Public relations plays an important role in building brand and creating third party endorsement via a media presence. What is not often understood by clients is that an effective PR campaign requires consistent effort over time to establish rapport with journalists and build a media profile.

Just as selling goods or services involves nurturing relationships with potential customers, successful PR depends on developing strong connections with journalists – which takes time and can also take a lot of effort.

Relationship building is not a one-off activity but a continuous process that requires regular communication from PR consultants with journalists to work out the sort of material that reporters are interested in covering. It requires persistence and repeated effort over time to achieve the desired outcome of building a lasting relationship with a reporter or editor.

Similar to the way that business development managers (BDMs) in the financial services industry cultivate relationships with platforms and financial advisers, PR professionals nurture relationships with journalists. Both efforts involve presenting a compelling case or pitch. A BDM pitches a fund’s benefits, and a PR person pitches a story's newsworthiness or a person who can be considered a thought leader, to comment on current events, such as a sharp drop in share markets or the opportunities of a particular asset class.

Both BDMs and PR advisers aim to influence behaviours, so soft skills are very important in conveying that information. BDMs seek to persuade someone to recommend their fund to investors, while PR aims to influence public opinion, often through media coverage. Factors such as building trust and even being likeable to reporters are crucial. Reporters will go repeatedly back to experts they like or respect, to source information and quotes for news stories, once they know they can get reliable, useful and newsworthy information.

Just like a BDM needs to make contact with multiple stakeholders, a PR consultant may need to send out dozens of pitches to the media, but they may only get one or two replies from a journalist interested in their pitch, if that. Particularly in the early days of establishing a PR program. This is an important lesson for clients to understand. Not everyone is interested in the story. It requires a concerted effort to find a reporter that will be interested, much like getting a successful sale. Not everyone is buying what the PR consultant is selling. They need to find the right buyer.

PR consultants also need to pick their day. While a pitch on a busy news day may end up being rejected, that same pitch on a quiet news day to the very same journalist may get across the line and attract coverage for a client. That's why it is important to keep on trying!

Not every PR or sales pitch leads to success; not every story pitch results in media coverage. It requires resilience and the ability to handle rejection and you have to try again or to press your point as a PR consultant. To that end, consistent follow-up is crucial for both BDMs and PR consultants. Journalists are often inundated with pitches and press releases. They have tight deadlines and limited time; a pitch gets easily lost in their inbox. So just as for a BDM there is value in following up appropriately and being consistent, to get your key selling point across, it is the same in PR.  Finding the right balance between persistence and nuisance can eventually lead to valuable media coverage.

It takes time to build rapport, understand journalists’ needs, and present your story in a way that resonates with them. Repeated, well-crafted, and timely pitches, combined with relationship building, significantly increase your chances of success in public relations.