PR 101

On March 27 Milwaukee-based Rockwell Automation, Inc. announced in an internal memo that management had come to the painful conclusion that an undetermined amount of employees were going to be laid off. The continuing recession dictated the company had to cut costs.

Within approximately five minutes of that memo going out, reporters were calling the company to inquire about the layoffs. That memo had not been made public by any of Rockwell’s official channels – it’s senior management, its public relations staff or anyone else with the authority to do so.

Therein lies the key rule of employee communications: never, ever tell your employees anything you don’t want to be made public. Employee communications should be treated exactly the same as external communications. There is no longer any difference, if there ever was.

Employees are your ambassadors. It is important that they trust the company, its management and the direction the company is going. An employee who feels he or she is being kept in the loop will usually feel the company cares about them. That in turn will ensure they will say good things about your company. That is a very effective third party endorsement.

Put another way, employee communications serve management best when it shows empathy for, and understanding of, employees.

Rockwell understands that. The memo announcing the layoffs was written as if it was going to be made public – because senior management knew it would be. The memo was composed in a way that relayed Rockwell’s key messages. Writing the memo with the key messages ensured the company had no need to issue an additional press release. It also ensured every employee received and disseminated the same message.

Rockwell showed its moxie in another way. It was honest with its employees about the state of the company. That’s smart internal communications. The days that a company could only tell its employees happy news are long gone. There are just too many outlets from which employees will hear about the state of their company. Employees expect candor and honesty from their bosses. Not giving them that risks creating a disgruntled workforce. A disgruntled workforce can severely wound a company. It can make the difference between recovery and failure.

When I worked as a reporter in Detroit, I was always struck by the difference between General Motors and Ford workers. While both companies had their labor issues, I never heard a Ford employee knock the company to an outsider. It seemed to be a family atmosphere. Inside the family, they might be trying to punch other’s lights out. But, they always presented a united front to the outside world. General Motors employees, on the other hand, seemed to have contests to see who could say worse things about their employer.

I think that came down to the attitude each company’s management had toward its employees. Ford was, and is still very much, a creature of the Ford family. They treat their employees like part of the family. GM does not.

As the American auto industry struggles for survival, it seems that Ford has turned the corner and will again prosper. As an outside observer, I fell that is because Ford employees trust their managers. They know what they are hearing is the truth.

Which brings up the next point, making sure the right people receive and believe the messages. Just because it comes from management doesn’t mean employees are going to believe it. It has to be endorsed in the cubicles and on the shop floor.

I speak from personal experience.

Before I became a reporter, I had a number of jobs. I worked for a utility, first in what was called underground (think manholes) and then as a lineman climbing towers. I have also worked in a toy factory, a soda bottling plant, a grocery store and as a bike mechanic.

In every case, I had a foreman. But, on every crew, there was also a worker who had a least as much influence as the foreman. This worker was usually a veteran employee. He or she had worked the job for years, knew the ins and outs, know what one could get away with and what had to be done. This was the person I and everyone else went to with questions. Usually, this person has outlasted several supervisors.

The smart supervisors always made sure they enlisted this person as an ally. If they didn’t, jobs did not go as well as they could have. Just because a supervisor wants something done in a certain way doesn’t mean it is going to happen. The people who are going to carry out the task have to buy into the mission. Put another way, in the Army, officers give orders, sergeants make decisions.

So, it behooves anyone seeking to communicate with a company’s employees to identify those people and bring them into the circle. This is a great way to kill rumors. If the shop floor leaders know what’s going on, they can quash all of the untruths that spread when change is afoot. This used to be called the grapevine. If they trust you, they can also give you an accurate picture of what’s going happening on the shop floor. You will avoid many problems if you know how your employees feel about company issues.

In fact, I recommend drawing a communications chart that includes those people. You leave them out at the company’s peril. Because they can be the roadblock you never see.

Which brings me to my next point, just as you should have a business plan, marketing plan, a communications plan and a crisis communications plan, you should also have an employee communications plan. The format is essentially the same as the other plans: it should have a mission statement; how employee communications will help the company achieve its overall goals; its own goals; strategy and tactics;  a budget; and an evaluation function.

The evaluation should include input from employees – in fact, that’s the most important part. It can be done informally by talking to employees, committees of employees and management can be created or surveys can be done. I usually recommend a combination of the three.

Think of your employees as internal customers. Keep them happy and your company has a much better chance of prospering. Cut them out of the loop, don’t communicate honestly with them and you are laying the foundation of a disaster.

Next week I will talk about the best channels and ways to communicate with employees.

I post this every Monday. As a new feature, if you have questions you would like me to answer, please email me. I am always looking for topics and input. My email address is in the next paragraph.

My background: I worked as a reporter for 25 years in central Illinois, upstate New York, suburban Detroit and Milwaukee. I now help clients with marketing communications through my company – JJC Communications LLC. If you want to know more about my company, and myself, click the link. It’s a cliché, but it’s true for me: no job is too big, no job is too small. I have worked with companies on the Fortune 500 list and I have worked with companies that have one employee. The service I provide is the same for all.

For the past two months, I have been blogging about how to deal with the media, how to pitch, how to be interviewed, how to handle a crisis. All important topics. I have been overwhelmed by the response from all of you. I thank you all. I intend to keep doing that.

This week, however, I am going to write what I feel is one of the most important topics of all – the importance of newspapers and why they have to survive. Frankly, a society without newspapers, without watchdogs, scares the heck out of me.

Now, I could write about how crucial newspapers are to the survival of the Republic, but I will leave that for smarter people. What I want to talk about how important newspapers are for those of us in the marketing and public relations business. Without them, our job would be a lot harder to do.

Full disclosure: I spent 26 years as a working reporter in Peoria, Ill., Little Falls, N.Y., suburban Detroit and Milwaukee. I left the business seven years ago because I wanted to do something different.

Newspapers are still important. That’s a simple fact. It’s true that more and more people are turning to the Internet as a source for just about everything. I don’t have to list all of the items people now buy on the ‘Net.  It’s also a source of news about all kinds of things. You are reading this blog on the net.

But, here’s the question – where do you think most of that news and information comes from? You guessed it, it comes from print sources – or least former print sources.  Now, they are online news and information gathering information sources. The same function, just a different way of delivering it. Go to Google News and look at the sources of the stories posted there. All of the stories are from professional information gathering organizations.

That’s the key takeaway for those of us in public relations and marketing. We still should be pitching newspapers, magazines and television with our client stories. At the very least, the story will be put on the Associated Press story list. That gives every newspaper a chance to use the story. Google News will pick it up, guaranteeing a potential audience of millions.

A second reason we marketers still need newspapers is the medias’ ability to aggregate knowledge. Newspaper websites usually contain a lot of information, especially in their archives. It is usually much easier to find information about a particular subject on those websites. Trying finding a particular piece of information on the web. Not easy, is it. Now, think about client’s customer trying to do the same thing.

There is another, even more practical reason. The average of an American chief executive officer was 56.2 years old in 2008. This is a group that is still used to getting their information from the Wall Street Journal, Business Week and other business publications. The person in any corporation who ultimately has to like what you are doing is the CEO. And this group of people likes to see results printed on a piece of paper.

In addition, the professional media is trained to filter knowledge, to know what’s important and what’s not. I value blogs greatly, but I worry sometimes that bloggers don’t always understand don’t have that filter.

Let me deal another issue that often comes up in the discussion: public relations versus advertising. I have heard many marketing professionals say that advertising is just as effective as public relations, maybe more so. Even if newspapers die, we can still advertise on television, the radio and the web. It is just as effective, they argue. All I can say to that is balderdash.

First, free media has much more credibility, as any number of studies have shown. MBA student Idris Mootee demonstrated.People haven’t believed advertisements for a long time. Don’t believe me? Take this simple test I use when clients muse whether public relations or advertising would be better to build their brand platform:

Think about your favorite television advertisement. Think about why you liked it. Got it all? OK, here’s the first question: what was the product being advertised? If you remember, here’s the next second question: would you buy that product?

In the five years or so that I have giving that quiz, I have one person say they would buy the product based on the advertisement. Granted this “study” is anecdotal, and hardly scientific, but I still think the results are significant.  The rhetorical question I respond with is: what’s the point of spending millions and millions of dollars on an advertisement with expensive actors and high production values if it doesn’t exert any influence.

And don’t bring up those cheaper, “home-made” advertisements. They are so bad I cringe. There are products I will not buy because I assume that if the company is not willing to spend money on decent marketing, how good can the product be?

Contrast that with the effects of public relations when it highlights third party endorsements. “Results suggest significant main effects for … endorsement … with endorsement affecting perceived quality, uniqueness, and esteem,” a Sept. 22, 1999 article in the Journal of Advertising said in summarizing the results of a consumer study.

So where do people read about those third party endorsements? Yes, the Internet is certainly an important source. But, I don’t know about you, but I am always a little suspicious of online rankings. I always wonder if the agency or the client had their friends and neighbors respond to the survey. Agencies have been caught having employees fill out surveys. In my career, I have been directed to do that.

Although I know many of you will debate this, most outside writers make every effort to be objective. Most consumers know and take that into account when checking something out. Yes, I know what some studies say, but I still hear people talking about the story from the New York Times they read on line yesterday.

Bottom line, we need newspapers. They provide the kind of outlet we are not going to get anywhere else.

I post this blog every Monday. As a new feature, if you have questions you would like me to answer, please email me. I am always looking for topics and input. My email address is in the next paragraph.

My background: I worked as a reporter for 25 years in central Illinois, upstate New York, suburban Detroit and Milwaukee. I now help clients with marketing communications through my company – JJC Communications LLC. If you want to know more about my company, and myself, click the link. It’ a cliché, but it’s true for me: no job is too big, no job is too small. I have worked with companies on the Fortune 500 list and I have worked with companies that have one employee. The service I provide is the same for all.

I am currently running training courses in new media. I am also available for speaking on media relations and marketing. I can be reached at 414-763-8310 or emailed at jjccomm@wi.twcbc.com.

I was once pitched by a Milwaukee public relations guy about a client that had made some minor changes in the way it did business. I told him it wasn’t a story in which our readers would be interested. Even in those still halcyon days of newspapering, there was a finite amount of space in the paper.

When I told him no, that account executive made the biggest mistake any public relations person can make – he threatened me and yelled at me. He told me he was going to call The Milwaukee Sentinel’s editor – who he claimed was a close friend – and tell him what a bad journalist I was. Secondly, he screamed at me, telling me I didn’t know what a great story he was giving me.

Not only did this person strike out on that pitch, he took himself out of the game completely. I went to my editor and told him what had occurred. He immediately took this public relations person off the list of people to whom we listened. Yes, there was list. It was informal, but it existed. Second, the overall editor said he had never heard of the guy.

It is pretty obvious what this public relations guy did wrong – everything. I am starting off with this example because a lot of people make some of the same mistakes in dealing with outlets.. I am constantly surprised by how many people have no clue how to pitch a story.

There are several steps you should take before you make the pitch, when you make the pitch, and after you make the pitch. Doing this will not guarantee your story will be published or aired. Nothing can. But it can increase the odds.

Some things to remember before we get into the details. The news media in general is more overworked than ever. They don’t have the time for you to waste their time. And they have less air time and space than ever. They are going to be very selective about what gets published or broadcast.

OK, let’s go over the dos and don’ts of pitching. First, the dos:

* Determine if really it is really a story. The old cliché is true: “dog bites man is not news, man bites dog is.” In other word, a story has to be something new, out of the ordinary, or unusual.

* If you think you have a story, do your research on who you should pitch. Reporters hate it when you don’t know what they cover. I had three primary beats in my career – police, business, and courts. I specialized in a number of things on my business beat. I used to get calls about food, sports and a number of other areas I didn’t cover. Sometimes I would pass the tip on the right reporter, but not always.

* For two reasons, I usually counsel against calling an editor to pitch a story: often times the editor will just refer you to the reporter; and it can make the reporter angry. Reporters often hate it when their editor overrides something they are doing to assign them something else. You want a happy reporter talking to you, not one who feels like they have been forced to do the story.

* Pitching broadcast is different than bloggers or print journalists. Call the news director or assignment editor with your story. Remember, for television you have to have to visuals – something that can be broadcast.

Now comes the most important part: making the actual pitch. If you take nothing else from this blog, remember this – when you call anyone in the media, the first four words you say after you say hello and identify yourself are: Are you on deadline? If the person says yes, thank them, ask when is a good time to call back and hang up. Never keep talking. Deadline is very stressful time when the person is trying to complete an assignment. They don’t have time to talk. Of course, if your building is on fire or you just won the Nobel Prize, that’s different. Use common sense.

In addition:

* This is an “elevator speech” situation. You have a limited amount of time to make your case. Use it wisely.When you do talk, get to the point. Before you pitch, repeat the mantra I use: “be brilliant, be brief, be out of there.”

* A note on email pitching. Find out the outlet’s policy on email before sending one. Because of a fear of viruses or hacking some organizations have a blanket policy of deleting any email that comes from an unknown source. I recommend calling the person first and telling them the email is on the way.

* Once the interview is scheduled, do your homework. Make sure you have the answer to every question you think might be asked. Have background materials ready to give the journalist or blogger. The goal is to make it as easy for the interviewer as possible.

What not to do:

* It is OK to pitch a story to different outlets at the same time. However, once an outlet says yes, stop pitching. Every editor or blogger wants the exclusive story. Unless this is a major media event, only give it one outlet initially. What’s a major event – something that involves a subject that affects thousands of people.

* It is not OK to pitch a story to different reporters at the same outlet. If you’ve pitched to the correct reporter, and that person says no, that’s it. You don’t think writers talk to each other?

* You will not be able to see the story, read the blog or view the broadcast before it is made public. So, don’t ask. Most people in the media feel you will try to influence a piece to take out anything you don’t like if you see it before it runs.

* Don’t do elaborate media kits. I have a friend who covers the brewing industry. He likes beer, so he is always happy when he receives free beer as part of a pitch. But, giving him beer doesn’t mean he will do a story. What writers and broadcasters want is information in a form they can use. They also are usually barred by ethics codes from accepting anything of major value – say over $10.

After the initial interview is completed, don’t assume it’s over. The interviewer will usually have more questions once they review their notes. Make sure you are available to answer those questions. Don’t be surprised if only about one-quarter to one-third of what you said ends up in the story. Only what the reporter determines is important will be used. As I said before, space is limited.

Those are the basics of pitching. Remember, every situation and writer is different. So be careful, and think before you pitch.

I post this blog every Monday. As a new feature, if you have questions you would like me to answer, please email me. I am always looking for topics and input. My email address is in the next paragraph.

My background: I worked as a reporter for 25 years in central Illinois, upstate New York, suburban Detroit and Milwaukee. I now help clients with marketing communications through my company – JJC Communications LLC. If you want to know more about my company, and myself, click the link. It’ a cliche, but it’s true for me: no job is too big, no job is too small. I have worked with companies on the Fortune 500 list and I have worked with companies that have one employee. The service I provide is the same for all.

I am also available for speaking on media relations and marketing. I can be reached at 414-763-8310 or
jjccomm@wi.twcbc.com.