Roxhill's PR Academy

What is public relations?

Public relations is, annoyingly, a slightly misleading word. If we could have our time again, I would call it publicity. So it is essentially trying to get press coverage for your client in the broadsheets, the magazines, and obviously nowadays online, because pretty much every title now is digital first.

So it is getting your client publicity and to do that, you liaise with journalists. So I’m afraid public relations needs a massive rebrand, but we might not have time for that.

What can a junior PR person expect to be doing in the first three months of joining a PR agency?

First three months, I would say they will be taught how to write a press release. They will be taught what it is to craft a new story or detect a news story, because you’ve got to remember that these aren’t newspapers, so you can’t just churn out stuff that’s been around about 10 years. It’s all about keeping on top of the news and communicating that. So you really have to, as a junior PR, understand what makes that new story.

You will be understanding everything about your clients and what they have within their set up that is news as well, but fundamentally you’ll be reading the newspapers, looking at everyone’s websites, reading lots of magazines. And if you’re specializing in something like travel or beauty or fashion, really understanding who your main fashion editors are, or travel journalists are, and really reading up on the whole subject.

It would be far better if people did that, rather than going straight into trying to send out a press release.

What sort of information do journalists want?

Ideally you tell them something they don’t know already, because that’s then probably news.

Tell them about a brand that fits their newspaper or magazine or website, which by default will suit their reader. Journalists are always thinking of what things are right for their reader. It’s not right for the journalist – it’s right for the reader that they’re reaching out to. So they want to know about specific clients relevant for their audience, and anything new about that client.

What is a press release. And when, when do you need one

A Press Release should answer the five questions: who, what, where, why, when?

• Who are you talking about?
• What are you talking about?
• Where is it happening?
• Why is it happening?
  • So that’s “why now?” – that’s always a question that journalists need answering.
• When is it happening?

The first paragraph of a press release should:

• Summarise all of the Information above
• Be turned into the personalised email you send journalists, with the copy attached. 

What is a press release. And when, when do you need one?

The ideal press release is one page of A4 long. I was always taught to answer the five questions: who, what, where, why, when?

• Who are you talking about?
• What are you talking about?
• Where is it happening?
• Why is it happening?
  • So that’s “why now?” – that’s always a question that journalists need answering.
• When is it happening?

So you summarize all of that in the first paragraph, and then you expand in the rest of the press release. It should encapsulate all of the information you’re trying to convey, but do not rely upon it as the way of catching the journalist’s attention.

You should really take the first paragraph and make that your personal email to a journalist, and then either attach it as a copy for further information, or paste it below the email so that if they need to read on, they can. But in an ideal world, you’ve summarised your news story or pitch in the first 3 or 4 sentences of the email.

So when is the best time to send my press release?

The best time to pitch your story, of course as an extension of your brief pitch, is you’ve got to sort of try and imagine what the journalists are doing and when. Say they’re commuting to work. Most of us are kind of playing with our phones on our commutes in some way, so that would be quite a good time to catch their attention.

If it’s news, it slightly depends on each publication. But if it’s their deadline day, which is often on a Thursday for the weekend papers, you’re not going to get their attention then. I would have said Mondays are pretty good to try and stand out, because usually they’re planning their news stories for that week, but it does vary from one title to the next.

We’ve got a lot of great video footage on Roxhill Media from all of these publications and all of the journalists that work there that actually tell us exactly when’s the best time to pitch to them.

But I think that it’s not so much about the time, it’s about trying to make sure you stand out. So if you’ve got a really great news story, they will probably read it. And if it’s been carefully curated for them and their title, they are going to want to open it.

Is it best to send pictures or images? And if so, what sort of quality do they need to be?

Initially I would embed any email with two or three low-res images so that they get that you have the high res version. They need to see that you’ve got great imagery to match the story.

Don’t ever send high-res images to begin with because the emails can’t cope with too many high-res pics. And also they’re ultimately for the picture editor, not the journalist you’re pitching to.

You can send a Dropbox link within your email, but definitely still have click-on, easy, I can see the images are good.

Do not send WeTransfer links because they expire, and there is nothing more annoying for journalists than a link that is suddenly redundant when they come back to that email. So I think the idea is to send two or three pics within the body of the email.

How do I decide which journalists to contact?

Roxhill Media can help you with all of that.

We do our morning tagging, so if you have a specific story on villas in Sicily, or on jewelry to wear the summer months, all of these articles have been tagged by the Roxhill team so you can really go into specifics about who you want to find. All of the tools are that are Roxhill. They will help you find them, and that’s the easy bit.

The bit where you might actually have to put in a bit of enjoyable work is then reading the detail of what they have covered, because if you find that they’re into sustainable jewelry, you can then pitch a great sustainable story to them and they realize that you’ve actually taken care with your list and your searches, and that you’ve tried to really understand that individual.

How does a junior PR start to get media coverage for their clients?

A junior PR starts to get media coverage when they have a good news story. When they’ve taken care to email the relevant journalists for that news story.

They could, if they’re clever and if they’re careful, they could get coverage very, very quickly. But only if they have actually really understood the needs of that publication and the journalists who write for that publication. So if you really want to be really good at PR or publicity, and you want to have a future in it, really take care from day one.

Don’t ever send out a blanket email to any editor ever, even if your seniors are telling you to. That is really not the best way to get press coverage.

So if you read the newspapers, look at people’s websites really, really carefully. You can get press coverage quite quickly, but take care to understand what it is you’re trying to achieve. It’s not very hard, but you you might need to work till six o’clock every night and not just leave your desk at five.

Put in the extra hours when you’re starting out and it will reap benefits.

What is a media list and when would one be needed?

A media list is a list of journalists. Say you’ve got a travel story and you want to target the top 20-30 travel journalists across the broadsheets and glossies and their respective websites… You can pull that list from Roxhill Media, so you can actually go to the site super easily and capture your list.

But I would urge you not to just blanket email that list. Get your top 30 journalists through your Roxhill searches, and then probably spend the rest of the day going into each name on that list. Look at their Instagram account, look at their Twitter feed, look at what they’ve written in the last 4 months.

All of this is on Roxhill Media – but don’t just think “great, I’ve got my list, I’m gonna email my press release”. Individually contact that journalist – that is the beginning of your relationship with them.

How does a junior PR get to know journalists?

That’s a very good question and actually, one that’s come up on a webinar recently.

It’s quite hard to get a hold of the senior lot unless you have a great story. You can get a hold of them, but you need to slightly dazzle them with your news story. They’ll notice that you’ve taken care in describing that story.

A lot of what the senior editors are doing is handing stories to their competent juniors, who are also learning the craft. So if you’re a junior PR, get to know the junior editors and the junior writers of your age. You guys will grow together if you stay in this industry for as long as I have – you will have grown with all these people and ultimately one day these editors are your friends. They will have moved up through the ranks.

I would get to know them by taking care to understand what these junior writers want, and giving them the information they need. Then chance it and ask them for a coffee, or lunch, or a drink, and that’ll be the beginning of your relationship.

What is GDPR?

GDPR is something that I was never all that briefed on, but I understand and it does make perfect sense. Within our industry, you are duty-bound to email journalists with the information that’s actually relevant to them. So that’s all within one’s GDPR remit.

If I am a fashion PR, I am fully within my rights to reach out to a fashion journalist, because neither of us can do our jobs without each other. The fashion journalist needs my fashion story, and I obviously need the fashion journalist to be able to email me if they want more information.

What doesn’t work is if I’m touching base with a fashion journalist about a travel product that is of no interest to them whatsoever. So that’s actually breaching GDPR rules. We must be conscious of contacting each journalist with information that is really relevant to them, otherwise it’s a breach of the rules that are set up by law.

It’s really simple to understand and important to abide by the unwritten rules of GDPR. GDPR within PR and the journalist industry is a slightly murky area, but easy to understand when you’re just giving them the information they actually need.