PHAM VIET TIEP – a Public Relations man!

Most people in public relations are probably well aware that e-newsletters can be much more powerful and useful than just automated alerts. Many of us subscribe to newsletters created by journalism organizations ranging from The Wall Street Journal to Internet.com that help us stay on top of breaking news stories.

Our point here is that PR people can create e-newsletters on their own that are just as attractive as the journalism-oriented newsletters and that can be helpful in getting more attention for our clients. E-mail alerts are nice to make sure your big release is well read, but why not use the power of HTML newsletters to provide reporters monthly or quarterly insights into how your client views its markets and what its top executives have to say about industry announcements and events?

Examples of PR-produced e-newsletters are still rare, but they provide us with some insights into what is needed for success. Because reporters already feel inundated with e-mail, they’re not likely to be interested in receiving e-mail newsletters unless they are persuaded that the offering amounts to more than regurgitated press releases. What they want from the newsletter is some analysis of industry events that will help them do their jobs better. “We need to get reporters to read what we send them because they know it’s good stuff,” says Elizabeth Albrycht, a partner in Albrycht McClure & Partners, a PR firm that’s a proponent of e-newsletters.

These demands for truly useful information mean that e-newsletters are not a task for the weak of heart in public relations. Someone needs to be developing content on a regular basis and going through the effort of signing up reporters and managing an opt-in list. We also think it’s fine to supplement the main features with the kinds of things we’ve recommended for your online pressrooms: a list of recent press mentions, a digest of recent releases, and a calendar of upcoming events and trade shows. These newsletter features can simply be links to the appropriate pages in your online pressroom, but their presence in the newsletter makes recipients aware of where your company has been featured and what it is planning in the way of future events.

Given a newsletter’s demand for original, analytical copy, it’s not surprising that some of the better e-newsletters we’ve seen have come from consulting firms. Because the newsletter can be a strong tool for establishing yourself as an industry expert, it’s also not surprising that some of the earliest e-newsletters have popped up in emerging industries with no recognized experts. One industry, in particular, in which newsletters have proliferated is in mobile computing, a sector that aims to bring business applications and Internet connections to cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and other devices. Several trade publishers have newsletters in this field. Makers of cell phones and PDAs have also jumped into the fray with newsletters for their customers and trade press. Web sites created to sell wireless devices have offered newsletters as a way of building relationships with prospective customers.

One entrant that impressed us and won praise from many reporters is M-Insights from Mobilocity, a consulting firm launched in 1999 with the mission of helping companies plan their use of wireless data devices. The firm was absorbed into Qualcomm’s Wireless Knowledge unit in 2002 and the newsletter was discontinued. It had been developed by Miller Shandwick in conjunction with the analysts at Mobilocity, and employed a “just the facts” approach that featured quick, pithy commentary on recent industry events. The format featured a brief synopsis of a recent announcement and then an “Our Take” segment in which Mobilocity told readers what it thought of the announcement.

In one example, the M-Insights newsletter dated August 30, 2001 reported on an initiative by Palm Inc., maker of the Palm Pilot, to help develop applications for real estate professionals. In its commentary, Mobilocity pointed out the broader story to reporters by asserting that mobile devices like Palm Pilots and other PDAs offer many mobile professionals in real estate, health care, and other fields their first real opportunity to benefit from information technology because they were never well served by PC applications intended to be used in an office.

Another feature in the M-Insights newsletter was called M-Spotlight, and it enabled Mobilocity to portray itself as a voice of authority. The feature was frequently used to list principles that should be followed in developing m-commerce applications and to highlight successful efforts of Mobilocity’s clients. As part of the M-Insights newsletter, these reports were easier to read than the typical case study press release and they helped to portray the companies involved as m-commerce pioneers.

Anne Coyle of Weber Shandwick, who helped to launch M-Insights while at Miller Shandwick, says the newsletter’s approach was a successful one. “M-Insights helped us to gain mind-share in a crowded marketplace,” she notes. “Our goal was to get them to rise above the noise where they could show what they knew,” she adds. The newsletter “fit very much into the consulting model of look at what’s going on, gather facts, and make an analysis.”

For all of its success, however, M-Insights also pointed out some pitfalls to be careful of when undertaking a newsletter. Launched as a weekly, M-Insights became biweekly and later monthly primarily because it became difficult to keep it stocked with high-quality content. As the consulting business took off, the consultants had less time for the newsletter, Coyle says. “No one really owned it,” she laments. “You have to have someone who’s going to own it and really run with it.” (For more on Coyle’s experience with Mobilocity, see our interview with her on page 117 in this chapter.)

Albrycht McClure & Partners, a PR firm with many startup companies as clients, believes that an e-newsletter is a smart tool for reaching a number of constituencies, including the press, employees, potential investors, and prospective business partners. Clients with limited staff can make a single effort to develop a newsletter that meets the needs of the various constituencies, says Elizabeth Albrycht. The newsletter can be built around a template to keep production costs down, she says, but the client must be willing to invest mindpower. “You want to have some strong writers and thinkers on this,” she says.

Albrycht McClure & Partners thinks a newsletter would be especially effective for companies in emerging fields. Albrycht notes that her firm had success promoting a small company called InfiniCon Systems by taking an unorthodox approach in press releases in which it offered 10 questions that network administrators should be asking themselves about network architectures. “It was a real stretch doing what we were doing with releases,” she says, noting that an e-newsletter would be a much more appropriate vehicle for educating reporters and prospective customers about a new technology.

Albrycht notes that a good e-newsletter can bring more people to a client’s Web site and expose them to the online pressroom and other offerings. However, she notes that this feature cuts both ways in that the newsletter must be carefully coordinated with the Web site so that newsletter recipients actually find what they are seeking on the Web site. This cooperation can be difficult if the PR people are not responsible for Web site operations, she notes. “Doing these types of things does require more rigor on the part of the client,” she says. (For more on what Albrycht and partner Jennifer McClure have to say about e-newsletters, see our interview with them on page 119 in this chapter.)

One feature we haven’t seen in e-newsletters, but believe could be useful and popular with journalists, is a regular feature highlighting the opinions of your client’s top executives. We think a quotable CEO who is willing to speak candidly about the company’s latest news or about the latest activities of its competitors could really shine in a newsletter column. He or she might talk about current topics; for example, how the company responded to the events of September 11 or how it is helping to revitalize an inner-city school. The right CEO might even offer his or her review of the latest management tome topping the bestseller charts. The idea is to make the newsletter’s recipients feel they are getting a look at “the real CEO” beyond the boilerplate quotes that appear in press releases. He or she does not need to be outrageous to attract media interest. Remember, each newsletter is not supposed to spawn a certain number of stories, but rather it is intended to extend the company’s relationship with the journalist and possibly lead to more references to your CEO as a voice of authority, veteran manager, renaissance figure, philanthropist, and so on. Be careful, however. A boring CEO with nothing to say could torpedo the whole newsletter if he or she contributes lame columns that focus on how this quarter’s EBITDA compares to that of the same quarter last year.

 The New PR Toolkit – Financial Times Prentice Hall