Forget about the New York Times

You may not know it, but there are some close parallels between PR and the real estate business these days. A blog on PowerSites, an online real estate listing company, offers an observation to this point that is admittedly self-serving but no less true:

"Over the last few years I have spoken to many Realtors who refuse to cut newspaper ads from their marketing plans. The reason is normally, 'Sellers expect to see their homes in the newspaper.' I respond with one of two questions; 'How do sellers find you?' or 'Where are sellers looking for their next home?' The answer is invariably, 'Online.' "

If you're in the business of public relations, chances are that more than a few clients have said their first choice for story placement is the front page of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal.

And chances are you tried to explain that very few companies get front-page play in these newspapers, let alone any coverage in them at all.

Yet rather than spending your valuable time with such defensive discussions, we suggest taking a different tack: Tell your clients why newspapers are not the best places to promote their businesses.

This will sound like heresy to mainstream journalists and old-line PR types. But unless your client is a Fortune 100 company that simply wants exposure just for the sake of it, there are more effective (and realistic) ways to generate new business leads.

The most glaring reason to steer clear of newspapers, of course, is their death spiral in circulation. But there is an obvious corollary that's more important to underscore for clients: If the medium is dying, then new generations of consumers won't be reading it. As the publisher of the San Francisco Chronicle said in a 2005 interview, "I hate to read the obits because half of those people are our subscribers."

A major reason that metro dailies are in decline is their long-standing goal of trying to be all things to all people. In the Information Age, with its infinite long tails, specifically targeted relationships between buyers and sellers are far more valuable. Think of eBay.

So rather than letting clients waste time and money on this exercise in futility, we should all be doing our level best to teach them that many alternatives can be infinitely more effective. By taking control of their own information, for example--through vehicles ranging from a simple blog to a full-scale corporate newsroom--there is far more chance of perpetuating a current stream of content about their products and services that will likely reach the right people if designed properly.

Let's say, for example, that your client runs a mid-sized company that provides a new type of eco-friendly dry-cleaning equipment. Unless it's a Nobel Prize-winning invention that will revolutionize the industry, it's not likely to find its way into the Times or the Journal. So it would make more sense to focus on targeted venues and channels such as trade sites, green blogs, small-business networks, and, yes, even Twitter. And be sure to build a Vetted Newsroom where potential customers can learn everything about the new products.

In the miraculous event that the newspapers did cover your client, they probably wouldn't produce more than a few column inches--hardly the kind of glowing article that would instantly propel an anonymous business to international stardom. And after your client has spent thousands of dollars to browbeat reporters into writing something just to stop the incessant phone calls, all that would be left is a scrap of yellowed paper and a corresponding online version that would likely get buried within minutes of posting.

We usually agree with Seth Godin's musings but must take exception with his recent contention that "everyone else" reads the New York Times. Besides, even if it were true, how long will it last?