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Mass Media Training
July 02, 2008
If you still think slick-haired, pinstripe-suited executive when you think media training, you're stuck in another era. These days media training is for a much wider spectrum of employees.
By Catherine M. Wolfe
In today's world, in which YouTube is one of the most frequently visited Websites, people eagerly grab for their 15 minutes of fame, and even your grandmother has a camera phone, vigilant companies do well to consider media training not just for the CEO and top management, but for other employees as well. Twenty-four-seven, on-air coverage makes it all the more difficult to predict who in your workforce may be called upon to answer questions about your company, products, and policies. But there are steps you can take to improve your odds of protecting and building your company’s reputation.
Companies, of all sizes in most industries, will media train. In earlier times, it was done with the fear of the 60 Minutes news show's call looming. It's a time-honored technique that helps prepare organizations to handle the worst of times, and make the most of the best of times, ensuring nervous executives can survive a call from the media and even have their company benefit as a result.
Media training, or preparing executives and employees for working with the media, has met with great success at Toshiba America Medical Systems, improving the quality and quantity of our coverage. Our coverage is on track to increase about 10 percent annually. Against the backdrop of a flagging market, its extra efforts like this that have helped Toshiba continue to enhance its reputation and grow market share.
Ten smart perspectives on media training:
1. Don't limit your training to the C-suite
Or even the marketing folks. Company policies should note who can talk to the media and when, but there are going to be times when you’ll prefer other representatives of your company talk. For instance, in healthcare, clinical specialists with appropriate credentials add legitimacy to a healthcare message that maybe the business person can’t. And while your industry publications and the business media are important, you also can garner coverage from vertical trades outside your industry's immediate purview. In addition to medical imaging publications, we pitch marketing, human resources, service, finance, and training publications. In fact, some of our best stories, the ones that give us the most mileage as reprints for sales promotion, are articles that appeared in consumer publications and vertical trades not related to our industry.
2. Educate your team on the importance and value of media coverage
At Toshiba America Medical Systems, we have a strong commitment to garnering quality, broad-reaching coverage. We believe it complements our word-of-mouth marketing strategy. It also helps us appear larger than we actually are. Quality, pervasive coverage can be a worthwhile benefit when you’re not the industry leader. It is important for your group to understand that by participating in media interviews, they are contributing to the company’s bottom line. Also, help them understand how you measure success, how they can expect to participate in this effort, and how the training is advantageous to their career.
3. Make sure your people understand the nature of the beast
Media work on deadlines. They always call at the last minute and they ask for a lot. Most likely, their deadline will conflict with one of your company's and yours. They won't always be nice. And they won’t always print exactly what you told them in the way you told it to them. But, and this is a big but. The company that responds the quickest, with the best material, gets the coverage. We tell everyone, the media is as important, if not more important, than any single customer. Why? Because they can reach more customers in a single story then anyone of us could in our entire careers.
4. Share with your media trainees the results of their labor
One of the best ways to ensure continued support for your media training program is internal word-of-mouth marketing. It's guaranteed, unless it's a really negative experience, your attendees will talk about the training. And if you help them look good, and show them where and when they looked good by providing clips, they are going to help you sell your program. Besides, everyone loves to share their news coverage with friends and family. And, don’t forget to publish your media trainees' successes internally. At Toshiba we distribute and post noteworthy articles to recognize and educate our workforce and for promotional purposes.
5. Use the training opportunity to work and rework messages
While participants should come to media training with prepared positioning statements, this training time is a great opportunity to try out messages and take advantage of the feedback from colleagues to perfect and refine statements and responses. What sounds great in the office alone, or working within the business unit or product group, can reveal striking weaknesses when tried out with a persistent trainer using a different perspective and an unexpected line of questioning. Better to discover faulty logic among friends than out in the treacherous world of business. This approach also makes attendees feel like they are being collaborative in the process rather than just going through the motions of a mandatory training exercise.
6. Make your participants comfortable
Put together a training group that makes sense. The CEO may need to be trained on his own. Senior vice presidents and managers work well together but may intimidate lower level managers. Colleagues can learn best from those in similar situations with equitable experience. In any case, take your group away from the office to ensure they are focused on your training and not distracted by office deadlines. Let them know what to expect before the training day. And, make sure they know they are special. It’s a privilege and an important responsibility to represent your company to the press.
7. Videotape the mock interviews
Everyone pretty much dislikes this part, but it provides by far the greatest rewards. Participants frequently change their behavior just by watching themselves on tape—without anything being said by the trainer. This moving picture is truly worth much more than the 1,000 words.
8. Invite participants to subsequent sessions
Sometimes one training session is not enough. Generally, the experience will challenge most folks not just their first time, but often at secondary sessions six months or a year later. Those folks ready for a refresher course often provide encouragement your first-time trainees will need.
9. Don't forget customers
The best company spokesperson is someone who doesn't even work for your company—your customers. They have the credibility you are looking for as well as the shared interest and perspective of your target audience. And don't bypass media training these folks. They frequently enjoy the experience as well as the opportunity to be interviewed by the press. We've had physicians with time for no one make time for reporters from specific publications they admire.
10. Consider using a consultant
A final word about media training: Don't be afraid to bring in a highly recommended outside consultant. Even though we have people on staff who could do the media training, we prefer to use a media trainer in whom we have complete confidence. In fact, our consultant is a former television reporter. Even though consultants may provide insight your team can provide as the internal corporate or agency media expert, it's only human nature for your media trainees to assign greater validity to the consultant's guidance. Besides, it may be in your best interest to have the outside specialist deliver the tough feedback to your CEO!
Catherine M. Wolfe is director, marketing services for Toshiba America Medical Systems. She holds a Bachelor's Degree in communications from California State University, Fullerton, and a Master's Degree in organizational leadership from Chapman University. Wolfe has been published in a variety of publications including Marketing Management, MX—Business Strategies for Medical Technology Executives and Public Relations Journal. She also has spoken at industry conferences on customer loyalty.
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