Why Reporting Your News is Never a Smart Move…

I often see agencies promising to Report Your News. (It’s usually such a core tenet of their offer that it deserves the capitals I’ve graced it with.) And you can almost hear the collective gasp when I tell clients that we don’t do it…

Don’t mistake me, it’s not because we can’t – Rhi has a Masters in Journalism, Jen’s completed technical and creative writing postgrads, Alan’s a Master NLP practitioner, and I have a degree in grammar and psycholinguistics. Take it from me when I say reporting news wouldn’t be a problem for us. But we believe it would be a problem for our clients, and it may well be for you.

Why would you shout about a story that may be of as much interest to the people who actually add to your bottom line as a new steak house is likely to be to a vegan? Aren’t you better placed to really understand what motivates the people who matter to your business first? To get under the skin of the psychological drivers that motivate them every day? And then imagine the potential power of you delivering that message – carefully crafted of course – using a mechanism that they like and that suits them. Don’t you think that would have just a little more impact?

I launched Zen back in 2007 because I was disillusioned with the national agency I was a Director of. It felt like there was no strategic focus, and so – while we secured reams of coverage for our clients (front page all the way) – none of it actually seemed to do any commercial good for them. And here’s the crux of the matter. If we PRs generate coverage and it doesn’t achieve any commercial gain, does it count at all?

At Zen we’d say not. We’d say that ‘general brand awareness’ can be an excuse. And that each and every story needs to work hard to drive interest, to educate, to inform, and to enthuse. Which is why we never report news – instead we create it. We agree the messaging we want to share, we firm up the tactics that’ll best convey that (article, press release, profile, you get the picture), the title or forum to share it most effectively (newspaper, radio, online…) and then – and only then – do we start writing.

So, the next time someone tells you they’re a master storyteller. That they have the Olympic Gold in reporting the news. And that they have acres of coverage to prove it. Smile and ask them about their clients’ avatars, their psychological drivers, the variety of tactics at their disposal, and how qualified and experienced they are in not simply reporting the news, but creating it. And if all else fails, give us a call and we can point you in the right direction.

Fliss x