General PR Tip #2: Do you have a calendar?

If you have a PR plan, one part of the PR plan is a calendar. 

A calendar is a very important planning tool to trigger events such as preparation for trade shows/industry events and for "pinging" magazine writers as they work on feature stories as designed in their editorial calendar.  Plus other fun things like new product releases and new office openings... you get the picture.

Item A on the Calendar - TRADE SHOWS

More than a few companies are under the mistaken impression that they can secure a meeting with a reporter a week before a major trade show.

I would laugh, but it's too sad.

I cover the Voice over IP (VoIP) industry, which has hooks into telecommunications and the like, so the major trade shows I go to are such things as the SuperComm (now GlobalComm) trade show in Chicago and the VON shows. Savvy vendors start calling me a month (or more, damn them) in advance to line up appointments since they know that there are around 500 (or more) companies that want my time and that there are only so many hours in the day and even if I limit a meeting to 30 minutes...

Do the math, and the odds of a meeting scheduled the week before a major event are slim, and none. (There are a few exceptions to the rule, but if your company is AOL, IBM, Microsoft, or someone else fairly large and hulking, I doubt you are reading this for anything other than laughs).

Trade show/industry events need to be marked down because the "pitching" for them should start 3 to 4 weeks in advance -- early enough to get onto someone's schedule and get some face time. Anything earlier than a month out is, well, annoying and silly. Each day closer to an event lowers the odds of scheduling a meeting; you've still got a shot about two weeks out, but anything less than that is Not Good.

Item B on the Calendar - EDITORIAL CALENDAR DEADLINES

Nearly every print publication has something called the Editorial Calendar, linking topics of interest to when they'll be printed. The editorial calendar is typically posted on-line. It also may be acquired from the editor or publisher of the publication, or even (gulp) the ad sales person.

If you have a Plan (see General PR Tip #1), you should secure the editorial calendars of the top 3-5 publications you want to get ink in and study them to find out where your company and its' stories "fit" in their twelve month print schedule. 

Also find out how much time between a story closes and when it actually ends up in print. Magazines printed in December may "close" (i.e. no more writing, setup things for print) two or three months in advance, so you want to get in touch with the appropriate editor/writer working on a story you want to be included in a couple of months (or more) in advance.

So, if there's a story on widgets to be printed in December and there's a two month lead time, you want to contact the publication of your interest in the story (i.e. you'd like to be considered for inclusion in some way, shape, or form)...when?

The best answer is "Three months before publication" because it gives you time to find out who is writing the story and find them and bug the hell out of them... wait, no bugging... well, you see the point. You want to allow enough time to find out who is working on the story and pitch them with an appropriate angle.