How to manage your media inquiries authentically and efficiently

60% of PR professionals say media relations management is getting harder. With 24-hour news cycles and the amplifying power of social media, PR teams have to work harder than ever to build and protect their organization’s reputation. 

By managing your media engagements well, you can ensure your team is always ready to seize the next big media opportunity or to stop a negative story in its tracks. 

So what can you do now to set yourself up for success tomorrow? This guide will run you through everything you need to know to master your media inquiries management, including:

• Why managing media engagements the right way matters
• Setting up your media inquiries policy
• 5 steps to respond to media inquiries authentically and efficiently 
• How media relations software tools like Presspage Connect can level up your inquiry management
• Getting started for free with our powerful media inquiry tool

Why managing media engagements well, matters:

How you manage your media engagements has a knock-on effect on the public’s perception of your brand.

So how can you safely manage your media inquiries? The key, like most things in PR, is being prepared.

How to build a media inquiries policy

The first step to how to handle media inquiries successfuly is having a plan. Rather than a set of rigid rules, create a policy you can revisit and tweak as your goals evolve.

Important things you’ll want to consider:

Who engages with the media?

Will you have one media spokesperson, selected team members with the green light to respond, or an external agency involved? Deciding who responds to your media inquiries will keep your team on the same page, avoid conflicting conversations, and save valuable time.

Where will media engagements be logged?

Will your media inquiries be centrally logged so everyone can access them, no matter who is in the office? Keeping your media inquiries accessible on an organizational level will help avoid issues when team members are out of the office.

What is your organization’s tone of voice?

Being authentic in your messaging will require you to define what that sounds like. Incorporate a clear tone of voice guide in your media policy to avoid a disjointed front.

How long is the response timeline?

1 hour, 3 hours, a day, or a week? Decide on the ideal and realistic timeframe for your spokesperson, team, or teams to respond to media engagements. Remember to also consider different timeframes for crisis communication situations where rapid responses take priority.

Which teams should be consulted when?

Are there departments that should be consulted when certain topics come up? Consider when legal, finance, marketing, or even the C-suite should be looped in before responding to an inquiry to avoid potentially damaging miscommunications.

How do you prioritize inquiries?

Are there certain media outlets, opportunities, or issues that take priority? Adjust your priorities regularly depending on your goals and ensure your team knows how to flag these correctly.

How do you mitigate unwanted coverage?

What’s your strategy for correcting or shutting down a story before it takes off? Media engagements aren’t all positive so you’ll want to set up a reliable protocol for responding to unfavourable press attention.

Are there media outlets you don’t work with?

Are there any organizations that do not align with your brand’s values or that you’ve had issues with in the past? Keep these logged so your team can check them at a glance without disrupting their workflow. 

Which templates can you use for what scenario?

When is it appropriate to use a template response and when is it not? There will be certain inquiries that you’ll receive time and time again. To keep the pace up, create templates in your authentic brand voice that your team knows they can use for specific scenarios.

How often will your media policy be reviewed and by who?

Your media engagement goals will change, so it’s important you set aside time to regularly review and adapt your media policy. 

While setting up a detailed media policy will take some time, documenting your guidelines will help your team stay aligned, ensure your messaging is consistent and authentic, and protect your brand’s reputation in the long run.

Now that you know how to get your media plan in place, it’s time to see how it works in practice!

The 5 steps to respond to media inquiries authentically and efficiently

1. Assess: Evaluate the media inquiry When your team receives a media inquiry you’ll want to begin by evaluating the message. This includes carefully checking the reputation, audience, and style of the media outlet and journalist. Next, you’ll want to examine the topic of the request. If it’s a story, what is the topic and angle, and does it align with your brand’s values? Consider the pros and cons of moving forward before deciding on your response.

2. Take action: Prepare a response or assign to a relevant team member Once you’ve evaluated your media inquiry, it’s time to decide on your next move; accept, decline, negotiate, or pass on to a team member. Always prioritize time-sensitive inquiries and big opportunities first, and respond to the rest next. Remember, even if you’re not interested in a media opportunity it’s still a good idea to provide a brief response (you never know when you might want to work with that journalist or outlet again!). Most importantly, you’ll want this process centralized and accessible to your team. That way you don’t have to worry about anything falling off the radar if someone is away sick, on leave, or changed roles. Having this safety net in place is crucial for not only landing press opportunities but also for mitigating unwanted coverage.

3. Monitor: Track media coverage and feedback If an inquiry leads to media coverage, there’s still work to do! You’ll want to keep a close eye on the story once it is live –  is it accurate, complete, and fair? How is the public responding? Monitoring the success of a story can provide valuable insights into your initial media engagement and help you improve and refine the process in the future.

4. Nurture: Build a contact history  A media inquiry shouldn’t be seen as an isolated event. Instead, consider it a building block in your media relationships. Express gratitude, show interest in future collaborations, and follow up appropriately. Establishing strong ties with your media contacts will help build trust and open doors to more collaborations in the future.

5. Improve: Adapt and automate your process Your media inquiries process will evolve so you’ll want to ensure you have a solid foundation that you can adjust, adapt, and improve as you go along. Lay the groundwork by automating small repetitive tasks to free up valuable time for your team and allow you to scale easily and efficiently.

Now that we’ve explored into media inquiries best practices, you might be wondering how you can improve your existing processes in a manageable and efficient way. PR professionals are busy people and changing operations can be daunting. Thankfully, tools like Presspage Connect, are easy to implement and quick to garner results!

 

Levelling-up your inquiry management with Presspage Connect 

Many organizations rely on a mix of different tools, spreadsheets, and inboxes to manage their media inquiries, and while this can work perfectly fine, it does come with risks in the long term. Disconnected PR tech stacks impact visibility, making it difficult for teams to be aware of what media requests are being handled by others, especially during holidays or absences.

Consolidating your media inquiries on one platform will safeguard you from tech-stack friction and empower your team to manage their media engagements more efficiently and effectively than ever before.

So how exactly does Presspage Connect put you and your team in the driver’s seat?

 

Efficient inquiry management Presspage Connect gives your PR pros a complete birds-eye view of all incoming media inquiries. Whether a colleague is out of office or even switches jobs, you can rest assured that no media request will slip through the cracks again.  Received an urgent inquiry, time-sensitive press correction, unwanted press coverage, or a big opportunity from an established media outlet?  Presspage Connect allows you to easily flag high-priority messages, automatically assign inquiries to relevant colleagues, and respond quickly, authentically, and at scale with AI. With time-saving automations that log inquiries, assign messages to team members, update status changes, and even auto-forward your team’s press requests when they’re away; you’ll save valuable time on repetitive tasks so you can focus on nurturing your media relations instead.

 

Collaborative response handling Ensuring your organization presents a consistent voice is a big challenge when managing media inquiries. With different colleagues, teams, and in some cases even external PR agencies in the mix, it’s easy for your brand’s voice to get diluted. Presspage Connect fosters collaboration by enabling colleagues to communicate better around inquiries and more easily interact with third parties like agencies. With Presspage Connect you’ll empower your team to collaborate confidently and cohesively, from one shared inquiries portal. Oversight of previous conversations and easily customizable shared templates mean it’s never been simpler to maintain a consistent and authentic voice across your organization, no matter who’s in (or out of) the office.

 

Controlled media coverage Replying to media inquiries is one thing, building positive media relationships is another. Thanks to our Contact Engagement History feature, it’s easy to nurture your journalist relationships and connections with media outlets. Keep track of your past conversations and pick up where you (or your colleagues) left off without having to re-establish trust.  Thanks to Presspage Connect it’s easy to cultivate the conversation and establish your reputation as a transparent and media-friendly organization.

A tool that grows with you

Designed to seamlessly integrate with the broader Presspage platform, Presspage Connect offers you the flexibility to access additional features as your needs evolve - ensuring that the platform grows with you, regardless of your organization’s size or industry. 

Choosing a bespoke tool like Presspage Connect means you also benefit from the years of industry experience behind the scenes. Built by and for PR professionals, Presspage Connect is designed to excel at media inquiry management in ways DIY tech stacks simply cannot.

The wrap:

Managing your media inquiries authentically and efficiently will set your organization up for success. 

By putting in place a clear media inquiries policy and harnessing the power of tech, like Presspage Connect, you can establish valuable relationships with journalists and build and protect your organization’s reputation.

Stay in control of the conversation with efficient, collaborative, and controlled inquiry management.