Posts Tagged ‘national newspapers’

What is it about national print coverage that gets in-house PROs so excited?

Ruder Finn recently launched its Future of Communications report, based on a survey of 100 in-house Public Relations Officers (PROs) and 20 in-depth interviews with PROs.

The research, which looked at in-house PRO attitudes to digital communications, threw up a number of interesting angles including the inconsistent costing of digital services which Ruder Finn UK MD Nick Leonard discusses here.

But for me the most interesting was the fact that nearly three-quarters (72 per cent) of PROs said that given the choice between getting their story placed in a national newspaper or the online version of the same publication, they would choose print. Even the supposedly more tech-savvy technology PROs still preferred the print to online coverage.

There is nothing wrong with being more comfortable with what you know, but a fear of the unknown shouldn’t blind PROs to the more obvious benefits of the digital world. Online press coverage is permanent, more likely to be read by someone you really want to read it and contributes to your search rankings; a newspaper is here today and gone tomorrow.  I know national print coverage has that wow factor, but in terms of tangible impact on a clients’ business is it really worth more?

What do you think – do you work in-house? What is it about national print coverage that really gets you excited? We’d love to hear your thoughts.