News and Media

News and media: RMR has helped roll out over 350 companies and products since it was started in 1987. Its hundreds of clients have made millions of dollars with RMR’s advice and assistance.

For News and media, especially if you’re working with Business to Business (B-to-B) and Business to Government (B-to-G) clients, RMR is the firm to choose. Clients trust RMR, because RMR delivers the promise of the proposal. Because RMR has proven processes and procedures that guarantee that your company gets the progress reporting you need to give you comfort and confidence that your project will be a success. Because RMR will execute the necessary tasks relentlessly to deliver the results that are the promise of your proposal.

If you need more than general News and media, RMR is also your one stop shop for other marketing vehicles that leverage your investment in your advertising program and give you the synergy that makes your integrated marketing program more than the sum of its parts.

Creating online newsrooms

An online newsroom should be more than a press-release black hole. Several characteristics go into building a successful online media center, such as easily accessible contact information, photographs and other important company information. Here RMR, will give you the lowdown on building a journalist-friendly press center.

Content: The most important feature is contact information for the public-relations staff, such as who they are, e-mail, phone, fax and what they cover — and the info should only be one click away.

“You need to provide information as quickly as possible,” says Larry Plumb, director of media relations for Verizon Communications. Verizon has one of the most extensive online news sites and is worth checking out at verizon.com/news.

You might be careful with pager and cell phone numbers — some sites put this information into a password-protected area for personal-security reasons, says Kathy Gill, usability advocate for BEST Consulting in Kirkland, Wash.

She says a good site should also include: press releases, white papers, publicly available legal documents (if there is a legal matter going on), Securities and Exchange Commission material, product specifications in tech and laymen’s terms, company history, company location and fact sheets on the company’s size, number of employees and its product and service lines.

Downloadable images: These are a must. Make sure you have alternate file formats — use a low-resolution picture on the Web page, with links to high resolution in various formats, such as JPEG, TIFF and PSD, Gill advises.

Verizon offers downloadable photos in both color and grayscale, in addition to maps. Plumb says this saves a lot of time because he doesn’t have to process hundreds of media requests by hand. He says he still receives requests for photos by mail, but the volume has decreased remarkably.

Navigation: A site should have clean, navigable design that is not too bandwidth intensive, because journalists may be using dial-up modems, although this is less and less common. “Try to think like a journalist,” Gill says.

Don’t bury the press center deep in the site because you want customers to avoid it. Reporters will also avoid it. The site should also be accessible from the home page and links to the press center should appear on every page of the site in the navigation bar.

“‘Know thy audience’ is just as important here as in any other communications endeavor,” Gill says. “And even though the information should be accessible to stockholders, employees, potential employees and the general public — remember the first audience for an online newsroom is the journalist.”

Password protected: This is a big no-no and frowned upon by many reporters. Passwords are avoided for a couple of reasons: If reporters are on deadlines, they don’t need the hassle of registering in order to get a login and password just to enter the news site. Reporters will leave your site and check out a competitor. If the material on the news site is public, then why restrict access to journalists? Putting the material on your Web site gives you another chance to tell your story, Gill says.

The argument for using a password-protected site is that it keeps customers from getting hold of the PR staff and bothering them with unrelated questions. Plumb says he doesn’t view this as a problem and accepts the complaints from customers as a part of his job.

“Our ultimate goals is to serve the customer,” Plumb says. “What I’m going to say to the press, I’m also going to say to the customer.”