Crouch, touch, pause, engage: Why PR agencies should follow the rules of rugby

How many meaningless emails have you received today?  We have 1,728 of them to wade through each year, according to a recent Sennheiser Communications study.

Unless you’re Apple, relying too heavily on emails as a PR tactic is a sure-fire recipe for wasted time and effort. I’ve always found it’s better to approach media relations like a rugby team.

That may sound aggressive: on the face of it, rugby is a physical battle featuring ritual acts of controlled aggression. But it is also a gentlemanly sport: players call the referee ‘Sir’, tend not to fake injuries as much as footballers and share a drink with opponents after the match.

When players come together for a scrum during a game, the referee instructs: ‘crouch, touch, pause, engage’. Here’s a run-down of how a good PR agency will apply each of these four stages when speaking to the media:

• Crouch: They will not make the mistake of going too hard on preaching the company line to a journalist. Assuming the preparation and planning work has been done correctly, there should be some interesting insight to share, but that will usually plug into the current news agenda, rather than being something standalone. The PR agency may well hold a client in high regard, but it is dangerous to preach from that pedestal. Most of the time, the PR will be on a par with them, and sometimes will be almost crouching down at their feet.
• Touch: Putting in the effort to get personal with journalists is definitely worth the effort, and something every good PR should be doing on a daily basis. That should include speaking on the phone (and occasionally catching up face-to-face where possible), and getting to know journalists in person. Rather than keeping things strictly business, chatting about hobbies and social lives can play a big part in a successful PR-journalist relationship.
• Pause: There might be a clear client brief and targets on the table, but it can be impossible to anticipate the exact topics a publication will be looking to cover in the next few months. Forward feature plans can be chopped and changed at will, with issues often bumped off the radar by something more prominent on the news agenda. This means rigidly broadcasting a message is not a good idea. PRs must be able to think on their feet and when the content and message they have doesn’t quite fit with a journalist’s plans the way they thought it would, pause for a moment to think and try to find another way to work with them. The journalist can often appreciate both the thought and the insight.
• Engage: At Spark, we are proud to have been rated a top-three PR Week agency by UK tech journalists because it shows they enjoy our working relationship. Hell, some of them have even been known to share a drink with us. Going that extra mile and making an effort to engage with journalists is the hallmark of good PR work.