The four relevant uses for a media release

I have often observed that the working day is dominated by jobs that have limited or tenuous purpose. These jobs are done for the purpose of doing something, anything, as long as it is productivity that fills time and justifies earnings. These jobs are usually due to lazy management and poor resource planning. Among these jobs, however, there will be a core of activities that have important impact.

The manager’s job should be to determine the needed impact and get those jobs into the process, not just grace the office with newly minted plastic surgery, a suit and a glib, but irrelevant, tongue.

When used properly, the media release is one of the most effective tools in the brand and marketing specialist toolkit. On the other hand, the release, like the lazy instruction can contribute to the clutter. Any publicity is not good publicity. Too many irrelevant releases dilute interest in what is actually important.

If you think it through, there are only four types of media releases (read content) that will have bottom-line impact. Whether they are interviews, reels or written pieces does not matter. The three types of content are value creation, product or service announcements, practice and crisis management.

Value creation is the new brand paradigm. The process of launching and managing a product is now augmented by consideration of what is actually valuable to a consumer. The shift in this is that a new product feature may not be of value to the consumer, but a clear benefit is of value.

The first, and most important form of the release is that it must bring across value creation. It can do this either with a direct announcement or an illustration. The illustration should use a consumer or reference the environment. It is easier for a consumer to be convinced of the value creation by seeing it create value for a peer consumer. That increases the potential for trial.

The second form is product and service announcements. Products and services evolve and spread. Consumers need to know this. However, this must be read in the context of value creation. If a product enters a new territory, expands its footprint, it needs to be announced. If it meaningfully or significantly changes, that must also be announced.

The practice note, closely related to value creation (once again) describes the soft aspect of service. How is the value delivered and what is the knowledge that is applied to deliver that service? What should the consumer expect in acquiring the product and has there been a significant change in policy?

The final form is crisis management. Let’s face it: things can go wrong. The approach is standardized. What happened, what are we doing to fix the problem and what are we doing to prevent it happening again? Hopefully this will not be a regular form of media release.

Company news is regularly cited as a feeder for media releases. It’s less important. A new recruit, unless a business star who can contribute to the bottom-line gains of the first three types of media release adds to the noise and culture and ultimately dilutes the message of value creation. A staff party won’t add to sales.

Get it right and add value with your media release. Add value for the consumer, not noise.