PR Wars Podcast: Build better media lists

If your media list isn't spot on, it won't matter how good your press releases are. On today's PR Wars podcast, we talk with Meltwater's Cody Konschak to help you build better media lists for better coverage.

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* You can also listen to Meltwater's Cody Konschak's previous episode PR Wars Podcast: Better measurement reports

A.I. generated show transcript: 

Show open: “We want the truth.” “We want the truth.” “We want the truth.” “I have news for everybody. Get over it.”

Announcer
It’s time. Welcome to PR Wars coming at you live from Atlanta, Georgia. Now, here is your host… Chris Shigas.

Chris Shigas
Welcome to PR Wars. I'm Chris Shigas. The media is changing under our feet. I mean, media lists over six months old can get dozens of email bounce backs. And if your media list isn't spot on, it won't matter how good your press releases are. We can do better. Well today on PR Wars, fellow veteran public relations sage, Brad Grantham and I welcome back to the show the Managing Director of Client Success at the media intelligence giant Meltwater. Cody Konschak. Cody, welcome back to the PR Wars. Thanks for coming back.

Cody Konschak
Thanks, guys. I'm really excited to be back here to talk with you today.

Brad Grantham
Cody, I gotta I gotta tell you one of my biggest pet peeves, you know, we know the importance of having an updated MEDIA list. We can throw away those old Excel spreadsheets full of bounce back email addresses, and there was nothing worse when I was starting out in the agency world when you would put out a release. And you hear bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, and you're like, Great, great. This is Oh, wait, wait, that's actually 62 bounce backs. That's not good. You know, we have seen in the past decade more so maybe in the past five or three years, consolidation of media. We have seen massive layoffs in print and newspapers, magazines. So how often? Do you see media contacts needing to be updated? And how often does meltwater do that?

Cody Konschak
Yeah, this is a really great question, Brad, I gotta say, you aren't the only one with this pet peeve. It's certainly a pet peeve of mine as well. Because I think what we see is these Excel one from from the client standpoint, write the one sending out the press release, there's nothing worse than getting all of those bounce backs or, or getting an email back from the journalist saying this is completely irrelevant to what I'm doing. Now. This was something I was doing years ago. There's nothing worse than that, because you spent time sending this out thinking you had a really great list. Conversely, it's also really horrible for the for the the journalist who's sitting on the opposite end, getting all of those emails with irrelevant press releases, wondering what do I do with this information and then taking time to respond. So it can result in a lot of wasted time for both parties, which is really unfortunate, I think, through conversations with clients that I've spoken with, and the ones have been really successful, with not only our with our media database at meltwater, but also just sending out press releases in general, is refreshing these as much as possible. I mean, I'm seeing clients do it monthly. I'm seeing clients, you know, taking time quarterly to do that as well. It really depends on one, how often are you sending out these media lists? Are these? Is it a media list of you know, 250 people? Is it a media list of 500 people, or is an immediate list of like 20 to 25 people that you have maintained really close relationships with. So I do think it will vary per company. But it's always good to just hack to a quick refresher, do your due, take some time, do your research, and I think you'll be fine.

Brad Grantham
So if I used meltwater this afternoon, and put out a press release to 50 people, and I've got 20 bounce backs or five bounce backs, whatever that number is, what do I do with that information? Can I send that to you and say, Hey, just FYI, sent this out. These bounce back? Can I do that? Then what happens after that?

Cody Konschak
Yeah, this is another great question. And this is great for any project, any of our clients that are potentially listening to the to the podcast today, you certainly could then send that back to meltwater, we have an entire support team that is dedicated to ensure our system is working properly, including our media Contacts database. So we do have a research team that is dedicated to updating the contacts. I think the important thing to remember though, is that we have over 600,000 contacts in this database. So because of that, it can take some time to sort through all of that and think about it this way. You always you talked about when initially came on. There's been a lot of consolidation of publications, lots of layoffs. I could be a journalist at one publication today. And I can leave and go via publication that journalists had another publication tomorrow. And they updated my information yesterday. And now I don't have my new information. It's as easy as that and and oftentimes happens that way. So again, it's always good to check just to make sure but we do have a team of people to help you do that.

Chris Shigas
For many veteran PR pros, you develop a circle of trust circle of reporters that you nurture, and you know, their bead, and you know, your industry and all that. It's really difficult for a young PR person who's just getting into the industry, and they're trying to build these media lists, and they're not sure the right contacts. Some cases, what I see when when a junior person is making a media list is is they'll pick an outlet, let's just say Fast Company, and then they'll pick every person on that list in that company, and and send the same press release out to everyone. What advice do you have for a young PR pro? To say, Hey, here's a good strategy for really getting your press release in the hands of the right person.

Cody Konschak
Yeah, this is a this is a great question. I always relate, sending press releases back to sales, I, you know, I work for a software company. And majority of what we do is, is sales related, right? We're working with clients, ensuring they're they're utilizing our tools appropriately. And I've been in sales since I graduated University. And it reminds me a lot of a great prospect, right? We spend so much time researching, finding that that person with a great job title, who has the great job description, it perfectly outlines exactly what I can do to help them, I know that if I reach out to this person, they're the right person, they're going to resonate with the message that I'm putting out there. So I think for any junior person, it's not so much about padding, the the list that you're sending it to, because I would almost shy away from that if you want to, if you want to send it to, you know, 500 people or above, send a wire release, you know, the the point of targeted releases is that you are able to do that research, take that time, build out a really quality list of prospects, and then pitch them on the press release that you're sending out. So that I think pick up that

Chris Shigas
it's also worthwhile for them to spend some time I think, really learning the roles in the media organizations. You know, Brad and I come from a TV background. So sometimes I'll cringe a little bit when I see somebody send something to a news director, when I know that really needs to go to the assignment desk, wouldn't you agree bread?

Brad Grantham
Yeah, no, I got a little die a little inside every time I see that happen. With all the investment that you guys have made machine learning, Ai, all the data that you have, how do you get the best open rates? What works the best? What's in that subject line? How long or short? Is it? And do you have data on the best times to actually send out a press release during the week?

Cody Konschak
This will probably be somewhat polarizing amongst your amongst your listeners. Maybe I imagine that some aspects of this will be but yeah, to a degree I again, I'm going to relate this back to my experience in sales. And my experience with giving my clients ideas on how to approach this. The best times to reach out to a prospect is on a Tuesday or Thursday. Now until you why Okay, Mondays are reserved for for catching up, right, you're planning for your entire week, you have things that you didn't finish on Friday before you left for the weekend. You're you don't have time to answer all of those incoming emails Tuesday, especially Tuesday morning. People typically feel a little bit refreshed. They have things off of their to do list, they have some time to address any sort of incoming extra curricular emails that they're getting, and will do so that so I think Tuesday's Tuesday's one of my favorite days to send an email the other day that I always I always suggest to you is on Thursday, Thursday, pretty much any point through the day. And that's because Fridays are typically reserved for I'm going to get as much done for the