by Michael Hanson
Good press relations can be the easiest — or the hardest — thing for a company to achieve. Easy if you know how, or are prepared to take good advice. Hard if you have not got a good story to tell, or think you know better than the press or your PR adviser.
Having been on the receiving end of press releases and other promotional efforts as a property journalist on various national newspapers and magazines for the past 25 years, I know that many journalists are disappointed with most of what they receive.
The fact that few people in public relations have ever earned their living as journalists, whose stories have been sub-edited for reasons of space or style — or even spiked — may explain why their efforts often seem amateur to the press.
Most self-respecting journalists believe they can do without public relations, though they may admit grudgingly that good press relations can make it easier for them to get their story.
Good press relations have to be built on trust and mutual respect. With specialist journalists, it is important to build and maintain a long-term relationship, so that there can be regular meetings and a steady supply of facts, comment and background information, not all of it intended for publication.
Specialist journalists such as property correspondents may be writing an article at any time of day — or night — when they may not have the time to seek additional information or check all their facts. If they have not got the information about your firm or property to hand, they will make do with someone else’s.
Just as little love is lost between journalists and PR people, so little is lost between property developers and agents. Each is jealous of the other’s relative skills and rewards, yet each knows in his heart that he cannot do without the other.
As one disenchanted developer puts it: “Agents should be on tap, not on top.” To which a cynical agent said just before Christmas: “Most marketing is getting the client to come to terms with reality
