PR is a relationship, not a press release

For a lot of people, "PR" means "press release." Chantal Riley, who's run PR for 22 years, strips the discipline to its load-bearing wall: "It's in the word. Relations. Relationships. Whether I'm connecting with an investor, a client or media — that's my job."

The relationship ledger

Her whole career runs on a habit she started as a junior doing the work everyone hates, the media lists and the follow-up calls, with one difference. She took notes on the humans. "Terence said he's having a bad day because his dog is sick. Next time I phone: how's your dog doing?" Twenty years later the ledger pays compound interest, because journalists phone her when they need a source, and tell her first when they change publications. Her message to juniors is that the grunt work is the relationship-building. You're depositing now for a career of withdrawals.

Press releases still work, if you've done everything else

Yes, releases land coverage, but only inside a relationship and only when targeted. Know the publication, know what its readers care about, and never send the gardening story to the energy desk. Keep it catchy and succinct: "Don't write 1,500 words and hope for the front page." And stop equating PR with the written word, because thought leadership, 30-second video explainers and audiograms all count. "The way we consume content has changed; PR has to change with it."

Her campaign-readiness sequence starts earlier than most marketers expect. First a spokesperson who is knowledgeable, comfortable across audiences and able to answer without "let me check". Then verified messages the audience actually cares about. Then, and only then, the tool: release, media breakfast, LinkedIn campaign, radio in traffic hour. Her operating line is the right message to the right people at the right time using the right tools.

Measure impact, not column centimetres

Chantal is blunt that the old yardstick, the AVE or advertising value equivalence, is dead, unstandardised, and no longer accepted even by PRISA's awards. What counts now is impact on the brand, and shifts in public sentiment. And the strangest, truest measure of great PR is invisibility: "If you've done a really good PR campaign, you're most likely not going to realise it's a PR campaign." The message simply seems to be everywhere your life happens. The digital upside, in her words, is that digital PR finally gives you the data to prove that movement.

Try this week: start your ledger with ten journalists or editors who matter to your brand, and one genuine, non-asking touchpoint each this quarter. Identify and prep your spokesperson before you need one. And rewrite your boilerplate release to 300 words with one clear story.

PR is relationship work, and so is everything around it. See how to build a real marketing network in South Africa.

Sourced from recorded, on-the-record interviews on the South African Digital Marketing Podcast. Every practitioner quoted above is named in the text.

First published on the SA Marketers' Circle.