Savvy & Energetic: Keys to Real PR

“If you’re savvy and energetic, you can do your own PR without special skills.”

A few years ago, I wrote Full Frontal PR: Building Buzz About Your Business, Your Product, or You as a basic PR primer. It is informal, yet incredibly useful. It is packed full of anecdotes, basic definitions of industry terms, lots of charts and checklists, and many other tools, all with a very clear layout. The main idea behind the book is that it serves as a lucid explanation of how to ignite and sustain a successful PR campaign. I considered it PR for the uninitiated!



But I ended up with anything but a basic manual. Its scope has turned out to be far more broad than I had imagined. It was written with businesspeople in mind, yet it ended up being read by everyone from entrepreneurs to managers of Little League teams. Years later, it is clear that anyone who has something the press needs to know about can benefit from this book.

Last month I put FFPR on Kindle (www.FullFrontalPR.com). Currently, I am in the process of rewriting it for an audio version. In doing so I am realizing that in 2009, the average businessperson really can create and maintain his or her own publicity.

PR firms have long acted as if campaigns require their expertise. Even as CEO of a PR firm, I tend to think otherwise. If you’re savvy and energetic, you can do your own PR without any special skills. All you really need is information that teaches you how to stay “on top.” I have started to really live by the double-edged credo: a) it’s not brain surgery and b) it can be fun.” “Fun” may not be a term that you associate with PR, and yet your PR emanates from your passion for what you do.

So how do you stay on top?

First, ask yourself, “What’s the most interesting thing about my business/organization/endeavor?” Be objective.

Next, connect that interesting, fun subject with a person, place, or event relevant to today’s world. Perhaps your company’s diesel serves as fuel for the light construction equipment that’s building a local nature trail. Maybe your profit-making jelly arose from your citrus-obsessed CEO’s dream in which the sun was a giant red grapefruit. (OK, maybe not, but still…) By exploiting such connections, you’ve completed the most crucial phase: finding a hook.

You’ve got a hook! Now research those media contacts that would be most interested in your story and pitch them. You must do so passionately, persistently, and, most of all, professionally.

If you think you’ll annoy the media then STOP. Reporters need PR people. We give them stories. Even though members of the media may be busy, prove to people that you’re the real thing, and this genuine, concerted approach will open ears. You will establish yourself not only as a source of useful information, but also as a person in a helpful relationship.

Often, the most important part of the PR cycle involves what happens after the pitch! It’s all in the follow-up. Say that last sentence a few times. Please.

Provide the specs for your diesel-powered diggers on time. Call to ensure that your contact got the samples of grapefruit jelly that you had couriered. Even write thank-you notes to those who cover your story. Do everything you can to keep up your end of the deal.

Hopefully, after all your hard work, you’ve got buzz. As I always put it, “People are talking about you; your story is in front of the news.” Time to celebrate!

But you can’t afford to relax. You must finish the process. My own aggressive vision of PR (which has annoyed my agency’s weaker clients over the years) has us contacting other people, many larger audiences, with the same rapid-fire message. A diesel-powered nature-trail story could go in a national nature magazine as an example of a petrochemical company promoting environmental conservation. Or a jelly success could fill a human-interest slot on regional cable. We continue to spin and release interesting information to the press and others who act like media!

On top of that, you are constantly linking up reporters and experts on different topics as a means of “source filing,” as I like to name this. With source filing, you position your company as an expert in fields related to your business. You recommend your fuel company’s CEO as a speaker about the need for more park lands. You mention that your jelly company spokesperson could tout the health benefits of citrus in general. Source filing capitalizes on your PR successes to broaden your influence and generate even more PR.

A lot of what I’ve been teaching in classes at other agencies in seminars sometimes makes people feel woozy and slightly mind-boggled. Sure, the steps are simple enough, but the pitching, spinning, and source filing can never end.



Staying on top is really the art of maintaining “relationships.” Being ongoing, dynamic, friendly, and mutually informative makes a relationship between businesspeople and media work! Do the hard work of forging the initial connections, and your contacts will help you out. You will network your way to PR success.

What happens if you are not up to the challenge? There is selling shoes. A lot of PR people think they need to depend on others to make the whole shebang work for them. It’s like something in them says: “I will use my colleague’s contacts,” or “I don’t really know if this angle works, or “Maybe I’ll wait and see.” In end—no. You need to get up off your butt and do it yourself! There’s a reason the book is called Full Frontal.