Valley PR Blog

Sense of urgency in PR

By Charlotte Shaff on October 6th, 2008 In Best Practices

As you develop a name and reputation with the media, its not uncommon to get a call from a reporter needing immediate help with a source and location for an interview ASAP. This situation happens to me a lot because I have a wide variety of small biz clients, which is good and bad. Many assignment desks and reporters know I can usually deliver on what they need quickly, so thats great. But, that also means my blood pressure goes up as I freak out trying to get to the right person, explain the story need and then their help to find someone for the story who is willing to go on camera and be available at the time needed. Luckily, I have been trying very hard lately to prep my clients to already have some people they work with on call for these kinds of situations.  

Well, I am so proud to say it paid off today with a brand new client. On Friday he offered some awesome story ideas that were timely with the economy and an angle I had not seen yet in the papers or on TV. I asked him to start calling a few customers who he thought might be good in an interview if I could get my pitch picked up. He was on the phone immediately and spoke to numerous people.  Well, just this morning at about 9:30am I get a call from a local station asking me if I can get the client and a customer and do it before the morning reporter leaves for the day (1pm).  Within 10 minutes I had spoken to the client, found a willing customer and called the assignment desk to give them directions. My client even dropped everything to drive from Mesa to Moon Valley.  I am looking forward to seeing the story tonight and thanked my client for being so on the ball.

A few days ago, a PR associate shared a story with me where there was no sense of urgency with a client who had been hoping to snag the attention of a specific publication. This client had usually been pretty easy to get a hold of, but for some reason had cell phone issues and even though they knew the reporter would be calling soon, didn’t bother to call the PR person back to let them know they couldn’t be reached by cell anymore. The reporter was up on deadline and the story with the client was lost.

If there is one more thing I can add to my growing list of “What Clients Need to Know about PR”…it is a sense of urgency. We just can’t let the media down. If not, the story may go on, but not with your client in it. And won’t ya know, if that story runs and the client sees that they aren’t in it…they sure will pick up the phone then, huh?!

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