The perfect gift for journalists

It’s always hard to pick the perfect present. If you’re looking to choose the right gift for a journalist though, and get some good coverage for your company, there’s one gift that keeps on giving: good old-fashioned information.

We try to make sure that the news stories we pick and the interviewees we select for features give the broadest possible picture of the industry. The truth is though that we don’t always catch the most interesting stories. Looking from the outside, it might appear that we favour the biggest companies. That’s not really how it works.

The problem is, in an industry with scores of cranebuilders and equipment suppliers, and hundreds of rental companies, our full-time editorial staff can’t keep up with what everyone is doing. We need you to tell us. The big firms more often get that right: they have the budget for full time communications departments.

But it’s not hard or expensive for everyone to do. Which brings me to the perfect gift for the journalist in your life: a good press release, and, more broadly, good mechanisms for keeping us informed of what you’re doing.

When you’re writing a press release, think about what you look for in a news story: for me, that’s a clear explanation of a couple of important new facts, with some entertaining colour. We don’t want you to write stories for us (and we’ll often cut most of what you write if you try to). Instead, pick what makes a product good, or a job successful, and highlight that with a couple of bullet points.

Try to include some comments from people close to the job or product: one of your staff who worked on it, or a customer or end-user who likes it. Skip the jargon and eyebrow-raising claims. No-one is surprised to know that you reckon your product is the best in the world; they do want to know why a customer like them uses it. Include contact details for the people you quote, so we can go back to them for more.

And get us a good picture: not a product shot on a white background, but one showing it getting the job done. That’s interesting to look at, and it shows the world what you can do. Make sure it’s big and high resolution so we can print it.

Finally, make sure your news reaches us. When you’ve got news, email it to us while it’s fresh. If you have a website, don’t just post it up there and hope we eventually spot it, but set up an RSS feed so we see it as soon as it is posted. If you’ve got something good to say, tell us and we’ll write about it.