Mr. Grossman

Social Media & PR

Targeted Media Outreach: How to Know Your Customer

By Lanny Grossman, President, EM50 Communications

If you have ever browsed a newsstand, you know how many hundreds of different publications and media outlets exist, and that's in addition to Television, Radio (now terrestrial and satellite), as well as the vast Internet. Despite the hardships the publishing industry has been facing with shrinking ad pages and lower circulations, the breath and depth of the media options available continues to grow at a rapid pace. This proliferation has been both good and challenging for public relations professionals as it creates more opportunity for exposure but poses the formidable task of choosing the right outlets for the right story and client. Knowing your desired customer is the first step in selecting the appropriate media to target.

The Importance of Customer Data

In deciding which media outlets to target, it is important to have a realistic understanding of where your core customers are coming from and then, if you wish to expand into new markets, that can also be done as a secondary effort. Capturing guest information is essential in this determination. Online reservations have assisted greatly with this but storing, organizing and using the data effectively is up to management. Front desk staff can re-confirm email and mailing addresses upon check-in. If a large percentage of your guests stay through corporate contracts, the address on their reservation may be that of the corporate travel office or company headquarters. Having a thousand customer addresses in Phoenix per se, does not help in determining guest profiles or in promotional outreach down the road. Capture the data and capture the right data.

Once you have captured the information, put it to work. For example, if you are a hotel in the Midwest and you discover a large portion of your weekend guests are coming from within driving distance, when looking to promote special offers or packages, it will be best to reach out to the daily newspapers and other media outlets within that proximity. Promoting a weekend package with parking to outlets in California will be less effective than first concentrating on your target audience. In addition to knowing where people come from, it is important to understand how they book - travel agent, direct to hotel via phone or website, third party online travel site i.e. Orbitz. Understanding your guests' booking preferences will help direct your public relations efforts as far as targeting the appropriate consumer publication or those targeting the trade.

Trade vs Consumer

Each year when a new travel website comes online, industry naysayers run through the streets talking about the death of travel agents. Yes, Internet reservations have grown continuously each year since the launch of web reservations, but travel agents are still essential to hotels and should be seen as a customer, or at least a conduit to customers. When wanting to tell a story to the traveling public, it is important that the story be reformatted to tell the travel agent community as well, who will often act as your messenger. Like a game of telephone, your message will go from hotel to travel agent or trade publication to the agent and then onto the consumer. It will take a little while longer to get there, but the path is effective and important.

Telling the Right People

Once you have established who your customers are and what the story is you would like to tell, you have do be diligent about who is the right person or people to help you convey that message - choosing the right outlet and the right journalist. Public Relations professionals rely heavily on relationships with journalists to secure coverage. However, if you are trying to place a story about your new restaurant and you pitch it to somebody who primarily covers cruising; it will not be very effective. If you employ a public relations manager or an agency, they will have the resources to research the appropriate contact at each publication. Otherwise, do you your homework. Read the magazines, newspapers or websites you are interested in and/or think you would like to be covered in. Pay attention to who writes what section and visualize if the story idea you have in mind would fit into that section. For example, the upfront sections of many travel magazines are often shorter tidbits of current news or announcements, good for openings, special promotions or products. Larger, feature stories can focus on trends, destinations among other topics. Look at what topics are being covered over the course of a few issues and see how you can mold your story to reflect the same kinds of themes that were evident in the desired section.

So Many Choices

Once upon a time, there was one newspaper, a few radio stations and a handful of television stations in a particular city. Nowadays, there are multiple newspapers per market, regional and national magazines, cable stations that reach into the thousands featuring everything from do-it-yourself channels to religious or adventure focused channels, terrestrial radio and hundreds of specialized satellite radio shows, not to mention the behemoth that is The Internet. Knowing and understanding which outlet will best reach your target audience is integral and it will most likely be a cocktail of all of them. If you are working with a short lead story, travel blogs, web news sites and newspapers are more likely. For new openings or larger trend stories, magazines might be preferred. No matter what the desired end result, strategic and targeted pitching of ideas is the most efficient mechanism to gain attention and the results you want. Direct your pitch specifically to the person associated with the targeted outlet. Speak directly to them and not in a generic fashion. Know your customer, determine your message and know your desired audience.

Knowing your customers is essential to the success of any business for many reasons and targeting the right, most appropriate media outlet is one of them. Just as we are bombarded with advertising and consumer messages each day, journalists are deluged with story ideas and pitches every second of every day. Being concise in your messaging and relevant to the particular journalist you are speaking to, will help you cut through the competition and achieve success. A great philosopher once said you cannot know where you are going until you know where you have been. Well, you can't know who to talk to if you don't know your customers.

Lanny Grossman specializrs in PR, luxury lifestyle marketing and consumer outreach. He began working with notable hotel properties such as the Waldorf=Astoria in New York and Le Byblos in Saint-Tropez, after which he became the Director of Public Relations for two of America’s famous restaurants, Tavern on the Green and the Russian Tea Room. More recently, Mr. Grossman was Director of Brand Communications for Small Luxury Hotels of the World, an international hotel consortium whose portfolio boasts over 450 of the finest hotels in more than 70 countries. Mr. Grossman can be contacted at 646 861 2801 or lanny@em50.com Extended Bio...

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