In this exclusive PR NEWS interview, Martin Lindstrom, an online branding guru, discusses the ins and outs of online press centers. Lindstrom was COO for BTLookSmart, the
international joint venture between British Telecom and LookSmart until 2001. He is founder and CEO of ZIVO, a Sydney, Australia-based Internet services firm. He also co-authored
Clicks, Bricks and Brands, a book on Web-based promotions, and has consulted with major corporations including LEGO Worldwide, Mars, Pepsi, American Express, Mercedes-Benz, VISA,
Ericsson, Quicken and Yellow Pages. For more information go to http://www.martinlindstrom.com.
PRN: What impact does a Web-based press center have for your brand?
M.L.: Generating strong PR for your brand comes down to three elements:
- The quality of your message - do you really have something interesting (and different) to say?
- Are you always available - 24/7 - to support the press with interesting information and research data, even if the story won't necessarily mention you?
- Do you have a strong personal relationship with the press? Are you one of the top three people in your category of expertise in their Rolodexes?
A Web-based press center can help you to achieve these three elements. Your site should be the source of information for journalists researching you and your business
sector.
Forget sites that only feature page after page of press releases. Your site should be an information-gathering center, which not only helps and supports the journalist but
creates loyalty between the journalist and your brand.
A good press center will create life-long relationships between key journalists within your field and your brand.
A poor press center site - the one with links to the last 432 press releases or a link to your PR agency and a standard 20-line introduction to your organization featuring your
CEO and CFO telling the world why you are the best - will take you absolutely nowhere with journalists and other stakholders.
Why? Because you are one out of several million companies offering this. It's better not to be online at all than to be online and not know why.
PRN: We've heard reporters complain about what's missing in online press rooms for so long. Is anything changing? Are more companies building better press centers?
M.L.: For some reason 99.9 percent of all online press-centers haven't changed a single element since they first appeared in 1994. And I honestly don't understand why. The
press center reflects your brand just as much, if not more, than the rest of your site.
PRN: What is your advice for companies looking to create better, more valuable online resources for the media - even if they're on a tight budget? In a recent article on being
"Your Own Brand Custodian," for example, you mentioned building panels of journalist stakeholders - something any company can do at little to no cost. Can you expand on that?
M.L.: Arrange a one-on-one meeting with the key journalists within your area. Ask them what would make them visit your site more frequently - even what would make them bookmark
your site. Ask them what is good and what is bad about your existing site. Ask them what other companies are doing in the field and what impresses them.
As a thank-you, you can offer the key journalists who have given you feedback access to a closed press community on your site where you share exclusive data. Most companies
have access to tons of data about their business - share this data with the journalists even if it won't get press specifically for your company. This is a low-cost way to provide
journalists with an incentive to give you feedback.
PRN: What specifically should you ask these journalists, and how would you recommend building the panel?
M.L.: What you ask depends very much on the type of company, the time of the year, the frequency of product/company news, the type of journalists you communicate with.
The fact is that you tend to have great relationships with some journalists and less-than-great relationships with others. I wouldn't create a panel of just "fans" or of just
skeptical journalists. I would probably go 2:3 on "fans" vs. "skeptics" because the fans could affect the skeptics, and the skeptics are frankly more likely to contribute
productive information.
Editor's Note
Want to hear more about how to build the most effective press center for your site? Join PR NEWS on May 21 for a Webinar on "Maximizing Your e-Presence." Reid Walker, director
of global marketing for GE Global eXchange Services and the mastermind behind one of the best press sites on the Web, and T.K. Maloy, deputy business editor for UPI and a noted
author on online communications, will offer their advice for building and maintaining the best online news room. For more information, go to http://www.PRandMarketing.com/seminars/epresence or contact Amy Urban at [email protected].