Media Relations Guide

A Publicists Ultimate Guide to Strategic Media Relations 101

How can I use this media relations guide for my public relations campaign?

This guide is for public relations practitioners looking to increase best practices and for clients who want to understand how the media really works so that they can form better relationships with their external agencies and PR firms.

As a public relations strategist, I have handled media relations campaigns for B2B companies and private medical practices for over a decade.

The one thing I have witnessed over and over again during the onboarding period is the steep learning curve when someone hires a PR firm for the first time.

“PR is SO much work. You never told me how much time this was going to take when I hired you!”

The goal of this guide is to help you navigate uncharted territories of working with journalists, reporters, and producers so that you gain a better understanding of how the media operates. I believe that there should be no surprises when it comes to PR.

When there is transparency in the process of how the media operates, you will develop more realistic campaign expectations. Additionally, it will also save you hours of wasted time spinning your wheels trying to figure out why you spent time answering journalist queries that die in a black hole where all other bad pitches go to die.

Hint: Not every query you submit answers to will be used. It’s important someone tells you that up front so you don’t spend time guessing at the basics of media relations 101!

Plus, when you are more informed about how public relations works, you will (hopefully) have a better relationship with your PR agency.  Too many clients/agencies have strained relationships and I believe this stems from the central problem of not truly understanding how the media works. This is not your fault. No one ever explained it to you, and believe me, there is a lot to explain!

For whatever reason, PRs like to keep a veil of secrecy when it comes to how they work their magic. I want to change that by putting you, the consumer, in the driver’s seat.

In The Ultimate Guide to Media Relations, I will teach you:

• How the media works
• What the role of a PR firm is
• Client responsibilities when a PR firm is retained
• How to work with your PR firm to get the best campaign traction
• Media relations best practices
• Media Relations etiquette
• The importance of media relations in every marketing communications plan

PLUS learn how to answer questions from a reporter to increase your response rate.

Too often, PR firms get blamed for things outside of their control. Let’s change that, starting now!

MEDIA RELATIONS 101

What is Media Relations?

Media relations is the practice of building and managing ongoing relationships with journalists, bloggers, and other media professionals to secure coverage for your business or organization in the press. This can include writing press releases, responding to media inquiries, and arranging interviews with executive key opinion leaders.

Media relations is defined as the specific practice of handling media requests with the press, while public relations refers to the management of a company’s relationship with the public and all external stakeholders.

A Director of Media Relations is responsible for all contact with the press on any and all earned media opportunities.

The goal of media relations is to create positive, sustained publicity coverage for your business and to shape public perception of your brand.

Additionally, media relations strategists are responsible for securing new press opportunities, building relationships with press and media outlets, pitching journalists, crafting press materials and media advisories, contacting news media, handling all incoming media requests, and developing a press outreach strategy.

A media relations strategist:

• Tracks brand mentions in the press
• Discovers new media opportunities and media outlets
• Searches for new press opportunities
• Secures regular, consistent media interviews
• Manages media lists in target publications
• Contacts media on behalf of your company
• Shapes public opinion

Public Relations Vs. Media Relations.

What is the difference between public relations and media relations?

Media relations is a subset of public relations.

For a long time, media relations was the largest component of PR because traditionally, the media were the primary, trusted gatekeepers to information. It took insider connections to get the media’s attention. All of that is still true today, but parts of it are very different.

The State of the PR Industry

How technology affects media relations 

Newsrooms are shrinking and social media has democratized the publishing of information. There are far more PR practitioners in the U.S. than journalists.  According to Bloomberg, Public Relations jobs have exceeded those of reporters by more than a six-to-one ratio, which is significantly up from last year. According to data from the U.S. Census, the ratio was two-to-one 20 years ago.

PR professionals outnumber journalists by 6:1

This represents a 2x increase in 10 years.

While media relations is still part of the mix, it is usually a smaller component of most public relations plans. It is also significantly more challenging to get the attention of journalists than it ever has been before! That is why learning how to pitch the media and what makes a story newsworthy is so critical in today’s media landscape.

Journalists report receiving anywhere from 20-300 pitches from PR professionals per day. Many of these journalists also report only writing one article per day. See the discrepancy and why this is such a problem?

Technology has also had a significant impact on the field of media relations. As a result of social media and the rise of direct-to-consumer PR query services, you now have the ability to speak directly with the media. On the one hand, this is a good thing. On the other, it further inundates journalists’ inboxes with pitches that are off base and go straight to their spam folder.

Journalism & PR employment statistics

What is the job outlook for Public Relations?

As newsrooms shrink, the PR industry grows.

Stats on Media Relations: 

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics by the U.S. Department of Labor, “Employment of public relations specialists is projected to grow 6 percent from 2018 to 2028, about as fast as the average for all occupations. The need for organizations to maintain their public image will continue to drive employment growth.”

According to Harvard Business Review, the average worker receives 12,000 emails a year, while writers at top-tier publications receive 38,000 emails. Wow! Can you imagine being a journalist today and being bombarded with so many pitches?

According to Bloomberg, “Employment for public relations specialists will expand to 282,600 in 2026, up 9 percent from 2016, according to projections from the Labor Department. Meanwhile, jobs for reporters, correspondents, and broadcast news analysts are forecast to decline 9 percent to 45,900 over the same period.  For the news business, that would extend already sizable declines. Newsroom employment fell 23 percent to 88,000 from 2008 to 2017, with the number of newspapers dropping 45 percent to 39,000, according to a Pew Research Center study.”

This is a serious problem for your media relations efforts, especially if you are trying to pitch the media yourself without an external agency. Journalists are increasingly frustrated with their inboxes being blown up by PR professionals, and PR professionals are finding it harder to land their client’s digital ink.

What does a publicist do for a corporation?

A publicist is responsible for overseeing and managing a company’s public relations and media relations efforts.

This can include developing and implementing PR strategies, managing relationships with the media and influencers, and coordinating with other departments to ensure that the company’s messaging is consistent and effective.

For example, RMG works cross-functionally with strategic partners across marketing, product, communications, legal, and public affairs. A publicist is responsible for communicating with journalists to communicate key messages and package stories, news, and trends on behalf of the executives and senior c-suite leadership they represent (both internally or externally).

Our PR agency interfaces with high-level executives and members of the company’s leadership team. We also offer clients to the media for interviews, bookings, and media tours.

A publicist will maintain excellent relationships with journalists and influencers, develop written pitch materials, create strategic PR programs, and manage crisis communications.

How can a publicist help your business get featured in the news?

The ever-changing role of the next-gen publicist in media relations

Social media has changed the role of traditional media gatekeepers in getting your story picked up in the news. Today, reporters are active on social media channels like Twitter Spaces and forums like Reddit or Mastodon to find interesting stories to cover.

The more active you are on social media platforms, the more likely they may be to cover your story.

Focus more on content production and being available online and less on trying to trick a reporter into writing about you. The old way of pitching media simply doesn’t work anymore.

The role of a traditional publicist has also changed substantially in the process of media relations as well. It used to be that the first touch point was with a publicist.

Today, that paradigm has shifted with the proliferation of citizen journalism including the rise of Substack, Patreon, Ghost, and Medium. If you have built a brand for yourself, the publicist can field inbound media queries instead of pitching an unknown entity. Instead of saying, this is my client and you should cover them, the reporter will come to you and say they want to interview your client, and you can dictate the terms of the interview. This is the real power move.

The old of way of doing PR is dead. Furthermore, many SaaS founders in Silicon Valley will flat out refuse to do traditional media interviews on mainstream outlets because they want more control of the narrative that they are afforded when they go direct to their audience. The publicist plays a strategic role in this process, just at a different point of the media cycle.

Content marketing also plays a critical role in media relations.

Reporters and journalists frequently bypass publicists and research topics on their own. They want to see who the real subject matter experts (SME) are, not who a publicist claims the SME is.

Recently, I was featured in a national media outlet because a journalist had been following my published writing and research on a topic that they too were covering. A strategic inbound PR approach can be very powerful. This also means that lack of content production will hurt your chances of getting media coverage.

A journalist is more likely to quote a source who is actively involved in academic circles and research than they are with someone who doesn’t publish or contribute to their industry. If you are not frequently publishing content, you are sending low trust signals and low authority signals of being a true expert.

WHY YOU NEED MEDIA RELATIONS

Why does a company need corporate media relations?

Media relations is the most critical part of a public relations campaign. Other public relations activities such as community outreach can be mastered without intricate knowledge of how the media works. However, media relations is the most specialized component of public relations. To understand why you need media relations, you first need to understand how publicists and journalists work together on stories and segments.

How do publicists and journalists work together?

Journalists and publicists work closely together on interviews, articles, and broadcast segments.  Good publicists can make journalists’ lives easier when they are on deadline by providing access to interview opportunities with subject matter experts and key opinion leaders that may otherwise be hard to reach.  Additionally, PR firms have access to media contacts that many people do not have. While you certainly could try to build these relationships on your own, it would take a considerable amount of time, effort, and media savviness to navigate the changing landscape.

MEDIA RELATIONS JOB DESCRIPTION

What does a media relations agency do?

Careers in Public Relations & Media Relations

A media relations agency is responsible for handling all interview coordination between the expert source and the media.

So, what does a media relations specialist do and what does the job entail?

Who is in charge of media relations?

An internal Director of Marketing or Communications is typically in charge of media relations if an external Public Relations agency has not been retained.

A media relations specialist is responsible for handling all incoming media inquiries for a corporation. There are several variations of the job title, which can often appear as:

• Press contact
• Media contact
• Director of PR
• Director of Media Relations

A media relations specialist makes sure a journalist receives requested high-resolution images or a sources executive biography.  They are also responsible for making sure your PR efforts aren’t sabotaged to ensure your best chance of top-tier coverage in major press outlets and publications.

Ideally, a trusted media relations specialist provides authoritative sources to journalists and producers who are on quick turnaround times or tight deadlines.  Publicists and media relations specialists understand the sense of urgency that comes with deadlines and filing stories and are able to give the media what they need fast.

Media Relations Skills: organized, reliable, excellent writer, ability to multitask, critical thinking, ability to analyze news trends, and condense information.

THE IMPORTANCE OF MEDIA RELATIONS 

Why is media relations important for strategic public relations?

Journalists and producers are working on several different stories and segments at any given time and your client is not always their top priority.

If you don’t understand media relations and PR etiquette, you run the risk of never being quoted in that media outlet again. If a journalist has a bad experience with a source, they may be likely to share that negative experience with other journalists. Is that really how you want to be perceived simply because you didn’t take the time to understand the language of the media or how things work?

There are so many intricacies that go into Public Relations. PR is an art. It is a craft. This is often why I do not recommend DIY Public Relations. When pitching is handled through a Media Relations Agency, the communication is often clearer, and the ball doesn’t get dropped. Oftentimes, a PR firm may go back and forth with a journalist up to 20 times fact-checking a one-line quote in an article. After the fourth or fifth email, people who attempt the DIY PR route usually stop replying to the journalist and risk getting cut from the story entirely. PR firms don’t let that happen.

New York City Public Relations Agency

MEDIA TRACKING IN PUBLIC RELATIONS

What is media tracking in public relations?

There are many ways to track media placements and press placements, but first, let me explain what a media placement is.

What is a media placement?

A media placement is earned press coverage that is secured through public relations tactics in a variety of digital and traditional channels including but not limited to digital media, print magazines, newspapers, radio, television, podcasts, and more. Earned media placements are “earned” through PR efforts. Conversely, media that is paid for is called advertising.

What is a PR placement?

For example, when our agency secures press coverage for a client, we email them a link to the coverage, which includes the publicity mention with a link back to their website. We typically say, “attached please find a link to the press coverage secured on your behalf.”

A PR placement means that the client’s quote ran in a media outlet and the journalist used their quote and the story is live. Publicists are responsible for placing these quotes and stories when they act as the liaison between the media and expert sources.

How are Media Placements shared?

There are several ways to share PR placements with clients: email, texting screenshots, press clipping reports or by sharing editor feedback they received with the client on why they were such a great source!

MEDIA RELATIONS STRATEGY

Before reaching out to a reporter or sending a pitch, it is critical to develop a media relations strategy.

Determine:

1. What outlets you want to pitch.
2. Who the reporters are at those outlets.

To develop your own media relations action plan, do the following:

• Create a targeted media list.
• Use media relations tools to help with this!
• Craft an electronic press kit (EPK).

BONUS: Check out our press kit here. 

What is a media relations strategy and why do you need one?

Are you looking to get quoted as an expert? Do you want brand mentions? Feature profiles? National broadcast TV segments on cable nows? Or Internet shows with strong backlinks?

Effective media relations starts with a high-level strategy and it must tie back to your business goals and objectives. For example, a client looking to leverage PR as part of their SEO campaign may opt not to do broadcast TV segments because backlinks are rarely included. Conversely, someone looking to build strong brand exposure may prioritize getting booked on TV as their #1 media goal.

No two media strategies are the same. But, if you want to ultimately fail with any PR firm you hire, do a spray and pray approach and don’t take the time to develop a media relations strategy. If you do this, you will hire and fire every firm you work with for all of eternity and will continue to be disappointed. This is on you, not the firm. Why? Because only you know what truly drives your business and only you know in your heart what you want the outcome of the campaign efforts to be. Don’t make other people guess at this. Lay it out there. People aren’t mind readers.

A publicist could land you top-tier media coverage and meet every KPI you set in the contract, and you still may not be happy. Why? Because maybe you are looking for PR to ultimately drive leads and sales instead of media coverage. Or, maybe you are looking for a targeted PR campaign to get on the radar of other referring physicians. If that is the case, consumer press may ultimately be useless, and a highly targeted campaign in medical trade journals makes more sense. The point here is you have to really tell someone what you want and then help point them in that direction.

Ultimately, it’s not just about getting media coverage. It has to be about something larger that is more targeted. For example, getting booked to talk on television as an expert about things outside of your wheelhouse may not meet your ultimate objective of building a brand as a leading expert in your field.

If you are only looking for press coverage in a very specific niche, that means you only want to provide commentary to the media in a narrow scope. That strategy is debatable because most likely your agenda is not the same as the national media’s agenda and what is trending in the news, but that is a topic for another article (or book!).

You also have to be clear with how you will measure results. If you hire a PR firm, their success is measured in media coverage secured. It is not measured in sales, leads, or any other metric that is used in direct marketing.

PR Pro Tip: If you don’t develop media relations KPIs in your contract, don’t be upset when your PR firm gets you a bunch of press placements that have nothing to do with what you envisioned. It is your responsibility to define what the targets are that you want to reach, not theirs.

MEDIA RELATIONS ETIQUETTE

One of the biggest mistakes people make with media relations is they do not follow basic etiquette rules when communicating with the media.

Follow these media relations etiquette rules when working with reporters

3 media relations etiquette rules to follow when publicists work with journalists to ensure success

• Thank the reporter for media exposure. It is incredible how many publicists skip this simple step. Too often, publicists look at an article from the perspective of how their client will see it and forget to look at it from a perspective of gratitude to the journalist who included their client in the first place. Journalists work hard on stories. If a journalist is giving your client editorial space or digital ink, say thank you for the coverage instead of complaining that the link wasn’t right or the quote was cut short.

• Act as a Media Gatekeeper. Media Relations Strategists must act as the gatekeeper between the client and the media at all times. The best public relations professionals value their relationships with the media first and foremost. They believe clients come and go, but the media stays. If you burn through those relationships with the media for a client who may or may not keep you retained, you ultimately will damage your reputation as a publicist. However, if you know and respect the rules and filter PR requests, journalists will want to keep working with you, and clients will learn over time that you know what you are doing. Hopefully, they will begin to understand why you say no to certain requests and will begin to trust your strategic media guidance on topics such as how to stay relevant to the media.  If you are continually pushed by a client to pitch stories you know are not newsworthy, it may be time to reevaluate the engagement.

• Market Your Media Coverage. Promoting your earned media exposure and press mentions on social media is critical to amplifying the value of the press placements for your business. Do not forget to share the media coverage on social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and your blog. Journalists want to drive traffic to their articles. If they included your client in a story, return the favor by tweeting a link to the article and directing eyeballs to it. This small social media act of gratitude can go a long way in ensuring your client is used again as a source. Always extend the value of your media coverage through a strategic cross-channel digital marketing strategy. Being featured in the media is irrelevant if no one knows about it!

IMPROVING MEDIA RELATIONS BEST PRACTICES 

Buzzstream conducted a study with over 500 journalists on their preferred PR pitching preferences. Here is what they found:

• 39% of reporters stated they would like to receive exclusive research in a pitch
• Only 15% said that want to receive “emotional stories”
• Only 5% of reporters said they want to be contacted by phone
• 81% of reporters said they want to be contacted through email
• 69% of reporters preferred to be pitched in the morning and only 9% wanted to be pitched in the evening
• 88% of writers prefer to be pitched less than 200 words
• Reporters said they wanted subject lines that are direct, concise, descriptive and include keywords relevant to their beat
• 33% of reporters said they are very likely to delete a pitch if it has bad grammar

PITCHING JOURNALISTS: HOW TO GET YOUR PITCH NOTICED

Effective Media Relations Strategies

How to Answer Questions From a Reporter

• Do not provide one-word answers. Provide the journalist with thorough interview answers.  I won’t send a journalist interview answers from a client that are one-line replies, and neither should you. I will go back to my client and ask them to re-do the answers because I know what a journalist is expecting and want to give them lengthier answers that they can pull good quotes from. Additionally, if the answers are missing the mark on the question the journalist asked, I will also ask them to re-do the answers before submitting. A good publicist knows what a journalist needs and can anticipate the needs of their editor as well. They may even have worked in journalism prior to becoming a publicist, which further helps them to understand what is truly newsworthy.

• Watch the clock. Do not say you will provide interview answers by a certain time and then provide them after the journalist’s deadline. If your client bails on the answers, let the reporter know ASAP and, if possible, provide the reporter with another source. Do not leave them hanging. Additionally, when you are replying to queries from reporters, time is of the essence. For every one press query posted, reporters receive hundreds of responses. You want to be one of the first to reply.  If clients are asking you to submit queries hours later or after a journalist’s deadline has expired, don’t do it.  It reeks of PR amateur hour.

How Do Journalists Conduct Interviews?

Reporters have different methods of conducting interviews. Some journalists want to speak by phone, while others want to send questions to sources by email. Publicists are responsible for figuring out the journalist’s preferred interview format and coordinating interview times, answers, and any additional information a reporter needs from a source. Often, the journalist’s preferred interview format may conflict with the client’s preferred interview format.  This is always a challenging and volatile situation to navigate through.  It never gets easier.

How do you approach a journalist?

Media 101: How to follow up with editors

Freelancer Writer Lindsay Tiger recently shared 13 helpful tips for PRs to know when working with the media in my PR business group. This should be mandatory reading for all PR firm clients to read.  She gave me permission to share the below 13 PR tips with readers.

What journalists want in PR pitches and what reporters really want from PR specialists (and their clients!)

As someone who interviews experts every single day, I wanted to share some friendly tips for what works (and doesn’t) in terms of commentary. I’m often asked why certain quotes aren’t included, while others frequently are, so thought insight might be helpful:

Don’t ask when the story will be live. I don’t know when the story will be published. You will probably find out before I do. I wish I knew!

I can’t promise coverage, ever, for any reason, no matter what. Even if I stay at a hotel for two nights. Even if you send me something. Even if it’s expensive. It’s not an exchange, it’s a review. It’s unethical for me to guarantee anything, and final edits are always out of my hands. I wish more people understood the difference between paid influencers and journalists.

Don’t ask for quick edits. I don’t have access to the CMS system, and I want to make a change as badly as you do, but I can’t make it happen. It’s up to my editor. I wish I could make a quick edit — my bylines would be better!

An expert can have one title — not 20. It’s cool they’re a career expert, a botanist, a yoga therapist, an author, a podcast speaker and a certified life coach… but I only have so much space in my word count.  I only have 1,000 words to work with and I can’t include two lines of titles. Choose the most appropriate for the story topic.

If an editor makes me link to an affiliate, I have to. I can’t not, it’s part of my story assignment. I’ll always try to tell you if that’s the case. If they change the link to an affiliate, I probably can’t change it back. I wish I could.

I can’t change internal processes. I know your clients are pressuring you and you have deliverables and I totally understand. Your job is hard, just like mine.

Short doesn’t work. When an expert simply answers a question in a sentence, I delete it. The purpose of expert commentary is to add insight and depth, and one or two sentences is a waste of your time, their time and my time. Ideally, 4-6 sentences per question is awesome. I’d rather cut down than have to beg.

Send me the raw stuff.  I know as publicists, you edit responses. I do appreciate it from a grammatical perspective but also, having raw commentary that’s super-long and winded, is sometimes great. I can pull what I need easily — and it saves you time!

Make it different. Especially when I’m profiling many executives in one story, it’s the most unique angles that stand out to me. Sure, everyone says to go to bed earlier if you want to be a morning person — but what else? It’s great to have a perspective that is out of the norm. And psst: sometimes when someone is super interesting to me, I’ll even pitch a feature on them!

Don’t be shady. Seriously. SO MANY TIMES I take out tracking links. SO MANY TIMES, an ‘expert’ is recommending a product they’re paid to endorse. SO MANY TIMES, the advice is only about using their product or service. This isn’t cool, ethical or genuine — or helpful.

Give it time. At least a week, preferably two. Writers are often working on a dozen or so stories at the same time, so I will never know if I’m using quotes within 24 hours after you send them.

Don’t plagiarize. Under no circumstance, ever, EVER, EVER should you submit commentary that’s been published on your blog or send to another writer, ever. I legit pay for a plagiarism checker because this has happened to me so many times.

Two people can’t say the same thing. Even if there are two people running a business or the founders of a company, you can’t write a direct quote that’s attributed to two people. Pick one or send unique answers for each.

What is plagiarism in PR and how can you avoid it?

PR Pro Tip: Do not submit answers that have been published anywhere else or that are taken from Google.

Approaching a journalist also means verifying that what you are submitting to them is factual, accurate, and ethically sound. This media relations guide would be incomplete if we did not include a section on the importance of fact-checking answers submitted to the media.

What mistakes do PR experts make when pitching sources to journalists on HARO?

#1 most common mistake made by PR firms: Publicists do not run their source’s query answers through a plagiarism checker. This happens because the PR firm does not properly onboard a client at the start of the engagement to explain that plagiarism can mean reusing your own words that you have published elsewhere. Most don’t realize this is a big no in PR.

Why plagiarism is a problem in PR:

Journalists share an anonymous warning call to all PR firms.

How do journalists deal with plagiarism when sources plagiarize quotes?

“PR professionals — please do not send reporters plagiarized text for quotes. Anything you send must not have been published anywhere else (including your experts’ own blog or social media or the brand’s website), nor should it have been sent to any other reporter or used in a press email.

I have had this happen with increased frequency over the last month. Not only is it incredibly frustrating and unprofessional (we’re talking 101 here) but it puts me in a bind most of the time.

I run everything through a plagiarism checker (and I know many other reporters who do, as well) and I suggest you do the same with your experts’ answers. It ruins relationships very quickly.

I promise I’m not trying to be mean. I am honestly SHOCKED at how frequently this happens. Even people who you’d think would never consider plagiarizing, such as medical professionals or authors do it.

I don’t think some PR firms even realize that their experts have done this. Most are shocked as well when I bring it to their attention. That is why I also suggested running your experts’ answers through a plagiarism checker before sending answers onward to the press.

Another reporter said, “Yes, I had this exact scenario recently. A PR firm’s client, an accountant, literally copy and pasted their answers from the IRS’ website and the PR firm didn’t catch it. I knew immediately those dry responses could only come from the government and not a real human.

“I’ve even had some sent where “answers” are piecemealed and you can literally see the different fonts and sizes within one paragraph. COME ON people.”

“A publicist once sent me their “expert’s” quotes in response to a HARO query. They were all pulled directly from the CDC website and attributed to the client. Safe to say I’ll never work with that publicist/PR firm.”

The author of Ishmaels Corner raises an interesting question:

“What is the PR agency’s role in vetting a bylined article from a client? I used to believe common sense and instincts should rule the exercise. I’m now thinking a plagiarism checker should be part of the process.”

The author is not alone in this sentiment, as this has become a massive issue in recent years. We all like to believe that no one will cut corners. But unfortunately, it is simply not the case. The onus is on you as the PR firm to verify that everything you are submitting to the media is written by your client and that it has not been lifted or plagiarized.

At Ruby Media Group, we run every answer through plagiarism checkers. If we suspect anything has been lifted, we don’t submit the answer and have a stern sit-down with the client. This is also in our contract and is grounds for termination.

Our reputation is on the line- as is a reporter when someone does this. We take the PRSSA code of ethics extremely seriously. Someone who does this is not only putting your reputation on the line, they are also putting a journalist’s reputation on the line, too. This selfish behavior can result in a reporter getting in major trouble. We are the first line of defense to make sure that this doesn’t happen.

READ: Bad Things Happen When PR Pitches a Plagiarized Byliner

STRATEGIC MEDIA RELATIONS

A successful media relations strategist knows how to walk the tightrope of the client’s needs and the media’s needs on a daily basis. The goal is to mitigate the level of stress and try to strike a balance.  You must be able to work in a high-stress environment daily to succeed in media relations. Even though clients hire you to get press coverage, they may get perturbed by the daily disruption of media requests. Remind them of why they hired you, and that this is all part of the process of getting earned media coverage. Yes, PR is a lot of work from the client side and from the agency side. PR isn’t for the faint of heart. There is a reason why Public Relations is continuously listed year after year as one of the most stressful jobs in America.

Ready to increase media exposure for your business? We can help with media training, media relations consulting, media relations strategy guidance and execution of ongoing media relations work with national media outlets on behalf of your company. Contact us today to discuss how we can help get you more interviews and get you booked, fast!

The importance of having an internal communication media relations process  

Always have an internal media relations policy in place

It is critical to have a media relations strategy and a media relations communications process internally to handle media inquiries. If you hire a PR firm, you should make sure your staff knows to direct any and all incoming media requests to the PR firm. Make sure not to sabotage your own PR efforts. Training your staff on best practices for working with your PR firm is an absolute must.

For example, if your PR firm is pitching you and a reporter calls up your practice manager but the manager takes a message and doesn’t relay the message to you until ten hours later, the reporter will most likely move on to another source. Train your staff on how to work with the PR firm and the proper protocol for handling time-sensitive requests from the media.

Remember, being quoted in the media or mentioned in an article is not your right. It is a privilege and an opportunity to be featured in media outlets. It is called earned media for a reason. Earn it!

Media Relations Checklist 

• Help them help you
• Respond to press queries in a timely manner
• Provide thought-leadership content to your PR firm
• Do not give one-word answers
• Let your PR firm know newsworthy topics you can comment on
• Dedicate at least 1 hour per day to working with your PR firm
• Do not flake out on media commitments
• Do not reschedule interviews with the media
• Do not add PR firm contacts on your personal social media (unless you want to irritate the PR firm)

Media Pitching 101 Checklist (BONUS!)

Before pitching the media, also make sure you have the proper media assets and collateral ready to go.  Here is a Media Pitching 101 checklist we created for you. Use this before your first pitch goes out!

PR Agency Pricing Structure

Media Relations/PR Costs

 “If I was down to my last dollar, I would spend it on public relations.” -Bill Gates

How much should I pay for PR or media relations and how much do publicists cost?

How much do you get paid in PR? is a popular question online.  Media relations agencies work on a fixed retainer model. Prices can start at $10k monthly to $10k monthly to $25k monthly up to even $60k monthly depending on the scope of services and desired press coverage goals. For example, are you interested in local coverage, trade coverage, or national press coverage? That will determine the cost of media relations. Additionally, the cost of the service will depend on if you are hiring a freelancer or a large PR agency. The retainer level is directly correlated to monthly deliverables.

Public Relations Pricing

Can I afford a PR campaign? How much does Public Relations cost?

People often ask, “Can I really afford a PR campaign?” It is important to understand there are two costs involved in a PR campaign: the cost of the PR firm, and the cost of your time. Most people allocate a budget for the firm, but they do not properly allocate the time to work with the firm they hired. Look at what your billable time is worth by the hour, multiply that by at least one hour a day for every day of the month, and factor that number into your cost.

Do you have to pay for PR?

Yes, unfortunately, you have to pay for PR! Like many things in life, PR is not free.

There is an article that ran in Forbes called, “Why you should almost never pay for PR.” Many articles like this have zero validity to them and are highly questionable. PR is NOT a waste of money as the article asserts. Why? Let’s dissect the claims.

“But for those of us outside the Fortune 100, a simple bit of effort from your marketing lead, founders, and other executives is really all that’s required.”

This makes me laugh. If that was all that was required in PR, we wouldn’t be in business. You should see my inbox.. to place one quote from an expert could require 30 emails back and forth. It is a massive time-suck which most senior executives don’t have the time to do. That is one of the main reasons having a publicist handle the manual labor for you in addition to the strategic PR is so critical.

The author also asserts, “Note that most paid-for PR firms have a so-called “media blast list.” As part of your $10k/month service all they simply do is put together a boilerplate press release and “blast” it to their 1000-strong contact list of “schedulers” at various media outlets.”

Again, laughable. We do not have a media blast list! Who would ever blast the media in a blanket blast?

That is not in line with best practices, and sending out press releases is so 1990 unless you are putting out a major announcement like a company acquisition through a traditional news wire service. Anyone who is blasting 1000 contacts at media outlets will be blacklisted for spam from every journalist.

“Knowing this, why pay for what you can and should be doing on your own?”

Again, faulty logic here. I certainly can do my taxes on my own if I invested enough time in learning how to do them, but does that mean I should? No.

As a business owner, you can do many things on your own. The question is where should your precious hours be spent, and what percentage of every other tactical activity should be outsourced to external service providers.

Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. It is better to be a specialist than a generalist.

“But overall, my recommendation is: keep control of your PR by keeping most/all of it in-house.”

What a terrible recommendation. Unless you have hired in-house employees who specialize in public relations, this is a disaster waiting to happen. Just because your new employee knows how to write a press release, does not mean they are qualified to handle crisis communications for your company!

“After all, no one knows and can tell your own story better than you and the people who live it every day.”

Sure, no one can tell your story better than you can. This is why we interview all clients to extract their story and craft the story in the best possible light. Of course, no one knows YOUR story better than YOU.

However, just because you know your own story (not that big of an achievement- I would hope so!) doesn’t mean you know how to tell it, or who to tell it to, or how to craft it, or what channels to distribute it through.

Even though no one knows your story better than you do does not mean you are the best one to tell it to reporters.

That is the equivalent of saying – no one knows your story better than you do, so why would you need a lawyer? You may as well make your own case in front of a judge in a court of law because you know your story best, right? No, wrong!

Pay for placement PR firms and Guaranteed PR

Should PR firms guarantee media coverage?

Pay for performance PR or PR retainers? Which is better?

Retainers are the industry standard when you are working with a PR firm. Pay-for-performance PR options are still looked down upon by traditional PR practitioners. In fact, Tech Crunch declared a war on a pay-for-placement PR firm for offering a la carte pricing for press placements.

PRICING PR

The PR industry is really in trouble right now. You have so many people who are selling editorial coverage and offering guaranteed placements. This is not real journalism. This is not PR.

I urge you to watch the video How to Spot a Fake PR Firm.  It contains a solid ten minutes of truth about the PR industry right now.

There is no possible way any Publicist can guarantee press coverage.  There are a million factors and variables on any given day such as:

• Will there be breaking news?
• Will the story get bumped?
• Will the story get cut because an editor went in a different direction?
• Did someone else give better interview answers than the ones your source provided?

These are only some of the factors that go into getting a story placed. As more people tout guaranteed PR placement coverage, the industry becomes diluted as well as the value of PR in general. It also dilutes value in the client’s eyes because they are only attributing value to actual placements secured, and not the labor that goes into pitching and getting a story placed and all the other work involved from a tactical perspective. Additionally, press placements and media relations are only one component of a solid integrated PR campaign.

So, even if someone can guarantee you pay for placement PR, they aren’t offering you any real strategic insight, which is a critical component of a media relations campaign.

Should you hire a media relations specialist?

If you cannot spend at least one hour per day working with a media relations agency or PR firm, you should not hire a PR firm.  Here is a list of 10 reasons why you shouldn’t hire a PR firm in addition to not having the time to work with an agency. Retaining a publicist is a massive amount of work. You must be willing to put in the time to give the firm what they need on a consistent basis so they can do the job you retained them to do. Please think about this before you hire a PR firm. We see way too many people hiring PR firms and then ghosting the firms when they need to give them the necessary material to do the job they hired them to do.

If you are going to hire a media relations specialist, you may want to consider hiring someone who has former experience as a journalist or producer. Many former producers and journalists have made the leap to PR because there are more job opportunities in the PR industry today. Their newsroom experience can prove invaluable for your media relations campaign efforts.

TAKEAWAYS

How to improve media relations  

MEDIA RELATIONS TIPS

• Publicists and media relations strategists provide access to expert sources.
• Journalists write articles that the public relies on.
• Publicists and journalists must work together and respect each other’s skillsets in the process of story creation or disaster can follow.
• Always have a media relations strategy before reaching out to the media.
• Do your research and know the publication you are pitching.
• Be relevant and make your pitch newsworthy.
• Understand the beat you are pitching.  If it doesn’t fit their beat, then don’t send.
• Don’t send large file size attachments that can blow up a journalist’s inbox.
• Don’t pitch through social media.
• Check your grammar and don’t use all caps.
• Be personal and don’t misspell a reporter’s name.
• Email instead of call.
• If a reporter is interested they will let you know. Do not incessantly follow up.
• Pitch solutions to problems.
• If you have unique interview opportunities, make that the lead.
• Include high-quality graphics or infographics to share data.

As a result of reading this media relations guide, you have hopefully developed a better understanding of the time requirement it takes for PR, and have gained new ideas on how to write press-worthy content that will actually get picked up by reporters and has a chance of turning into national media coverage success!  Good media relations practices can be achieved by understanding how the media works.

Most companies who retain a PR firm receive no formal training on how to actually work with the firm or how to write content that will get picked up. We hope this guide will better serve you in getting the maximum ROI out of your Public Relations firm.  If you have tried all of our tips and still aren’t seeing PR results, contact us to enhance your media relations campaign. We have a solid track record of national media success for clients in tier 1 media outlets.

BONUS MATERIAL

Still have questions about PR? Curious to know why you need a publicist?

Watch our new video “What Does a Public Relations Agency do?” to learn:

1) What is the role of a publicist for my company? What does a PR firm actually do?

2) What are the essential functions of a Public Relations agency?

3) What is earned PR and how is earned awareness built in to public relations?

4) How are media placements in top-tier publications achieved?

5) How do publicists get paid? What do fee structures look like by service in public relations?

MEDIA RELATIONS AGENCY SERVICES | NYC | PR CONSULTING 

Ready to work with a public relations agency or PR consultant to develop and implement a comprehensive media relations strategy? Contact us today.

There are still things a great media hit can do that nothing else can.  One feature interview in the national media could result in thousands of earned media impressions for your business.  Ruby Media Group is a New Yorked based media relations driven agency. Other components of public relations are important, but we believe media relations should be at the top of any strategic public relations campaign, first and foremost.  If you are unhappy with the results you are seeing from pitching the media, it may be time to call a media relations specialist or consultant.

Our New York media relations firm has secured hundreds of impressions for clients over the past 12 years in national media outlets. We would love to achieve the same level of success for you and have you be our next shining case study!

Contact us today to discuss a media relations strategy for your business or medical practice. There are many PR firms that focus on community engagement and do not deliver substantial results when it comes to media relations (despite promising to!). We are not one of them.

Click here to see a sneak peek at the numerous PR case studies of earned media wins we have secured for doctors, cardiologists, dentists, dermatologists, and other medical PR clients over the past decade.

Earned Media Outreach PR services:

Direct media outreach is the best way to land press coverage for long-term SEO impact and results. A top NYC PR firm will help you coordinate a concerted effort to reach key  media  publications  with  the  goal  of securing earned media attention in your target outlets.

 SOURCES:

Census: 6 PR pros for every journalist

Adweek The PR Industry has a big problem

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, Public Relations Specialists

ABOUT THE AUTHOR | KRIS RUBY

KRIS RUBY is the CEO of Ruby Media Group, an award-winning public relations and media relations agency in Westchester County, New York. Kris Ruby has more than 15 years of experience in the Media and Broadcast Journalism industry. She is a sought-after media relations strategist, personal branding specialist, content creator and crisis communications consultant. Kris Ruby is also a renowned conservative  commentator and political pundit and she has appeared on national TV programs over 200 times covering big tech bias, politics and social media. She is a trusted media source and frequent on-air commentator on social media, tech trends and crisis communications and frequently speaks on FOX News and other TV networks. She has been featured as a published author in OBSERVER, ADWEEK, and countless other industry publications. Her research on brand activism, the rise of antisemitism on social media and cancel culture is widely distributed and referenced. 

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Date last updated: April 2024

Kris Ruby( CEO & Founder | Ruby Media Group )

KRIS RUBY is the CEO of Ruby Media Group, an award-winning public relations and media relations agency in Westchester County, New York. Kris Ruby has more than 15 years of experience in the Media industry. She is a sought-after media relations strategist, content creator and public relations consultant. Kris Ruby is also a national television commentator and political pundit and she has appeared on national TV programs over 200 times covering big tech bias, politics and social media. She is a trusted media source and frequent on-air commentator on social media, tech trends and crisis communications and frequently speaks on FOX News and other TV networks. She has been featured as a published author in OBSERVER, ADWEEK, and countless other industry publications. Her research on brand activism and cancel culture is widely distributed and referenced. She graduated from Boston University’s College of Communication with a major in public relations and is a founding member of The Young Entrepreneurs Council.  She is also the host of The Kris Ruby Podcast Show, a show focusing on the politics of big tech and the social media industry. Kris is focused on PR for SEO and leveraging content marketing strategies to help clients get the most out of their media coverage.