When time is of the essence, there is a temptation to conduct haphazard media pitching. By haphazard, I mean grabbing a concept and sending it out to the media as soon as possible. While this approach may generate plenty of opportunities, it is not targeted and is conducted without strategy.

Targeted pitching means that you consistently gain coverage in your clients’ top publications that speak directly to their prospects. Haphazard pitching often creates opportunities in lesser know publications that may not reach out directly to the right audience.

Strategic planning before pitching is invaluable. Who do you want to reach with this pitch? Which publications do you want to pick it up? By pinpointing which publications you want to run your story, you are in a position to offer exclusives and direct all of your energy into a handful of “right on” publications rather than a long list of not so targeted media outlets.

It is also important to make the most of the content you have. If you run with pitches without thinking first, you may blow 3 stories in one pitch, which could have otherwise been separated out and leveraged more effectively.

You cannot underestimate the importance of having company-wide support for any public relations program. Without the buy-in from the team members that live and breathe your client’s industry, you are going to find it difficult to be successful.

Here’s why.
It is the team members that interact with customers that have the best idea of what their prospects want. They know the pains and issues that customers face and how they want your client to address these issues. This is your content right here. These are the people that you rely on to tell you what’s going on in the industry and to provide valuable nuggets that you can convert into compelling media pitches.

Why is it difficult to gain buy-in?
Oftentimes, it is all to do with company communication. If employees do not understand why the company is implementing a PR program and what the end objective is, they will find it very difficult to support and contribute to the program. It is therefore important to communicate to the entire team at the start why you’re pursuing a PR program and how it supports your corporate strategy. Outline the end objective and how success will be measured; describe the tactics that will be deployed in support of the strategy and how the ultimate objective will be achieved.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…….. Ever wonder why?

I’m the first to say that I love Christmas and it is truly a magical time. I love decorating the tree and singing along to Christmas carols and songs. I love the jingling of bells and the multi-colored lights adorning people’s houses. I love the “mood” of Christmas. By “mood”, I mean the uplifting feel-good atmosphere that accompanies the holidays. For me, it’s all sensory - music, smells, decorations, the feel of snow on my cheek and the taste of sugar cookies.

What builds this sensory experience? The Media, of course.
When our hearts fill with warmth while watching a performance of White Christmas…….
When we hum along to “Last Christmas” and announce “I love this song!”
When we go shopping for our tree and think it’s like something out of a movie……..

I may be a sucker for the Media’s portrayal of Christmas, but I love it.

Remember those chain letters from your childhood? I would always groan when a friend sent me a letter that I would then have to replicate 5 times - by hand, I will add! Nothing was done by computer back then. Thankfully, when I was tagged today by my co-worker, Thomas McMahon, I knew that I could tap, tap, tap away on my keyboard and churn something out in half the time of the old days.

So, here you go, five things you never knew about me. Another interesting Web 2.0 move and very viral indeed!

1. I was born in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, where my English-born parents lived for 3 years before my birth. I then grew up in Sheffield, England, before moving to the USA in 2003.

2. I speak fluent Spanish and lived for a year in Santiago, Chile, and also for a year in Guadalajara, Mexico, where I met my Minnesotan husband.

3. When I was a child, I always wanted to be a journalist. It wasn’t until I graduated from University that Public Relations sparked my interest.

I was recently approached by a postgraduate PR student at Leeds Metropolitan University, who is doing a thesis on media relations between PR pros and the Independent Press. Below is the interview that took place between us.

Do you think it is important for PR people to establish relationships with the independent press? If yes, why?

The relationships that PR people develop directly tie to the kinds of companies that they represent. I do PR for a lot of technology companies based in Minnesota so it is therefore important for me to have relationships with local and trade publications as well as the big conglomerate types. My clients want to reach as many prospects as possible so we are looking to get coverage in pubs that have a) high circulation and b) are comprised of the client’s target readership. As more conglomerates flood local markets and steal readership away from the independent publications, those conglomerate publications automatically become more of a focus for PR efforts because they have the readership. At the same time, it is important for PR people to develop relationships with all publications in the geo/industry they are targeting but the “quality” of the coverage is based on the client’s perception of which publication reaches the right audience and enough of them.

While I was at Pubcon last week, I realized that there were a lot of terms being thrown around that were possibly unfamiliar to less savvy, non-search marketer attendees. Here’s a glossary explaining some of the most popular phrases used at Pubcon.

Affiliate Marketing - It seemed like everyone I ran into at Pubcon was an affiliate marketer. Affiliate marketing is a partnership between a website and a merchant whereby the merchant pays the website based on referrals. It is a popular form of marketing because the merchant only has to pay based on performance.

Anchor Text - This is the text used in a live link. If you’re optimizing for the word Pubcon, SEO best practices would encourage you to make “Pubcon” your anchor text and link it to a relevant website.

HTML - Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) is the document format used on the Web. HTML defines the page layout and fonts as well as the hypertext links to other documents on the Web.

Link Bait - The best way to get a lot of inbound links is to provide some interesting content that encourages web users to link to it. Case in point, Chris Hooley did a good job at Pubcon with his Drink Bait concept. I’m linking to it

I’m just beginning to get back to normal after a whirlwind week at WebmasterWorld Pubcon in Vegas last week. It was a great opportunity to learn more about SEO, social media, blog marketing and online PR in addition to meeting some of the big names in the industry.

Check out my Pubcon photos.

Lee Odden over at Online Marketing Blog did some fabulous video interviews in the pub on the final day of the conference.

WebProNews was also covering Pubcon and has a bunch of video interviews (including one with yours truly) available on their website.

Danny Sullivan along with Barry Schwartz and Chris Sherman are launching a new search news blog - Search Engine Land - on December 11th.

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Day 2 of WebmasterWorld Pubcon opened with a keynote address from John Battelle, who talked about the evolution of search, from the days of DOS to the current dominance of Google.

We are now entering into the era of Web 2.0, where companies start to understand that the Web is a platform that can be used to drive business.

The fundamental shift that is taking place is the dominance of “intent over content”. Marketing has traditionally been content driven. Now, consumers place their “intent” into the search box to be able to find their content.

Web 2.0 is about leveraging the Web via new phenomena such as social media and consumer generated media to get in front of and engage your prospects. Web 2.0 calls for marketing to a conversation rather than a dictation.

Automotive Internet sales and marketing firm, Outsell, is a good example of conversational marketing in play. Outsell manages a “Live Chat” service for its auto dealer clients and consults with potential car buyers via instant messenger. By providing expert counsel to potential customers, Outsell has found that it is able to increase car sales by an average of one car per month.

This week, I attended a Yahoo! party at the Palms hotel in Las Vegas. The party was held in a private suite at the top of the Fantasy Towers with stunning views of the city and the Vegas “bling”.

As the number #2 search engine, behind Google, Yahoo is obviously very focused on gleaning information on why web browsers use Google over Yahoo.

Here are some reasons why Google is many users’ preference:

• The Google interface is clean.
  The Yahoo! home page is filled with information and options and requires more “work” for the user to find the search box. There is also more distraction.

• Google is first and foremost a search engine.
  Yahoo! is a news source, a shopping directory, a place to play fantasy sports etc.

It is true that Yahoo! offers more features than Google, but if my purpose is to “search”, I’m looking for a search engine that is simple and straight forward with results that are easy to navigate. I believe that the Yahoo! versus Google battle really is a usability issue.