Making An Impact

There's a yawning gap, bigger than the Atlantic, between the methods and attitudes of the editorial media in the US and those elsewhere, particularly in the UK and rest of Europe.

The proverbial pond can be a bottomless ocean down which an amazing number of otherwise capable entrepreneurs and business managers tumble, with their export intentions sinking with them. In journalism there are two sides of the pond(erable): Americans and the rest.

For the most part, each US publisher and editor works as a team to wrench greenbacks out of the budgets of businesses. Not only are they complementary but they are complimentary. Very complimentary. They consider a key part of the journalistic function to be promoting companies and their output for all their worth.

Little is less than awesome. Not surprisingly, the companies concerned are ready and willing to go along with this, picking up good-news publicity as long as they are able to pay for support advertising.

CHANGE TACK

In short, for those seeking to enter the US forum from over here, tell your marketing departments and PR advisers to change tack. Tell them they can produce media content until their computers melt, but if you are not an advertiser your chances of achieving editorial are meagre, unless, that is, you have a really outstanding story to tell.

Even then, feel free to beef it up with a few superlatives and fact massaging, because that is what so many US editors expect. Whether or not the great American public is taken in by the hype pushed at them is a matter of conjecture.

However, switch the situation around to US companies needing to work with the European media and you turn the whole system on its head.

With remarkably few exceptions, the international press is cynical, mistrusting and far more demanding. Many an editor sees his publisher as a hazard of the job, while publishers can regard their journalists as unapproachable and distinctly lacking in savvy.

If it is news you will get it in, whether or not you spend on advertising and no matter where you are based. If it is news you must make it obvious that it is news, presenting it as such. You have to give out the facts and leave the opinions to the journalists, so throw away that pack of adjectives.

Even then, the editor is likely to question your facts and add in comparisons or other observations. Very often he or she will interpret data differently to the way you presented it. You might not like his or her version, but unless the rehash is factually incorrect, you better not complain, or there is unlikely to be a next time.

MINEFIELD

To uninitiated US exporters it must be a minefield, for sure. Add in language and cultural barriers, legislative restrictions and problems associated with having their stories told by third parties such as importers and distributors – and their own backyards look increasingly cosy.

Just as overseas markets have attracted US businesses large and small, so have they witnessed many a retreat. Yet, most certainly, it does not matter where the product is made, provided that it appeals and meets end-user expectations: before, during and well after the purchase.

Trade bodies and organisations do much to help. A further positive contributor has been increased cross-border collaboration between publishing groups, helping to spread knowledge and promote global business. The Internet has shrunk the world and provided a whole new tool for exporters.

There is a greater degree of professionalism, both within industry and commerce and amongst those who serve them.

All of which fuels the hope that international business can be a front-running factor in perking up economies, helping enterprise to be more profitable, making it more enjoyable.

Skilled use of the resources that the high revving editorial machines can make available has never been more fundamental.

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