Many vendors reach a point where they look beyond the industry / trade press publicity they’re getting and say ‘that’s nice … but we deserve business press.’ [The implication that business press is 'better' is certainly questionable ... and I'll talk later about recognizing when your PR has become more of a vanity exercise than a selling products exercise.]
But the great percentage of vendors that envision a ‘progression’ towards business press typically don’t recognize these common characteristics that make their story unappealing / not newsworthy to business press reporters:
- Product Too Hard (or Boring) to Explain — Every story about a new product must include a description of said product. One difference between business press and trade press is that trade press reporters have the luxury to dedicate multiple paragraphs to explaining what the product is. For most business press reporters, if they can’t quickly understand what the product is, they assume (probably correctly, right?) that their readers aren’t going to understand it or care either. If your company is bad at ‘succinctly describing what business you’re in,’ your current appeal as a business press story is approximately zero.
- Same, Tired Story as the n- Other Vendors that Knocked Before You — There are certain story angles that have been exploited to such an extent that anything that bears resemblance to them will be summarily dismissed by the weary business press reporter. It’s sort of like when a spot on a river gets fished out (and the fish start ignoring any flies that hit the water). From ‘rockstar executives’ to ‘disruptive technologies’ - there is a very long list of cliches / associations that do your chances way more harm than good when you bandy them about.
- Spokesperson Just Doesn’t Have “It” — Not too many vendors have very magnetic personalities speaking on their behalf. Great storytelling ability, sincerity and sense of humor are among the characteristics that I’ve seen that seem to separate the really good spokespersons (the ones that seems to gel really quickly with business press) from the other 99.99%. People often don’t realize that whether or not the reporter actually likes the person they’re speaking with may be the single greatest determining factor in whether the story gets written or not (however superficial that may be). But when the spokesperson has “it,” the odds of being covered by business press increase exponentially. When the spokesperson is a dud (or the “it” factor is clearly contrived), you’re going nowhere.
- Lack of Credibility — There are certainly exceptions, but most business press reporters are not willing to stake their personal reputation on a glowing article about a vendor unless there is solid empirical evidence that vendor is headed in a positive direction. Most vendors don’t realize the amount of triage that goes on within business publications in terms of allocating the relatively scarce print space (the amount of selling that many business press reporters have to do internally to get their ideas signed off on … the number of stories that make it far into the eval process, but ultimately die on the gurney, etc.). Getting conned by an undeserving vendor and writing an undeserved piece about said vendor is especially damning to a business press reporter’s reputation (and I think that’s a scenario that many are rightfully guarded against).
- Lack of Quality 3rd Parties to Offer — I guess this sort of goes to the point about credibility as well, but it’s important to have some compelling third parties to point to (that both add valuable content to the story, and vouch for the impact of your company or product). My experience has been that many trade press reporters will file stories based on data from a single interview with a company spokesperson (and maybe one customer or analyst). For any business press story of significance that I’ve seen, the reporter spoke with *many* sources before the story took shape. If you’re good enough to capture the initial attention of the reporter, but then can’t help him / her find the right complimentary perspectives to round it out and make for an interesting story, that’s another common way that business press opportunities fizzle.
