Getting your just awards

Everyone loves to win an award, but creating a winning submission can be a time consuming process that requires careful consideration. Leaving the process until the last minute is rarely a successful approach to take, so it is best to start planning early to identify relevant awards, engage with relevant customers and partners, and create a compelling entry that truly celebrates and promotes your company’s best practice and success.

The entry process for any award starts several months before the winners are announced, so this needs to be factored into your planning. To avoid missing deadlines, it makes sense to start creating a schedule now that outlines the awards and categories you would like to enter along with key dates and requirements. This will also enable you to make the most of your entry material, because more often than not it will be possible to tailor this collateral to target more than one award.

Being realistic when selecting awards is critical as well because there is little point spending valuable time and resources entering something you have no chance of winning. Any submission needs to be backed up with hard facts and where possible independent endorsements to help communicate a convincing argument to the judges. Many awards are incredibly competitive, so having some strong statistics up front that demonstrate growth and improvement will give you a better chance of making it through the initial filtering of entries. Furthermore, it is not simply about having the best information – take some time to present your submission in such a way that is simple, appealing and easy to digest.

Entering awards can be highly rewarding and a great way of promoting a company to internal and external audiences. Therefore, take some time to create workable plan of action based on your available resources and potential content.

In recent years, our team has helped to create nominated and award-winning submissions across a wide range of industry, business and local awards including: National Business Awards, Motor Transport Awards, BIFM Awards, Data Centre Europe Awards, RAC Cooling Industry Awards, CILT Awards, World Mail Awards, Telematics Update Awards, Fleet World Honours, Everywoman in Transport and Logistics Awards, DatacenterDynamics Awards, Hampshire Awards Initiative, West Sussex County Times Business Awards and Southern Business Awards.

About Jasper Business

Jasper Business Communications is an independent business-to-business PR agency based in South London working in close partnership with clients locally and across the UK. We use former journalists and experienced industry specialists to create tailored PR and marketing solutions that take advantage of all traditional and online communications channels.

Creating the right content

There are many industry experts championing content marketing as an effective means of building your presence. This technique involves creating and distributing valuable digital content (often text, but sometimes also images, video and other media) to attract, acquire and engage with defined target audiences. But what are some of the key considerations to have in mind when creating the necessary material?

Quality

What is often overlooked when generating content is the importance of quality over quantity. Simply creating noise is no longer enough, because only credible and useful information is likely to make you stand out from the crowd. Therefore, make the most of the expertise and knowledge within your business to create interesting and engaging news, comment, advice and guidance.

Relevance

One size never fits all, so knowing who you are trying to reach and then creating content that is relevant and applicable are essential features of any successful PR campaign. Try to engage with key stakeholders such as customers, prospects, journalists, partners, shareholders and employees with relevant information that is in line with their individual needs. Take time to understand their objectives, concerns and challenges rather than churning out canned corporate statements.

Tailoring

it is possible to use content across various channels to maximise your coverage and reach, but each will require a slightly different approach. If you are creating a press release then the methodology and structure will clearly not be the same as for a blog, yet the basis for both can often be the same. For example, a newsworthy development can be utilised across many chosen communication channels by the effective tailoring of the pertinent information to meet specific requirements.

Jasper Business Communications uses experience gained through many years in PR, marketing and journalism to create topical, thought-provoking and relevant content including press releases, articles, industry comment, case studies, blogs, newsletters, whitepapers and industry research.

About Jasper Business

Jasper Business Communications is an independent business-to-business PR agency based in South London working in close partnership with clients locally and across the UK. We use former journalists and experienced industry specialists to create tailored PR and marketing solutions that take advantage of all traditional and online communications channels.

Grumpy Old Journos – Part Two

In the second part of our Grumpy Old Journos blog we take a look at some of the gripes journalists have with regards to the PR material they receive. Having spoken with some of our best media contacts, we have gained some useful insight to help you avoid some of the pitfalls when creating and distributing content.

Poor writing

Clear, concise and accurately-written press releases will always be preferred to one using excessive jargon, subjective comments and fatuous superlatives. Make sure you write proper prose and make it sound objective – if your material is full of marketing language the only place it is like to end up is the recycle bin. Also, do not allow for any poor punctuation or spelling as this will only distract from what could be an interesting story.

“A sloppy, juvenile press release full of elementary mistakes gives the impression it came from a sloppy juvenile company. Spell check, sense check and then make sure someone literate gives your release a onceover.”

“What I do not like is an excessive use of superlatives such as amazing, unique, ground-breaking and unbelievable. Accompany these words with any use of an exclamation mark and the story is immediately spiked. Multiple exclamation marks lead to instant death.”

Supporting Images

Attaching a high resolution, professionally taken photo is a well-known way of increasing the chance of coverage. Sending a poor quality image or making it difficult to obtain one will most probably have a negative effect and could lead to a story being dumped, regardless of how interesting it is.

“If you are providing a picture with a press release, attach it or provide a direct link. Do not put ‘ring for a picture’ or request some kind of login. If you create an obstacle for journalists, many will not bother to navigate it.”

“Don’t supply tiny images – if a picture takes up less than six inches of your screen, it is only good enough for a single column in print. Be aware that print is MUCH more demanding than a screen in terms of resolution. If your picture size is under 500K, it is too small.”

Pointless press releases and irrelevant material

Make sure any PR material is both interesting and appropriate. Sending press releases that are pointless with no news will have limited impact and gain you an unwanted reputation. Moreover, bombarding the press with unsuitable story-or feature-ideas will be far less effective than taking your time to understand the media landscape and targeting relevant titles.  

“If you are scraping around to compile vacuous stories that no self-respecting publication would use, something is wrong. Either you are not getting the right PR leads, or you are trying to achieve a frequency that just cannot be sustained.”

“Generally, publications do not mind being on blanket mailing lists for subjects of marginal interest, but if you send a one-off proposal, take the trouble to check that it is squarely on target for the publication. Failure to do this can seem insulting.”

Access to the story or additional information

This may seem obvious, but make it as easy as possible for journalists to find a recently published story or access additional company information. Always upload press releases online and provide a web address or relevant link with any media communication.

“A remarkable number of PR firms seem to bend over backwards to avoid providing any direct link to the client in their emails. It seems like a transparent attempt to deflect journalists’ feedback to them, and it simply causes annoyance because we then have to waste time finding out company details ourselves.”

“Suppose we see a story in some newsfeed. We realise it came from a press release, and check the company’s website for the source, but it is not there. We might not have time to follow up directly and just want the original text.”

About Jasper Business

Jasper Business Communications is an independent business-to-business PR agency based in South London working in close partnership with clients locally and across the UK. We use former journalists and experienced industry specialists to create tailored PR and marketing solutions that take advantage of all traditional and online communications channels.

Keeping your copywriting on message

There was an interesting feature on local radio providing advice to businesses on how best to write compelling copy for their website or other marketing material. The freelance copywriter who was being interviewed provided some useful guidance on producing content in terms of keeping it clear; focusing on benefits not features; making it attention grabbing; and including a call to action. This was all very helpful advice, but what they failed to mention was the importance of developing clear and concise messaging that underpins and reinforces everything a business says to its customers, prospects, partners and employees.

Effective messaging will provide a foundation for all marketing activity, enabling you to communicate consistently with key stakeholders across all channels. It will encompass your positioning, vision and core values in-line with the business’ ongoing strategy and key objectives. This will help to create an effective “boilerplate” or “elevator pitch”, providing a simple and easily communicated summary about who you are and what your proposition is.

The messaging should also include your organisation’s key capabilities, making it relevant to target audiences by outlining benefits, differentiators and proof points. In simple terms, it will help demonstrate the value you can provide, why you are different from your competitors and the evidence to back this up.

With this supporting material agreed you can shape your marketing and comms requirements with effective copy that is easily tailored for a particular activity, audience or industry sector, but always possesses a clear, consistent and credible corporate message. In fact, the messaging should become central to all brochures, descriptions, websites, presentations, public relations and adverts to ensure that it is repeated over and over with the ultimate objective of reaching, educating and convincing key stakeholders.

About Jasper Business

Jasper Business Communications is an independent business-to-business PR agency based in South London working in close partnership with clients locally and across the UK. We use former journalists and experienced industry specialists to create tailored PR and marketing solutions that take advantage of all traditional and online communications channels.

Grumpy Old Journos – Part One

Building strong relationships with the press is a critical part of any media relations programme. Understanding what they want and how they work will help you avoid doing anything that is likely to irritate or annoy them, which is so important when you consider these journalists hold the key to your PR success. Take any opportunity to engage with them to create a picture of their individual needs and preferences.

With all this in mind, we thought it might be interesting to speak with a number of our best contacts to let them vent their frustrations and find out exactly what makes them into grumpy old journos.  Part one shows that ineffective communications is a major bugbear for journalists and could hamper your media campaign now and in the future.

The pointless follow-up

Ringing up to ask if the press release will be used or has been received was at the top of most of the journalist’s lists, which is exacerbated further because the job is often assigned to the most junior member of the PR team who does have the knowledge to answer any subsequent questions. Do not call unless you have something to add or are equipped to respond to any additional media queries.

“Do not ring us up or email us to ask if we are going to use your press release. We receive dozens of press releases every day, so if had to acknowledge all of them we would never have any time to do any work. If the release is appropriate and convincing, it will be used.”

Poor communications

Journalists can get hundreds of emails every day, so do not simply rely on this form of communication if you want to discuss an idea or make a suggestion. However, do not cold call and try to bludgeon them into doing a client interview or run a by-lined article. Use all tools at your disposal to build a personal relationship that will help maximise any opportunities that exist.

“I get up to 150 emails per day, and by just resending the same email as a hint to get me to bite is not good enough.”

“Do you like double-glazing salesmen? Nor do we and badgering phone calls seem very much like them. Establish a relationship first, try to come up with a unique proposition for their publication and do not make them feel like they are just next on the list.”

Ignoring requests

Always respond to requests for additional information or input. If you cannot help, then it is better to say so and the journalist will respect you for it. However, if you can provide assistance quickly, it is not only likely to achieve better coverage, but also result in further opportunities in the future. Journalists will always go back to their trusted PR contacts especially when they need something last minute.

“Some PR firms are good at sending out material on their own terms, but unresponsive and evasive when it comes to answering requests for information. This comes over as cynical, and does the client no favours. If you can help, make sure you do, and the journalist will love you forever.”

In the second part of this blog, we will be taking a look at some of the gripes journalists have with regards to your PR material.

About Jasper Business

Jasper Business Communications is an independent business-to-business PR agency based in South London working in close partnership with clients locally and across the UK. We use former journalists and experienced industry specialists to create tailored PR and marketing solutions that take advantage of all traditional and online communications channels.