Quality control

Value. That`s what PR is about. We know when we`re getting it. We know when we`re adding it. And we all know, too, when it`s absent.

We are in a very, very high-risk industry, and so much can go wrong, so easily.

As discussed in the previous column in this series, successful PR depends entirely on value being added at each point in the value chain. And, for the purposes of illustration, we`ll use the five-link value chain. To recap, this is where your client`s client assists your client in producing a news report or case study on a sale of product or delivery of service. This is clearly the most powerful and credible form of endorsement your client can enjoy, as all public relations textbooks attest.

Managing the process of pre-preparation, interview, write-up and sign-off is critical to ensuring successful delivery of quality editorial.

• Pre-preparation:
This is where your client`s salesperson obtains his client`s buy in as part of the sale. Maybe he`s shaving a percentage point or two off the cost of the sale; maybe he`s leveraging a relationship. Either way, the client`s client is doing the client, and you, a favour by giving of his time to help you get the story written. Understand and appreciate this and do all you can to maximise the investment of time.
• Interview:
The interview process is where the rubber meets the road. It`s here where the entire process can go wrong, or where the real value is delivered. Poor briefing or bad interviewing techniques can undo the entire value chain. Poor briefing, in particular, reflects that you haven`t taken the time and expended the effort to understand the client`s business.
• Write-up:
For us the rapid delivery of the article is one key to success, and we aim for a 48-hour turnaround. Take it from the client`s client`s perspective: he`s committed precious time and he doesn`t see rapid turnaround of the article for proofing. What must he make of the interviewer?
• Sign-off:
Ah yes, the sign-off. This is where politics rears its ugly head. Lots of resources have been committed, yet the client`s client can block the entire process by sitting on the press release. We had a situation with a large domestic airline (no names, no pack drill) where a release was blocked for six months, and then canned unceremoniously and without reasons being given, by an invisible decision-maker. Impossibly frustrating. Our record for an article is 18 months from commissioning to sign-off and subsequent appearance in print. The key to success, clearly, is doing a recce beforehand on the political landscape at the client`s client; on ascertaining who has ultimate sign-off; and on getting the interviewee`s buy in to rapid sign-off. For, after all, what we are trying to get published is news, and if the client`s client churns on an item for weeks and months, it is hardly news when it is finally released. A little trick is to advise the interviewee that there`s a great slot available in a highly desirable publication, and they need the article by a due date.

If you have got your interviewing techniques down pat; if your writing is centred on the needs of the client`s client and of those of the ultimate consumer, the reader; and if you have obtained rapid sign-off, then you are starting to get the balance right.

Now, all you need to do is get the article published. But that`s the subject of our next column.

Two very large listed entities were hammered this last week by Business Report for a dissonant media approach. There`s no point in naming them (especially as "there but for the grace of God go I!"), but Business Report`s issues with these two companies were simple:

• The PR people concerned had not correlated the details of their media release with those in display advertising.
• They had been tardy in getting their releases through on time.
• In one instance the PR person had asked the appropriate journalist to place the story - a cardinal sin.

The damage done to both companies - and their PR agents - was inestimable. The blood runs cold; we are in a very, very high-risk industry, and so much can go wrong, so easily. You just can`t be careful enough.