Club Report--February 19, 2006

Club Report–February 19, 2006

Like previous Club Reports have mentioned, I have been working most of my available time on the Tyberg for Congress campaign. I have been charged with coordinating the volunteers until a suitable candidate can be found to do the job permanently. My main role is as the communications director. The multi-tasking I am learning doing my work in both positions is proving invaluable.
As far as the Club resources I have developed at my own expense that are used in the campaign, the media databases have been the most useful. The databases are divided into Cepia Regions (CR) Media I, II, and III. CR I incorporates the television, radio, and the weekly and daily print media of the old St. Croix Valley Liberty zone of operation. This database includes locally operated media organizations, and the Twin Cities, Wisconsin- and nation-wide daily media that serves the six western, centrally-banded counties of Wisconsin. CR Media II and III databases are divided into the in-area daily broadcast and daily and weekly print media in the western and eastern zones of Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District, the district for which Tyberg is running against incumbent David Obey.
All pertinent and available fields are updated on the three existing media databases. There are six fields that are partially filled in and will be filled in over the course of time. These 6 of 14 total fields of information are names of contacts in the media organizations, the best phone number or email address with which to contact them personally, the media organization website addresses, and the state assembly, state senate districts and counties of the Wisconsin-located organizations.
The email addresses for all but 10 of the 119 organizations listed are programmed into my Mozilla Thunderbird email program. The 10 exceptions have requested press releases to be faxed which are otherwise emailed to the majority. These email addresses are divided into lists for national, daily print and broadcast, and weekly print media in each of the Crs. This system as I have used it for the campaign, and recently for a non-profit client, create a problem discussed below.
The intermediate projects for my media databases are to do a separate database and email list for pertinent e-based sites, newsletters, groups, etc. The second project is to expand the CR Media I database, defined as “serving the SCVL zone,” with periodic national and state-wide publications, e.g. Time, Newsweek, and other various magazines and journals, and also any relevant international print and broadcast organizations, such as the Times of London, the Irish Times, Newsworld International, Bloomberg, etc. The unlikelihood of having anything of local occurrence or importance having a broad national or international interest does not mean preclude listing in the databases just in case.
Following the intermediate projects, I have targeted for mid-summer the creation of a database for CR Media IV and V, the northern and southern halves, respectively, of Wisconsin’s Third Congressional District, a seat currently held by Democrat Ron Kind.
With the resource of these databases built, being updated or planned for building, The Club may be the premiere prepared agency for media/public relations consulting in western Wisconsin later this year. Over the course of this spring and summer, I hope to find more paying work for this skill set and resource base of myself and the Club. I hope to serve businesses, governments, associations, community groups, and non-profit organizations in the area.
Having the past eight years previous to this conducted the public relations and media outreach of the SCVL, I am amazed more and more with the skills I learned doing that. It was great entry level training. With the Tyberg for Congress campaign experience one could say that by the time of the election I will have completed my “undergraduate” study in media/public relations consulting.
There is a problem that I alluded to above concerning e-mailed press releases. That problem is well-known in economics as the law of “diminished returns.” When I send emailed press releases for either the campaign or the non-profit I mentioned, there is the inevitable risk of sending press releases to media organizations that may be felt to be “spam” by those who receive them. This inevitably happens if the frequency is too great. The messages are sent on my ISP server account. The “Reply To” for the campaign is my campaign email account (my ISP won’t let me send through that account; a problem which must be rectified). My Club mail so far as the “Reply To” listed as . The risk with being a media/p.r. consultant using email is linking my service with items of any of my clients that are not particularly interesting to news organizations or so blatantly unnewsworthy so as to be ignored by the media association. Eventually I intend to subscribe to a broadcast fax and a broadcast email service for sending press releases. I will rent the use of these services in addition to the charge of preparing press announcements.
Being a generous person and thus far the typical entrepreneur who is too reluctant to charge what he is worth, I am at risk of “burning” my opportunity and credibility by not regulating the market of my services. It is therefore incumbent on me to devise a schedule of rates for my services. I will, of course, charge the highest amounts for using the delicate feature of emailed press releases. Snail mailed and faxed press releases would be balanced according to that emailed rate in the schedule. I will be consulting with my advisors on such a schedule and incorporate them into the business plan.