PR & Communications
Press releases that actually get printed
An editor decides in eight seconds. What decides it is whether there is a story, and most releases do not contain one.
2 min readJul 21, 2025
Section
PR & Communications
Media relations, storytelling, crisis communication and corporate publishing.
PR & Communications
Building your own media list
Bought distribution lists produce nothing. Thirty names you researched yourself produce coverage, and the research takes an afternoon.
2 min readJul 19, 2025
PR & Communications
Approaching journalists properly
The pitch is one paragraph and it is about their readers, not your company. Everything else in the relationship follows from getting that right once.
2 min readJul 17, 2025
PR & Communications
Press conference or one-to-one
Press conferences are usually the wrong format and are held anyway. Individual briefings produce better coverage in almost every case.
2 min readJul 15, 2025
PR & Communications
Finding company stories worth telling
Every business believes it has nothing interesting to say, and every business is wrong. The stories are there and they are not in the places people look.
2 min readJul 13, 2025
PR & Communications
Local PR for small businesses
Regional newsrooms are short of staff and short of stories. A small business that supplies usable material reliably becomes a regular source.
2 min readJul 11, 2025
PR & Communications
Placing bylined articles instead of ads
A technical article in a trade publication is read more attentively than any advertisement in it, costs nothing, and is kept for years.
2 min readJul 9, 2025
PR & Communications
Measuring PR without advertising equivalency
The old method multiplied column inches by an advertising rate and produced a number everyone knew was meaningless. Four better measures exist.
2 min readJul 7, 2025
PR & Communications
Preparing for a communications crisis
The first three hours decide the next three months. Almost all of the preparation that matters can be done on a quiet afternoon.
2 min readJul 5, 2025
PR & Communications
Handling an online pile-on
Most escalate because of the response, not the original problem. Four hours of the wrong reaction turns a complaint into a story.
2 min readJul 3, 2025
PR & Communications
Responding to bad reviews
The response is not written for the reviewer. It is written for the hundred people who will read it while deciding whether to use you.
2 min readJul 1, 2025
PR & Communications
Communicating a product recall
A recall handled quickly and openly costs money and protects the business. One handled slowly costs both, and sometimes ends it.
2 min readJun 29, 2025
PR & Communications
A company blog worth the effort
Most business blogs are abandoned within a year because they were never given a purpose. One that answers real customer questions pays for itself indefinitely.
2 min readJun 27, 2025
PR & Communications
Whitepapers and studies as door openers
A document worth registering for generates contacts that a form alone never will. The bar is whether somebody would pay for it.
2 min readJun 25, 2025
PR & Communications
Turning your own data into press coverage
Journalists need numbers and have no budget for research. A business sitting on its own operational data holds something they cannot get elsewhere.
2 min readJun 23, 2025
PR & Communications
The corporate podcast that works
Most business podcasts stop after eleven episodes. The ones that continue have a narrow subject, a real host and a reason to exist beyond marketing.
2 min readJun 21, 2025
PR & Communications
Running your own newsroom
Publishing on your own channels instead of asking others to publish for you. The advantages are real and so is the effort, which most organisations underestimate.
2 min readJun 19, 2025
PR & Communications
Employees as your best advocates
Staff reach more people than the company account and are believed considerably more. Both facts are usually unmanaged.
2 min readJun 17, 2025
PR & Communications
Credible employer branding
Candidates check what employees say before they read what the company says. That single fact makes most employer branding a waste of money.
2 min readJun 15, 2025
PR & Communications
Job ads that bring applications
Most job advertisements are a list of requirements written for the employer. Reversing that produces more applications and better ones.
2 min readJun 13, 2025
PR & Communications
Systematic referral marketing
The cheapest customers a business gets, and almost nobody organises it. Three mechanisms turn an accident into a channel.
2 min readJun 11, 2025
PR & Communications
Collecting testimonials properly
A generic testimonial persuades nobody. A specific one, from an identifiable person, about a comparable situation, does most of the selling.
2 min readJun 9, 2025