If you’ve just got your first PR job we thought we’d put together a bit of advice on the basics of good PR. Follow this advice and hopefully this will be the start of a long and prosperous career in PR. Press releases When PR professionals start their career, a press release is often the first thing they are asked to draft. It is also one of the most important written documents in PR to get right. The facts and messaging must be accurate, the tone must be appropriate for the recipient, and the content must be compelling and relevant for the target publication. The key to writing a good press release is clarity of thought: clear thinking leads to clear writing. Unclear briefs and mountains of messaging can cause confusion. Ignore marketing fluff and think about the news and customer benefits. Ask yourself:

• What is the news story?
• Who is the target audience?
• Why will customers be interested in the new product?

Press releases should provide journalists and their readers or viewers with real, current news. Journalists are busy so they should be kept short: preferably one side of A4, and a maximum of two sides. Ideally, press releases will also be tailored for different audiences. Approach the writing of the press release as if it is a story in the target publication. Cover ‘who, what, where, when and why’ in the first paragraph. Make sure the most important information – the news – is at the top of the release, with more details in subsequent paragraphs. Journalists receive hundreds of press releases every week. If they’re not interested in the headline and first paragraph, they won’t read any further. Time management When working across a number of different accounts, where there are numerous projects running concurrently, it’s vital for you and your team’s success to learn how to prioritise and multi-task effectively. By mastering both skills quickly you will find the rest of your work easier to handle. Here are some simple steps you can take immediately:

• Understand how you work. Everyone has different energy cycles throughout the day. Think about when you have the most energy during the day, as this is when you should plan your more demanding and stressful tasks.
• Prioritise your tasks. Start by writing a to-do list, listing all tasks, big and small.
• Next to each task mark how important each one is by using the letters A, B or C.
• Then using the numbers 1, 2, 3, mark how urgent they are. Tasks with A1 next to
• them need to be prioritised. Don’t delay tasks until they are urgent.
• Use a weekly planner. Or set aside time in your calendar for important tasks and do these at your highest energy level. Beware of leaving difficult tasks until last and doing easy or enjoyable ones first.
• Be strict with yourself! Don’t butterfly between tasks. Stick to the job in hand and focus.
• Keep your team in the loop. Always make your colleagues aware as early as you can if you think you are not going to make the pre-arranged deadline. On the other hand, beware of people encroaching upon your time.
• Don’t be a perfectionist… but don’t be careless! Find a happy medium. Be realistic about what you can achieve in the time you have.

 Presenting Presentations are a vital component of PR. They allow consultancies and their clients to deliver key messages to potential and existing customers, employees, and other stakeholders. A great presentation is an effective blend of creativity, to keep the audience interested and engaged, and a clear focus on the key messages to be delivered. There are a number of factors that will help you make successful presentations. Here are some top tips:

• Engage with your audience, and keep your enthusiasm and energy up throughout the presentation.
• Be yourself. You will sound better if you’re relaxed and passionate about your subject.
• Relax. Take deep breaths to conquer last minute nerves.
• Make sure you can be heard, but don’t shout if you’re presenting to a small room.
• Don’t look at your slides or visuals – keep facing the audience. Stand up if possible.
• Don’t rush your presentation, or talk too slowly. Keep things at a natural pace.
• Pause at all your key points to emphasise their importance.
• Try not to focus on one person – it can be intimidating.

 Client management PR practitioners operate in a market where the clients hold all the cards – it’s called a buyer’s market. The ability to develop good client handling skills, from understanding the character of your clients as individuals, to establishing real chemistry and rapport is therefore crucial. Here is a brief guide to becoming your client’s best friend!

• Develop an understanding: The process of building a dynamic relationship with your client starts with understanding their needs, and developing an understanding of their corporate culture.
• Become a bookworm: Read everything relevant to your client’s business. You’ll be expected to know what is going on within your client’s industry at all times.
• Constant contact: Never let the client think “what have you done for me lately?” A phone call a day keeps the client’s concerns at bay.
• Honesty is the best policy: You were hired because of your experience and knowledge of the PR profession, so if you have a good reason for disagreeing with the client, say so! The client will respect you for your objective advice.
• Fresh thinking: Don’t just do the bare minimum – a good PR practitioner should continually strive to come up with new ideas in regard to the client’s products, services and merchandising.
• Remember, remember… Your relationship may be purely about business, but that doesn’t mean you can’t treat your client like a friend. Little things do count, like sending a card or flowers on their birthday.
• Teamwork: It’s important to know and keep in touch with all members of the client team, not only with your main contact.
• A job well done: Do what you say you will do, and always make sure your work comes up to the standards you would expect if you were the client yourself. Be a great person to work with.

 A quick note on pushing back… One of the most effective ways of pushing back is to produce a clear timeline at the start of any programme. If your client then asks for something to be done within a tight deadline, you can refer to the timeline and say, “Yes, we can do this but will have to move X activity”. You will come across as accommodating while still making the client aware that not everything can be done at once. Media Relations Before you contact a journalist on a national or major regional newspaper, read the newspaper thoroughly, and try to understand what makes it tick – what is its tone? What is the news agenda? What are the readers like? Ask yourself whether your story, or your angle, is something that you could see appearing in the paper? If not, can you create an angle to make it suitable? The next step is to find out who you should talk to about your story. For instance, there may be specialist reporters or editors covering areas from news, business and politics to sport, fashion and health. You will also need to know the publishing cycle of the newspaper or newspapers you are targeting. The last thing you want to do is put in a call just when the journalists have filed their copy and it’s ‘gone to print’ (or press). So ask yourself whether your story is time critical, with breaking news that the journalist would hate to miss even as they are approaching a deadline, or can it wait? Of course the best way to sell in your stories is to know someone at the other end of the phone. Cold calling with news is one of the hardest tasks in public relations, and it requires the hide of a rhino. So it’s much easier if your story is specific to a particular section in the newspaper and is relatively timeless, for instance if you have produced some research and can control the date you release the results. The key is building relationships with journalists who are relevant to the fields within which you work. A good way to start is to find out who the top ten journalists on national newspapers are who are relevant to your field of work. Aim to be a useful point of contact for them. They need to know that you know what you’re talking about, are a source of interesting information, and are easy to deal with. Introduce yourself by phone and follow up by email. Then use news to build the contacts. Don’t try to become their new best friend. But do try to be someone they know who is a useful source even if helping them out with background information doesn’t always achieve coverage directly for your client. You should know your client’s sector inside out. An ‘exclusive’ is news that is offered to one newspaper only, ahead of anyone else. If you control an exclusive then you are in a very strong position. But if you control them frequently then make sure you are certain of the relevance of the media you are offering them to. It’s no good promising an exclusive just to make friends with a journalist if appearing in their publication will not benefit your client. This feature originally appeared in the PRCA’s Frontline Guide