All kinds of people visit your online media room, not just journalists

Your buyers are snooping around your organization by visiting the media pages on your Web site. Your current customers, partners, investors, suppliers, and employees all visit those pages. Why is that? I'm convinced that when people want to know what’s current about an organization, they go to an online media room.

People expect that the main parts of a typical site will contain hype-driven, gobbledygook-laden, product-centric sales pitches. However, if they REALLY want to get the lowdown on your company, they'll visit your online media room.

So I want you to do something that many traditional PR people think is nuts. I want you to design your online media room for your buyers. By building a media room that targets buyers, you will not only enhance those pages as a powerful marketing tool, you will also make a better media site for journalists. I've reviewed hundreds of online media rooms, and the best ones are built with buyers in mind. This approach may sound a bit radical, but believe me, it works.

For an example, check out the outstanding Neighborhood America online media room. This media room from a small innovative company puts Fortune 500 company media rooms to shame. I particularly like the customer videos (you’ll find them in the middle column.

Consider this: If you were a potential customer of Neighborhood America, wouldn't this content compel you to take the next step in the sales process?

What about your company – is your online media room a compelling place for your buyers?

Comments

[Ron Miller]

David,
I usually love your stuff, but as a journalist, the last thing I want to see is the media area of a web site getting clogged with junk I don't need to see. You want to offer some good advice for companies about their media room? How about prominently displaying your contact email and phone number. That's job 1 and you would be surprised how often companies fail to provide this crucial piece of information.

Ron Miller
By Ron Miller
http://byronmiller.typepad.com

[Parker]

Hey David - great point about mediarooms.

However, I feel that it is not only mediarooms that consumers are visiting. Thanks to search engines, they are now finding news releases.

News releases and mediarooms used to be reserved for an audience of journalists. It is just part of the way the world is changing.

[Sarah Christine Bolton]

Interesting. I wonder why it is that buyers are venturing into the territory once reserved for journalists? I wonder if it has to do with the age of "citizen journalism" we seem to be entering? I wonder if more people are taking an active interest in what the media does, where the media gets information, etc.?

And I have to agree with Ron Miller about contact info...nothing is more frustrating (both as a journalist and as a consumer) to not be able to find contact info easily. I think it goes back to the whole idea of a give-and-take relationship between company and buyer. I don't want to feel like the company is so above me that they can't give out even some sort of contact information.

Definitely some food for thought.

[David Meerman Scott]

I agree about contact information. However I think that a media room that is built intelligently for the needs of buyers is also BETTER for journalists too.

Most media rooms are designed as if the journalist is a "beat reporter" for that company. You know, someone who covers that company 24X7. These companies assume that journalists know all about them. But in the hundreds of times I've used media rooms to write parts of my books or magazine articles or blog posts, I am looking for simple and basic information because I already know nothing.

So no matter what, for both journalists and for buyers, simple and basic information about how the company solves problems for customers is ESSENTIAL.

And contact information too (for a real person).

David

[Kristi Grigsby]

Hi David - I agree on the essential need for both buyers and journalists to understand how our company solves problems for customers. That, in fact, was our number one goal when we created our online media room, and we thank you for your recognition here. :)

As I read through the comments, I'm astounding by the fact that we neglected one simple step...contact info that was as clear as the stories we've put so much thought into! Thanks to those who have pointed out what should have been obvious - we'll get this addressed asap (btw, we've developed our entire site ensuring that the contact info is on the top right of every page, but clearly this needs to be more visible in the media room).

Kristi Grigsby
Neighborhood America

[Tajiana]

David, I absolutely agree with you on this. You talked about this in your book and I think it works. People are going to websites and they click on the "About" tab and the "News" tab. These tabs no longer say "Press Room." People see "news" and they want to read the news. This works especially well with political campaigns I have worked on. The press won't always publish everything released by a campaign, but a voter seeking more information will click on the "news" tab and read all of the press releases we released.

[Craig Kessler]

Excellent points about media rooms and how new users a lot of time use them to make to learn more about the company. With the increased popularity of video being placed on the internet, people don't always respond to reading whether it's engaging or not. Different aspects of video help give the company that human element for users to connect with and when developing a media room for my company will take to all of your ideas mentioned.

Craig
www.budgetpulse.com