not easy to get the attention of the media and convince them to do a story or article about your company or product, mainly due to this information overload. Even if you have an established relationship with editors or columnists at publications, they may not be in their job long enough due to consolidation or other business issues of their employers.
Here’s how it goes:
You have to present your information to pique the interest of the editor. Then they have to contact you. Then they have to write the story and get it right (which doesn’t always happen). And then the next time you want to contact them, they may have moved on to another department or publication. Then you start all over again.

Why do people keep playing this game? Why don’t they get a life instead? They do it because of the widely held perception that PR is free (or nearly free). If you can spend an hour of an employee’s time to write a press release, pay a hundred bucks to send it out to dozens of industry publications, and IF one of those publications writes a 2000-word article about your company’s product that reaches 200,000 potential customers, then that’s probably a pretty good return on investment. Of course, there are some very big IFs in there, but if you can get some “INK” from an editor, it’s a lot cheaper than spending thousands of dollars on a one-time ad in the same publication.

So, get ready to play the PR game. Everyone can play it. Individuals, entrepreneurs, small companies, and large gigantic corporations can play this game; it’s just a matter of scale. If you have a mega-marketing budget, you can also hire a PR agency to do all this stuff for you. They would be very happy to provide that service. However, if you’re small, it’s fairly easy and affordable to do on your own.

The Press Release
The first step of the PR game is to write a press release that can be sent out “over the wire”. Of course, today, than means the Internet or email, often sent out over a wireless network. Even though the technology involved in sending press releases has evolved from Teletype to fax to Internet and email, the basic format of a press release remains the same. Here are the basic parts:

Title- Must be engaging and newsworthy, contain keywords about what you’re announcing, and be no more than two lines, in boldface type

City, (State), Date- followed by two dashes, and the first line of the body of the press release begins on the same line

Body – your story, divided into paragraphs, no more than two pages, usually has a quote from a company executive or a customer or both

Closing boilerplate – this is usually the “About the company” section that describes the company, where it’s headquartered, its primary business, when it was founded, its website url, and any trademark information on products or company name

Contact information – Name, address, phone number, fax number, email address and web url for the company’s press contact, there may be separate contact information if the company has a PR agency

Wire Services
Today, it’s easier than ever to find ways to send out press releases, even if you’re an individual or small company. I’ve listed four online wire services below. Some have annual fees and some charge a flat fee per press release depending on where it’s distributed and to how many publications. Do some comparison-shopping to find the best rates for you. Some require that you fill out an application before learning their rates, but there is no obligation.

1. www.eworldwire.com - charges $99 for a single release to AP / Reuters
2. www.majornewswire.com - charges $75 for industry release, $399 for full national release
3. www.businesswire.com - must fill out application to obtain rates
4. www.prnewswire.com - must fill out application; they also have an annual fee of $100 (in 2003; may be higher now)

True Lies
In a press release, you want the product and company to sound as appealing as possible, so it’s tempting to stretch the truth in order to draw more attention. However, remember that this information is going out to the external world, and you don’t want any false claims out there that will get you into trouble. Therefore, err on the side of using descriptive words, backed up by facts, which describe how your products or company are unique or new or whatever your key message reflects.

When the Editor Contacts You
Remember that you need the editor probably more than they need you, so be prepared to massage their ego if necessary. It’s your job to help them by giving them great information and telling an interesting story that their readers will love and that will sell more subscriptions which will earn the editor a promotion so that they don’t have to deal with you any more. So get to it.

The editor may contact you by email or by phone to arrange an interview that will usually be conducted by phone. The purpose of the interview is for the editor to get more information about the “story” involved with your product or company. If they contact you, it’s because something in the press release got their attention. The interview is your opportunity to expand upon the information that was in the press release. That also means that you may have to get other people from your company on the phone during the interview that can answer any questions. You should have these people at least identified ahead of time, and when you are contacted you will have some flexibility in scheduling based on everyone’s availability.

Getting It Right (or Not)
Remember that PR is free or nearly-free, so there is some risk involved. The risk is that they take all the information that you gave them in the press release and in the interview, and then they print some erroneous information in the article. Or they misquote your CEO or spell her name incorrectly. Or they put in the wrong url for your website or a wrong phone number for your company. This happens fairly often; and there’s not a whole lot you can do about it. It’s extremely rare for an editor or columnist to send you a draft to check over before press time. The reason? They have a deadline and a million other things to do before that. If they did that, they would run the risk of companies wanting to rewrite their whole story, and after all, they are the editor, not you. So, there you have it. This is the down side of PR. The publication can print a correction in a subsequent issue, but who really reads those? If you end up with errors, you pretty much have to live with it.

When to Public-Relate
Some companies send press releases out every single day. That’s great if you have an unlimited PR budget, but even if you do, it may not make sense to send out a release every time someone in the company sneezes. Overloading the editors with non-newsworthy releases can mean that they just start to ignore your press releases: the “cry-wolf” syndrome. A better approach is to send out releases when you have major events such as: a new product release, formation of a new strategic partnership, an acquisition, hiring a new C-level executive, announcing quarterly financial results or expanding the company internationally. With all of these situations, you must still create a story around the announcement, explain why it’s significant, and generate some excitement.

Using Your Ink
Get ready to flaunt those hard-won articles in publications. Refer to the article in your other marketing materials, or provide a quote or excerpt. If the original article is in print media, request or purchase enough originals or reprints to stuff into press kits. Also get a copy of the electronic version and post it at the company website; draw attention to it from your homepage. If the article also lives elsewhere on the web, such as the website of the publication, post a link from your website to theirs; the publication will appreciate that and you will increase your good will with them. One note of caution: the publication’s website may only post articles or keep them in archives for a certain period of time, so make sure that you find out how long it will be there; you don’t want dead links from your website.

Quick and Quirky Example
Instead of doing a fictitious press release, I thought it would be better (and a WHOLE lot faster) to just paste in a REAL freshly wired press release. This one came from PR Newswire and is a new product announcement.

Shavlik Technologies Rolls Out Agent-Based Security Patch Management Solution

Now Available for Purchase, Shavlik Security Agents Caters to Companies With Specific Agent-Based Requirements

ST. PAUL, Minn., June 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Shavlik Technologies, LLC( http://www.shavlik.com ), a leading security software and services provider, today announced the commercial availability of its Shavlik Security Agents security patch management solution. The agent-based application gives network administrators the option to roll out patches via agents for customer applications that require them.
The majority of networks today are well-served with agent less patch management, and agent less solutions continue to grow in popularity for many reasons: rapid deployment, low acquisition cost, low ongoing maintenance, minimal performance overhead, and a low total cost of ownership.
However, some applications respond better with an agent-based solution. Machines required to reside in a demilitarized zone (DMZ), mobile users and disconnected or inactive machines can be better served by agent technology, which collects and computes information locally, then transmits data to a central server or network console. Agents can also be important when administrators need to minimize information transmitted to the server or decrease overall network traffic.
Shavlik now provides customers with the best of both worlds – the industry-leading Shavlik HFNetChkPro agentless solution to protect machines permanently installed or newly introduced to the network and the new agent-based Shavlik Security Agents for the hard-to-reach places on networks.
"Our mission is to help customers patch every computer that poses a security risk, regardless of the environment," said Mark Shavlik, president and CEO, Shavlik Technologies. "Agent and non-agent solutions for Microsoft and non-Microsoft environments are all part of our arsenal. The key is identifying the best security tools for a company's needs and getting them into the hands of the administrators. Our goal is to provide customers with a choice as to which technology they prefer to use to fix the problem."
With Shavlik Security Agents, either the application's agent or the server can initiate patch communications. Each computer can periodically poll the patch server, or the server can scan computers for new updates. This allows for effective patching of mobile users and ensures a higher degree of patch accuracy in environments where machines are not continuously connected to the network.
Shavlik Security Agents can be purchased as a stand alone agent-only product or can be used in conjunction with Shavlik HFNetChkPro 4.3 to provide customers with both agent-based and agent less products that utilize Shavlik's widely-used Shavlik HFNetChk security patch engine.

About Shavlik Technologies, LLC
Shavlik Technologies helps information technology managers and administrators manage computer system security including assessment, security scanning and remediation of security vulnerabilities due to missing patches, weak accounts and passwords. Shavlik's security solutions include Shavlik HFNetChkPro, the industry standard for security patch management, and Shavlik EnterpriseInspector, a powerful network inspection tool.
Founded in 1993, Shavlik licenses its industry-leading technology to partners including BindView, ENDFORCE, Marimba, Microsoft, Mobile Automation, NetIQ, Quest Software and Symantec. Shavlik can be reached at http://www.shavlik.com .
Shavlik Technologies is a registered trademark in the United States and certain other countries, of Shavlik Technologies. Additional Shavlik product names are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Shavlik Technologies. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

SOURCE Shavlik Technologies, LLC
Web Site: http://www.shavlik.com
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May you be blessed with lots of ink and happy editors…

Catherine Kitcho
The Launch Doctor