Last month's issue of Contact! featured 10 original publicity tips prepared by members of ARRL's Public Relations Committee for the annual PR Forum held last month at the Dayton Hamvention. In case you couldn't be there in person, here are 10 more creative ideas to help garner publicity for your club and Amateur Radio:
1. Did a member of your club go overseas (or return from an overseas assignment) with the military? Are/were his/her radio skills being put to use?
Promote it: There's plenty of bad news about our soldiers coming out of Iraq right now; local news outlets will be hungry for good news about local soldiers/reservists.
2. Did your club participate in a special event, disaster drill or real emergency?
Promote it: Ideally, you can get coverage during the event as part of the overall coverage. If you don't, follow up (quickly) with media outlets, explaining the role your club played. You might get a good follow‑up story.
3. Did your club do a ham radio demo for Scouts or another group in the community?
Promote it: Anything involving kids is always good news copy; getting members of the
community on the air is as well.
4. Did your club win its category (or come close) in Field Day or the club competition in
another contest such as the CQ WPX Contest?
Promote it: Be sure to use terminology the average person will understand, and explain that contesting is not only fun and competitive but good preparation for emergency communications.
5. Did your club get recognition from local or state government, or community organization, for public service or emergency work, or anything else?
Promote it: This helps maintain a positive public image of your club, its members and Amateur Radio in general.
6. Did your club have a local political leader visit or take part in an activity?
Promote it: Politicians love having their pictures taken with community groups. You can promote it and they will, too.
7. Is your club having a prominent speaker at an upcoming meeting?
Promote it: If someone well‑known in ham radio or in general is coming to talk at your club meeting, it can be newsworthy.
8. Is your club having a speaker on a unique topic or a topic that's of interest beyond ham radio?
Promote it: In addition to news media publicity, consider other groups that may have an interest. For example, if you have a speaker coming in to talk about amateur radio astronomy or meteor scatter, consider inviting a local astronomy group (and be sure to tell the speaker about it as well).
9. Is your club having a fox hunt?
Promote it: Call it a hidden transmitter hunt; emphasize the combination of fun competition and building skills in tracking down unknown radio signals that may be causing interference to police or other essential radio communications. Advance publicity is especially valuable if the hunters will be in a park or other public place ("If you see people running around Riverside Park on Saturday with handheld radios and funny‑looking antennas, don't worry. They're ham radio operators practicing the skill of tracking down radio signals from unknown sources...")
10. Is your club running a special event station?
Promote it: If the event has a particular tie‑in to ham radio (such as the Marconi centennial a few years back), explain and possibly focus on that; if not, explain how the ham station will help focus attention on the event Try to cross‑publicize with event organizers, particularly if it's a local event.
By the nature of it being a visual medium, television adds a dimension to stories that you just won't get in print. If you land that TV interview, don't pass up the chance to show people what ham radio is all about.
The following tips for television interviewees were pulled from various issues of the free e-mail newsletter "TJ's Insights". TJ Walker is the president of Media Training Worldwide.
1. When listening to a reporter's question (and you must listen very carefully), don't think about how your vast database of knowledge can provide 10,000 new facts to answer every nuance of the reporter's question.
2. Instead, focus on how you can honestly answer the question in a way that allows you to talk about one, two or three of your message points.
3. Do move your hands--whoever told speakers not to use their hands was not given accurate information.
4. When appearing on TV, don't move your hands above your face, below your chest or wider than your shoulders. If your quotes don't stand on their own, then you failed, not the reporter.
5. You have 0% control over the questions you are asked.
6. You have 100% control of the answers given during an interview.
7. Don't wear bright reds. They "bleed" on camera and are distracting.
8. Don't wear dangly earrings on TV. They distract.
9. TV viewers should focus on your face and what you say, not your clothes.
10. Never ask to have your quotes read back to you for accuracy. The implication is that you think the reporter is incompetent.
11. When you are in the green room before an interview, don't tell the producer or anyone else everything you are going to say. If you do, you might forget what you said once you are on the program.
12. If you are nervous before going on TV, you may speak softer and flatter than usual. Compensate by trying to speak louder and with more energy than usual.
13. Assume the media can ask you any questions about any subject.
ARRL PR Committee Chairman Sherri Brower, W4STB, regularly attends low-cost media training workshops in her local area. At the latest event, Brower picked up a great handout provided by Yates & Associates, a public relations and advertising company in Jensen Beach, Florida. She also got reprint permission for use in Contact!
This handout would be perfect for a public information officer training session.
Make Your News Stand Out and Boost Results
Issue Your News the Right Way.
With a news cycle that never sleeps, today's journalists are always on deadline and continuously inundated with email, fax and phone messages. How can you maximize the effectiveness of your efforts and make your news stand out? There are a few simple rules of thumb to make your news catch a journalist's eye and increase the likelihood of actually having your press release opened and read.
Will the journalist recognize your name?
Just like you and me, journalists look for email from people they know. Do you have a relationship with this person? Have you called to let them know they can expect a release from you? Have they requested your news in the past? If you cannot answer yes to at least one of the questions above, chances are your news will never even be seen.
Is your press release newsworthy? If you are uncertain about the newsworthiness of your release, ask yourself the following: Is it...
Do you have you a compelling subject/title?
Would it be enough to make you open it if it came to your inbox? If you're not sure, test several subjects on your colleagues or friends to get some fresh perspectives. The subject line/title/headline can be the single most important element in a successful release.
Deliver your news the way the journalists want to receive it.
Know their preferences. If you don't have a resource that provides profiles and preferences, be sure to record this information as you learn it.
Do they prefer email? If so, do they like to receive HTML or text? Do they like supporting materials via links or attachments? Some journalists simply won't open an email that contains attachments, while others want to have everything attached if they recognize the sender.
Delivering your news in the way journalists find most user-friendly not only helps you address any potential technical difficulty, it also goes toward establishing your credibility.
Include all the elements the Media will need to write a complete story. Make their job as easy as possible by allowing them to:
Avoid common pitfalls.
Although it seems like good sense would preclude us from making such mistakes, journalists will attest to the fact that they receive releases with these faux pas daily.
DON'T:
When Steve Katz, N8WL, won a copy of "Now You're Talking!" during the ARRL PR Forum at the Dayton Hamvention in May, he quickly decided that he'd donate the book to his local library. That in and of itself is a good public relations move, but Katz took it one step further.
To spread the word about the donation, Katz wrote an article and took a photo of the book presentation. Both landed in his local newspaper The Granville (Ohio) Sentinel. Katz told ARRL that he didn't publicize the donation to "boast," but to "inform the public that the resource now exists in the local library and to publicize that ham radio is alive and well, a fun hobby and a useful public service." Katz also made sure that he included Web site and contact information so anyone reading the article could reach him for more information about Amateur Radio.
What he did is something that any individual or club could do. Your local library would be happy to accept a book donation, and this is the perfect community-relations story for local reporters.
"All About Public Relations" is a Web site with a lot to offer PR pros and novices alike. One of the offerings is a PR toolkit, packed with helpful hints on writing news releases, op-ed pieces, preparing for interviews and much more.