The Who, What, and Why of Writing Engaging Content For PR

Those looking for PR coverage these days find themselves in a fortunate position. Journalists have been made redundant, newsrooms have gone from 20 to two staff and the remaining journalists are looking out for interesting stories and open to content from different sources. But they are not looking for just any old content. Creating good content for PR needs some critical thinking before pen gets put to paper (well, fingers to keypad). So, how do we form an engaging, well-thought-out, and interesting piece? Here is our simple guide for getting started – there are three questions you need to ask yourself before you start creating content: Who? What? Why?

 

Who?

‘Who?’ covers two elements: who you are, and who you are targeting. Before starting to write, you should consider who you are and what your brand is about. What topics are going to support your brand, what areas are you expert in and what should you avoid? Your content must encapsulate who you are as a company and be about what you can do for clients. Make sure you’re staying in your lane, to reinforce your messages. So, if you specialise in communications or media research, create content about that and don’t leap into writing about political polling or customer experience.

Who you are targeting is the other essential element to consider. Again, this should be at the core of any communication strategy. Think about the audience as individuals; what level of experience do they have, what are their challenges, what keeps them up at night. If you are not client-facing, you must talk to your sales team and client managers to understand these issues – or, even better, do your own research and create personas for different audiences to ensure you really get to know them.  Once you’ve defined your audience, research what they are reading and find out the different publications and channels they engage with. Some clients like to get all their information from LinkedIn, while others much prefer to read industry journals or newsletters. Who it is you’re engaging with must drive the content you create. It also gives you an idea of which media platforms to target.

 

Why?

The first ‘why’ to consider is why are you doing this? What are you hoping to gain from this communication activity, and what are your objectives? It’s important that everyone is aligned within your company on those objectives and is clear on what you’re hoping to achieve.

Secondly, be clear on why what you are doing is interesting for both clients and the media. Focus on communicating your subject in a motivating and engaging way – you need it to be interesting to others, not just to you! A good way to evaluate this is to take a step back from your organisation and try to imagine how someone on the outside would see you. It could be that you’re holding back on sharing something fascinating, or that what you’re writing about is actually rather dull! Again, doing some research into what makes your company special and different will help with this.

 

What?

Finally, what makes a good story? The media are looking for newsworthy stories with weight and impact. Your content should be well-rounded and have depth. For example, the media will not view qualitative data on its own as newsworthy, but using it for an opinion piece to back up an expert argument can form an excellent article. Case studies are vital, but what makes them so is a named client, and being able to demonstrate the quantitative impact of your work in your story.

Of course, for research and insights companies, you can always create your own self-funded research study. But don’t skimp on your sample. You must have at least 1,000 completed interviews per geographical market to create content of interest for business or marketing titles. You can get away with fewer (at least 500) for a trade magazine or specialist publication if the data is focused on their sector, but for a national title you will need a lot more. Originality is also key.  This involves doing research into what has already been done to discover a fresh, new angle.

Use a minimum of 5-point scales within your self-funded study. If you do fewer, the media will not see it as credible to force people not to have a neutral sentiment. Creating a strong storyline is important for the press, but you’ll need to do so without ‘spinning’ and while staying true to the data. You could give weight to your story by using top four instead of top two boxes on a 10 point scale, or ensuring you have verbatim to support your points.

A good way to capture the attention of the media is to do your study with a partner or client who has a higher profile than you. If the media have heard of them, you gain more awareness for yourself. You’ll want to anchor your study in your business development targets by thinking about your audience, but for media purposes, it is important not to exclusively do a ranking among the clients you want to get meetings with. You could do a fantastic study, but if the selection criteria for the brands you research are based entirely on companies you want to get meetings with, it will make no sense for the media. This will result in you missing out in a huge opportunity!

 

If this all sounds rather difficult, then remember it is important for us in data and insights to use PR to spread the word about what we do.  And great content is the key to that. We have historically been bad at communicating beyond our profession. As a result, people don’t understand the importance of good research and the value of what we do. There are many, many examples of damage done by the poor image of MRX and this means that ultimately people are less likely to take part in research or want to share their personal data.  So, by doing effective PR and creating great content, your company and the profession as a whole will benefit.

 

Lucy Davison is founder and managing director of specialist communications agency Keen as Mustard Marketing

 

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