Whither Media Relations

We had a client a couple years back that was launching a new product. It was a boot-strapped enterprise, funded mostly by family money and propelled by the kind of energy that fuels early-stage companies and that we PR folks love to feed on.

We also did a lot of feeding on the product itself. I won’t reveal what it actually was, but suffice to say it was yummy. REALLY yummy.

Because the founder didn’t have much of a marketing budget, he threw what he did have behind a media relations push, a campaign to get the word out so that potential customers could read about it in print and on online outlets and perhaps even through some coverage on TV.

We had some early successes. Placements within the pages of Bon Appetit, Cooking Light, Prevention and Garden & Gun, among many others, not only plucked the product out of obscurity, but it also began driving a steady stream of curious, if not hungry, customers to its website.

Then came an appearance on the TODAY Show, and the floodgates collapsed…almost literally. The volume of orders that came in over the transom did so with such force and frequency that this little engine that could actually couldn’t. The website conked out amid the biggest crush of orders it could have ever imagined.

When we founded The Hodges Partnership almost 13 years ago, we did so with one core competency – media relations. We were – and still are – adept at wrapping a news angle around our clients’ brands, and that acumen and a dose of polite persistence has proven over the years to be a pretty prolific combination. Whether we’re helping launch a new product, working to enhance a client’s expert market position or calling attention to some new aspect of a client’s product or service offerings, we have a track record that I’d stack up against any agency around.

But enough of the loud back-patting.

The point of this trip down memory lane is not simply nostalgia but an assertion that media relations remains today and will remain tomorrow a substantial piece of our approach to client storytelling. Those of you who regularly follow The Gong Blog have noticed that we are adding new arrows to our PR quiver. Social platforms have created exciting new tools for us and our clients, and we have moved aggressively to stay abreast of current trends and even help do a little trailblazing ourselves. It’s all very cool.

But all of that is additive – it’s complementing and not replacing our focus on media relations. As much as content marketing gives us tools for efficiently targeting audiences, for creating relationships and engagement between brands and their customers, media relations holds some intrinsic power of its own, providing influential third-party endorsements, delivering instant credibility, and as our clients have learned, driving customers to your door.

But be warned. They also can break your website.