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Five Years Of Making Airwaves
To some people, five years may not seem like much. But in the highly competitive and ever-morphing world of public relations, five years of business growth is more than a passing footnote. Just ask Maury Tobin, president of Tobin Communications, Inc., a company that provides Radio Media Tours for clients nationwide. He knows. Recently, TCI celebrated its five-year anniversary. And Tobin was able to reflect on a period that, even with its countless technological advances and e-communication promises, centered around the ubiquitous power of one key factor: a focus on one-on-one relationships. Tobin's mantra, "We Make It News," is a pivotal branding tool for TCI. But it's really Tobin's down-to-earth personality and passion that speak volumes. Instead of rattling off a list of "dos" and "don'ts" that can make a spokesperson come across as stiff and overly rehearsed, Tobin always tells his clients to "have fun" before they are interviewed for radio. "I'm here to provide the best service to my clients, but I also have struck that fine balance and I understand what the media wants, too. I like and respect journalists and I understand the deadlines and pressures they face," says Tobin during a break one Tuesday morning. "I encourage my spokespeople to be engaging and deliver valuable information to the public, as opposed to commercial puffery. I am passionate about good radio." Every day radio stations reach millions of listeners who use the latest information to make day-to-day decisions about their health and children, about technology and consumer purchases, about their views on social issues, and about their lifestyles. The Tobin Touch Anyone who knows Tobin knows he isn't one to sugarcoat or mince words. For example, Tobin is insistent that Audio News Releases--prepackaged sound bites that are sent en masse to radio stations--aren't as effective as offering a spokesperson for a live interview. "I can't tell you how many times I get calls from PR professionals who want to put together an ANR and I'm honest and tell them that I don't think an ANR will work," says Tobin. "Many stations don't use ANRs when the story is more evergreen or feature-oriented." Tobin is also emphatic that spokespeople must accommodate radio talk show hosts' schedules, instead of the other way around, and equally adamant that good radio (hence, good PR) means using a spokesperson who can provide current information that's put into context for the listener. In His Clients' Seats To help mark his company's milestone anniversary, Tobin invited five radio talk show hosts to interview him as part of a behind-the-scenes look at how radio stations find out about potential news/feature stories and how they book guests. But more importantly, Tobin viewed them as a forum to educate people about the sometimes-insular world of media relations and to illustrate TCI's media relations strategies and best practices. Lessons learned from the interviews included:
Though not the intent, the radio interviews were peppered with compliments from the hosts about TCI and the quality of its projects. "Each and every week I am contacted by I don't know how many companies pitching how many things. A lot of times I'll take a message, I'll get back to them or they call me. [But] I'm not terribly interested in what they're pitching because there are a lot of companies out there and there's a lot of junk that's being pitched," said Jim Lawson of KDKD during one interview. "Tobin Communications is always a call that I take. "They'll pitch an idea to me ... and we'll talk about it. And then when I decide to book that, we'll go through the booking process before the program ever goes to air. Tobin Communications sends me fact sheets, suggested questions, a biography of whomever the guest is. And that, from a radio programmer's point of view, that's the kind of company you're looking for." At TCI, point person Maria Expectacion is the one who makes sure the process is seamless. "Building a one-on-one rapport with each of our radio station contacts is at the core of our success," says Expectacion. "While Maury is working with the clients, I'm providing the information and background the host needs to prepare for a good interview." History in the Making Tobin has a master's degree from American University in public communications. Before starting his own business, he cut his teeth managing and working on political campaigns and later gained experience pitching stories to radio stations while working for a competitor. In 1996, he founded TCI. He set up shop in the fall in his two-bedroom apartment in Montgomery County, Md., but it would be several months before he won his first client. Doggedly pursuing his dream of running his own business, Tobin met with contacts, created an industry database and worked the phones to build his namesake brand. Today, TCI enjoys triple-digit-percent revenue growth and has two other full-time employees, Ray Rivers and Expectacion. The innumerable projects TCI manages are as disparate as the niche of mass marketing itself. Many of its customers are public relations firms. Others are Fortune 500s and non-profit organizations. In the past five years, Tobin and his team have managed hundreds of Radio Media Tour projects. Clients have been as diverse as Abbott Laboratories, Netscape, the American College of Gastroenterology and The Humane Society of the United States. Public-focused topics of campaigns have been as disparate as teens against smoking, to highway safety experts speaking about the technology surrounding the increasing use of "red light" cameras to catch traffic offenders. Recent projects included promotional work for culinary guru Graham Kerr (aka The Galloping Gourmet), to working with Olympic legend Gail Devers to publicize her efforts surrounding thyroid disease awareness. "A lot of these issues we deal with are so fresh that people would not otherwise be exposed to them. But if people are listening to the radio and all of the sudden they learn something and there's something new on their horizon that they had not considered before, then we've opened their minds," Rivers said during one anniversary-marking radio interview he participated in with Tobin. Not Just a Pitch TCI's success lies in its rapport with producers and hosts and in its ability to give radio stations news--not just hype --and to tweak messages so that they are relevant to listeners. Tobin counsels his clients to be down to earth and relaxed. He also tells them to expect hard-hitting questions from journalists and to be prepared, rather than overwhelmed. "If it's a question you can't answer or don't feel is germane to the issue, be honest and say so," says Tobin. TCI's top-notch reputation as a boutique that works exclusively in the radio market helps it compete against sprawling media relations corporations. Tobin believes that many of the latter are driven to keep overhead under control, which can set the stage for impersonal, yet still costly, mass-distribution pitching and messaging. TCI, however, pushes its personal touch. "When a client calls, they talk to me. They aren't passed on to someone who doesn't understand how the media works or how to make a story newsworthy or someone using cookie-cutter and impersonal pitching techniques," explains Tobin. "I do everything I can to really ' make it news.' " Debra Zimmerman Murphey is president of The Content Edge and has written numerous marketing pieces for Tobin Communications, Inc. Before launching The Content Edge, she worked in the newspaper, magazine and trade newsletter industries for 18 years, including three years as editor and senior editor with PR NEWS and two years as editor and publisher of Publications Management, a newsletter focused on custom communications. Murphey graduated from American University in May 2004 with a Master's Degree in News Media Studies and she has spoken at communications strategy conferences, provided expert critiques of publications from an editorial perspective, and won many awards for her investigative and feature writing. To reach her, call 301/934-2610 or e-mail her at debra@thecontentedge.com. |
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