What’s more, with the rise of the ‘influential blogger’, newsworthy material that allows this growing community to provide unique content to their followers is particularly critical. (Not to mention that the use and re-use of newsworthy content is at the heart of inbound marketing campaigns designed to grow web traffic and generate leads, but that’s a different subject).
Recognising the need for news, one concern that many B2B companies often share with us is that they don’t have enough interesting things going on to support a regular flow of releases. This concern is particularly acute at companies that don’t have the ‘luxury’ of monthly or weekly new product launches. However, we can honestly say that in over 20 years of providing PR support to B2B technology organisations we have never worked with a client where we have been unable to find enough material to support a regular pipeline of genuinely interesting and newsworthy announcements. And the trick isn’t to make things up – savvy target audiences can see through a company trying to promote ‘PR puffery’ – but knowing how to unearth and identify the real news that undoubtedly exists.
One of the first steps in developing a news-based programme is to put aside the notion that news always has to be product-related. Sure, launching a new product may at least be worthy of a press release (or, if significant enough, even a press conference or a press tour) but product announcements are not the ‘be all and end all’ of good B2B PR. Even without a launch any ongoing research that a company is doing is a potential source of news (and, no, we’re not suggesting giving away trade secrets but just enough information to generate interest), as is analysis or comparisons that have been performed on competitive technology during the product development process. Indeed it is amazing just how much news can be uncovered by simply spending an hour with a company’s engineers!
The results of surveys, polls and research can also be a rich source of newsworthy material (even if that research is as simple as asking your salesforce about commonly asked questions), while work with partners (be they distributors, suppliers or third party consultants) can also offer opportunities. And that’s before we even get to developing news around relationships and/or projects with those customers who are willing to work on joint promotions of mutual benefit to both companies.
So the bottom line is that most B2B organisations are sitting on much more potential news than they think and they just need a helping hand to identify and ‘triage’ possible stories. A specialist agency (that’s us, by the way) can add real value in this respect by offering an external perspective built on a combination of technical know-how and an understanding of what makes a good announcement for a B2B audience.
What’s more, we are willing to put our money where our mouth is. Simply give us an hour of your time and we guarantee we will be able to identify a pipeline of potential news stories that could support your PR campaign for the next twelve months!
