Persistence Pays

One of the most common questions we get from companies eager to work with Karbo Com is, “What reporters do you have relationships with?” While we have formed strong relationships based on the value we place on working with the press, the question doesn’t get to the heart of what these companies want. The real question should be, “Do you have what it takes to get me the results I need?” We love to answer that question, even though the response is different for every company.

What most companies outside the agency inner circle don’t realize is that while relationships can get a reporter to open your email, the relationship alone won’t garner a great article. A compelling topic or news about something the reporter—and his/her editor and readers—care about is what does it. Yes, we write emails that tend to get the attention of the right editorial staff, but once that door is open and you get someone’s interest, the need for persistence takes over. Benjamin Franklin wrote “Energy and persistence conquer all things.” This month, his wisdom, and our dedication to results, played out yet again for three of our clients. We acquired phenomenal feature stories: A contributed article for eBay Advertising’s data guru in AdWeek and a Q&A with RTI’s CEO, which took up three quarters of the front page of the Mercury News business section. HARO opportunities are notoriously hard to secure, but our TDK team worked over a period of several months to have the client included in an IEEE Insight article about attracting engineering talent—an evergreen goal for the company. This month, we also executed a major launch on behalf of Vineti, a pioneering cell and gene therapy software and analytics company, announcing their Series A funding round and the first software platform to accelerate cancer cure process and delivery. We aggressively pursued the top business and tech press to secure coverage in TechCrunch, The Wall Street Journal and Fortune.

All four teams had to be tenacious to see their efforts come to fruition.

More often it’s not who you know, but how you get it done.