A recent article in the Huffington Post touches on the issue of how health clubs carry out marketing efforts, specifically marketing to women. Heath and fitness is a hot topic, especially this time of year when New Year's resolutions are still fresh on our minds.

The question of hiring an in-house PR professional or outsourcing to an agency is trickier now than ever before. As the media has dramatically evolved, so has the public relations industry. It’s no longer as simple as writing a traditional press release and distributing it to the media.

As I perused the Sunday Times this morning I was checking out all the bylines. Never heard of that particular journalist, better check out his/her bio, have we ever made contact with that person? Hmm, wonder if she’d be interested in the such-and-such pitch we’re working on. I’ll bet my fellow PR colleagues do the same thing. It’s an obsessive little habit---kind of like proofreading billboards, which I also do. The sheer quantity of bylines in the New York Times is nothing short of intimidating, which brings me to the point of this post.

It is impossible and entirely unnecessary to have a personal connection with every journalist in this great country and beyond. If you’re in PR I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Inevitably you walk into a client meeting or new business pitch and the million dollar question pops up, “Who do you know at O!, The New York Times, or Today Show?” (or any other media outlet they dream of seeing their product or service rising to fame in). I used to waffle, drop names, and tell people what I thought they wanted to hear. Now I tell them, there’s an app for that.

And here’s where the art and science of media relations intersect. First of all, you must have good content—a solid, relevant, meaningful story to tell. Even if my BFFs were Kathie Lee and Hoda, we couldn’t get you on The Today Show without the right story. Once we identify your story it is critical to find the few journalists (and I do mean few) that the story is perfect for. And yes, identifying those journalists can often seem like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Here’s how we do it:

1. Obviously, if my BFF works for Parents and we’re representing a revolutionary new pacifier I will call her first.
2. More often I log into our proprietary media database (which for the purposes of this post is the app), a robust, web-based tool accessible from anywhere there is an internet connection. I search for journalists that cover very specific beats and use the software to manage the media relations process.
3. Once I narrow down my list to a manageable number I research each and every journalist. The app even links to the last dozen or so articles written or segments produced so I can familiarize myself with recent work and look for clues on current topics of interest.
4. I email the media contact first and customize the pitch according to the particular journalist. I cut and paste the press release into the body of the email or insert a link to avoid being another casualty of spam.
5. I check back with the app to see what’s going on with my pitch. Has the email been opened yet? How much time was spent reading it? Were any links clicked? And the ultimate horror, was it deleted without opening?
6. Then I do something rapidly becoming obsolete in our web-based world, I call the journalist on an actual PHONE! I cannot stress the importance of picking up the phone (see my archived blog post, We Give Good Phone).
7. Ideally, because my pitch is highly customized and I know a lot about the journalist, he/she does not hang up on me and a conversation ensues. Because I’ve taken the time to build a viable pitch, I’m building trust and credibility with the journalist and they will listen to what I have to say.
8. In the meantime, I’m tracking every email, phone call, conversation, and follow-up activity via the app so I don’t go crazy and I can show my clients why PR costs more than $1.99 per hour.
9. Measure. Report. Repeat.

Now for fear I’m violating a Best Practice blog post by writing more than 500 words, I’ll get back to my Sunday Times. There are still a few thousand more journalists waiting to hear our awesome story ideas and they don’t know me from Eve.

FletcherPR is a national communications firm that specializes in reaching women through the power of media. Headquartered in Knoxville, TN with staff in Nashville & Los Angeles, we are a full-service agency providing strategic public relations, social media and marketing communications services to our clients throughout the U.S.

New York's Lincoln Center has been abuzz this past week with the high fashion of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week which brings the most stylish and fashionable folks out to see what's in store for fall. One new addition to this year's lineup was the first-ever "Strut: The Fashionable Mom Show."

Organized by a group of mom bloggers and supermodel Iman, the event took place Thursday February 16 at the Library of the Performing Arts near the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week tents. 'Strut' came together after the organizers needed stylish clothes for a TV appearance and felt frustrated at the lack of fashionable options for moms.

Said one of the moms, "We need stuff that's transformable and affordable, that real moms like us can wear every single day to all of the things that we have to do, whether it's the grocery store, school pickup, back to the meeting, back to school."

According to an account of the event, "looks included a pair of white skinny jeans matched with a purple, tie-dye T-shirt, and loose black slacks with a billowy mustard top."

Supermodel and mom of two Iman didn't walk in the show, but was quoted saying "I'm with my people! People think fashion and moms are at odds, which I don't think they are," the supermodel and mogul said backstage. "It's just our lifestyle is different, yet we hold the purse strings at home and make all the decisions on purchases."

We know women (and moms) make 85% of purchasing decisions for their families, including prioritizing clothes for kids over clothes for themselves. It was important for the fashion show's organizers to make sure all the fashions shown were currently available and at prices that are more accessible than haute couture.

There were blazers and jackets from Chris Benz to the Gap, bags Iman sells on HSN.com and dresses by Kors and Rachel Roy.

Moms have often felt excluded by the fashion industry, especially when the clothing presented is intended to be worn by a size zero, 6-foot-2 tall woman. But women don't want to lose their senses of style, just because they are moms and the fashionable moms event is certainly hoping to change that, giving them more opportunities to enjoy stylish, accessible fashions.

Iman, who has her own cosmetics and accessories company, got involved in the project because friend and fellow mom, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, is the fashion director at Lincoln Center and an IMG consultant.

Fashionable Mom Show - Teaser 2 (with Iman) from Big Fuel Studio on Vimeo.

FletcherPR is a national communications firm that specializes in reaching women through the power of media. Headquartered in Knoxville, TN with staff in Nashville & Los Angeles, we are a full-service agency providing strategic public relations, social media and marketing communications services to our clients throughout the U.S.

If you haven't heard of the social media site Pinterest, you might be in the minority. This platform came onto the scene slowly, placing potential users on a waiting list for invitations. In September, the site had 1.6 million unique views, but this number jumped to over 7 million by December.

You can walk up and down the aisles at your favorite drugstore and easily identify the products that are intended for men vs. the ones meant for women. According to research from the Environmental Working Group, the average American man uses six different products each day while the average American woman uses double that amount.

It's no secret that there are quite a few die-hard football fans here at FletcherPR (evidenced by a few past posts here & here) and we were not too surprised to see some viewer numbers coming back from the recent Super Bowl. In fact, Super Bowl XLVI was the most-watched telecast in U.S. television history, averaging at about 111.3 million viewers.

Everyone is gearing up for Sunday when the gridiron's biggest game of the year is played. Some will be watching for the actual football while others will be just snacking a lot of waiting for the commercials. So far, marketing experts aren't too excited about the prospect of amazing ads this year.

Google's announcement of its new unified privacy policy has a lot of folks worried about how they will be affected. An article in the Washington Post explains in greater detail how the new policy will work and how you can opt in or out of certain features. Basically, the tech giant will be using your internet activities to create a personalized profile about you in order to better target you with ads and messages.

Department store J.C. Penney, now under the leadership of former Apple exec Ron Johson, has announced a new marketing strategy to try and revive the brand. The new plan, which will roll out in stores Feb. 1, gets rid of the hundreds of sales that the store was previously holding and instead offers lower prices all the time.