Article written by Lisa Clift

Harness the Power of Profiles. In parts 1 and 2 of this series, respectively, we looked at how to market your company to the trade press by building relationships with chief editors and becoming a knowledgeable source who is quoted in articles. The next step in your press coverage plan should be to attract a media outlet to write a company profile about your organization. This coveted coverage can do more to boost sales than any marketing brochure, provided you know how to deliver the right content to the press.

The best company profiles focus on what I call the golden triad: a proven track record of successful business strategies, outstanding human resources, and above-average community involvement. Why? Because balance is the key to excelling at all things in this world—including building a business.

If your company is approached by a media outlet to be the subject of a profile, you must be willing and prepared to provide information on all three of these areas to ensure that the article will present your business in the best possible marketing light. Even if the writer isn’t sharp enough to ask all the right questions, your organization should be smart enough to have the foresight to provide all of the right information needed to help set the direction of editorial coverage.  If an article does not present information on all three of these areas, it will not hold up under reader scrutiny as an industry benchmark case study.

Here are the top three things your company can do to provide detailed information to the press and, as a result, receive above-average marketing benefits from a company profile.

No. 1: Request Questions. It’s appropriate to ask a writer for a list of interview questions and an outline of specific things about your company that prompted the desire to write the story in the first place. A good writer will do this when you ask for it, an even better writer will do this at least a week in advance and send it to you along with a summary of how he or she believes the article angles might develop.

As a chief editor, I had a standard outline of my own that included a list of questions for each part of the triad. I used it to evaluate whether or not a company would make a good profile story. When I identified a company that met the criteria, I would share my outline and a summary of thoughts with the writer assigned to the story. If a writer pitched me a story, I expected the same amount of preliminary research. This is the level of prep work that a good publication/media outlet will undertake, so it should not be a burden to modify the information and share it with you. If you request questions and a writer balks, it’s a fairly good indicator that he or she is not prepared and the resulting article will suffer. If that’s the case, you might want to think twice about going forward with the story.

No. 2: Take Time to Prepare. Once you receive questions from a writer, use them to prepare! I can’t tell you how many times I have shown up at a company to find that the executives I am scheduled to interview have not even looked at the questions I sent in advance. This is a warning sign to the writer that your company is not serious about providing in-depth information for a story. It screams fluff is coming, watch out! Here are three suggestions on how to optimize the preparation process on your company’s end:

• Have one person who is involved in your corporate marketing efforts assigned to distribute the questions to the people who will be interviewed. Have that individual provide assistance in collecting any information, such as statistics and financial numbers, that will be necessary to fully answer the questions. Make sure that information is on paper and in the hands of those who will be interviewed before the interviews take place.
• Prepare a press kit for the writer that includes a summary of vital statistics about the company (sales, locations, number of employees, product lines, etc.) and copies of any positive press coverage the company has received in the past.
• If you are going to provide a facility tour as a part of the interview process, make sure all of your employees know how to respond if a writer asks a question. Take the time to meet with employees and brief them on how to interact with the press. It will make a difference. Trust me on this one.

No. 3: Go the Extra Mile. Of course you are going to tell the press what sets your company apart from the competition during an interview, but will your customers and suppliers say the same things if they are approached by the writer for the article? When you are getting ready to participate in a full-length feature profile, you will get better overall coverage if you take it to the next level by making sure the company has a list of contacts within its immediate supply chain available. It should include representatives from suppliers and customers who are aware that your company is going to be profiled and who are willing to discuss your business positively on the record. This is not a guarantee that a writer will not seek his or her own sources, but chances are a writer will follow-up on leads that you provide too.

Overall, the primary purpose of a profile article in the trade press is to provide a case study of best practices for an industry. It is designed to help educate readers and show them examples of what a company is doing right. Therefore, if your company measures up, you need to be willing to share enough details about your operations in the areas of business strategies, human resources, and community involvement to become a benchmark. Otherwise, the article will not have the depth necessary to make your company shine in the media spotlight.

Article written by Lisa Clift

Know the Chief Editor. Why? Because he or she just might be the right marketing connection to help successfully promote your business and put it into a positive media spotlight—without costing your company a dime.

During a 20-year publishing career, I held the position of editor-in-chief for two well-respected industry magazines, both of which were owned by top 10 business-to-business publishing companies in the United States.  Drawing on this background, this series of articles offers you a unique perspective into the editor’s world and how to play an important role in it—one that will position your company to receive credible coverage through feature articles, interviews, and news columns.

The trade press can be an excellent vehicle to promote your company at no cost—provided your business has something meaningful to cover and you know how to pitch it properly. Your first step on this marketing journey, and our first topic, is how to cultivate a lasting relationship with editorial gatekeepers, which includes understanding the boundaries between advertising and editorial coverage, and then doing your best to show consideration for them. Here are the top three things you need to accomplish to create a lasting bond with the top editors in your field.

No 1: Establish Contact: I know we now live in a virtual business world, one that is quickly becoming dominated by the Internet and online media channels, but I have yet to be convinced that personal contact doesn’t matter anymore. If I can’t look into people’s eyes and experience their personality and interact with their energy, I’m hesitant to make a judgment on whether or not they are credible and trustworthy—and when you are an editor nothing is more critical than guaranteeing the quality and truthfulness of the information you present to an industry. Not only are you liable for the content and its accuracy, you must ensure that you are not playing into and promoting false business claims and marketing hype.

If you take the initiative to meet the editors of your industry’s media outlets at trade shows, conferences, and other in-person events you will have a much better chance of breaking through the barriers that separate the average corporate Joes from the valued industry sources in the eyes of editors. And when you do make connections, be honest, straightforward, and truly interested in the business trends of the day rather than focused solely on pushing for media coverage of a new product or company announcement. Truly exceptional editors do not soley report on industries, they also are active participants within them, and they are looking to align themselves with people who have a similar modus operandi.

No 2:  Be Available, not Arrogant: As an executive or representative of your company, your personality is a reflection of your business image. Don’t squander the headway you may have made through personal contact by being arrogant and not making time to nurture an editorial relationship.  This leads me to the next important point, which is to never be too important to return a phone call or e-mail, or to take the time to offer advice or leads. Editors work on deadlines and they don’t want to have to go through secretaries and assistants to relay messages and receive information. It screams out that you are not interested in helping the industry or giving back if it’s not a convenient time for you.

I always had an A-list of industry executives that I called on a regular basis to hash out economic trends, sort out which acquisition and merger rumors where true and which were bogus, confidentially verify facts, and throw around story angles and coverage ideas. Remember the old saying, out of sight, out of mind. The people I trusted and talked to on a regular basis were much more likely to receive prime press coverage when something big happened at their companies because I heard about it immediately and directly from the executives in charge.

No 3: Respect the Editor’s World: When pitching your company to a trade press outlet for coverage, be aware of the tug-of-war that a chief editor typically endures behind the scenes. Often, there is a constant pull from publishers to support advertisers, and there is a push back from editorial to try to maintain ethical journalism guidelines (which will be the topic of another article in this series). Editors walk a tightrope here, and it makes them very touchy and standoffish when companies that advertise develop an attitude of entitlement when it comes to editorial coverage.

Don’t fuel the fire. Recognize when you are treading on thin ice with the editorial staff and back off with demands. You may win the battle at hand with threats of pulling your schedule, for example, but likely you will lose the war. In the long run, your company will be marked either consciously or unconsciously as unethical in the eyes of editorial, and that will impact your opportunities for coverage in the future. It is human nature to pull away when something is forced upon you, and editors are no exception to this rule. I’ve been there many times myself, and it’s hard to get over resentment in these situations. As a result, your company is likely to get passed over in the future as a quotable source or to be included in subjective editorial coverage on a particular subject related to the services your company provides.

In the editor’s fantasy world, there is a brick wall that separates the editorial and advertising divisions or, even better, these two groups are located at opposite ends of the country. Make no mistake, resentments do develop, divisions occur, and fights happen. It can get even trickier when the publication or media outlet is owned by an association. The politics of the organization can be overwhelming, and it can result in even more drama behind the scenes.

Remember, a chief editor’s reputation is on the line with every issue. If something reported is blatantly untrue or exaggerated claims about a product are made, it will be embarrassing at a minimum and even could be detrimental to the reputation of the media outlet and its editorial staff. Under this pressure, editors do recognize and gravitate toward the companies that are doing everything possible to present their business activities honestly within trade media outlets. No doubt it’s hard to do this when economic times are tough, but there are great payoffs, which include credibility as source and increased opportunities for prominent press coverage and feature articles—and there is no better marketing promotion than a glowing report from a credible editorial source. It’s something you just can’t buy for any price.