How to Reach the Media through PR in a Time of AI

AI offers enormous benefits for businesses, both large and small.  One of the biggest questions many businesses have in relation to their PR efforts is this: how much can they use AI in their outreach, and how much of their PR effort requires PR professionals?

In particular, startups, early stage and small businesses especially can be drawn to AI as a tool that enables them to do more PR themselves.  With agency costs often out of their reach, tools that let them do their PR themselves can be quite tempting.

If you simply need a checkbox for investors that you sent a press release out, then using the plethora of AI tools out there to help you do it yourself can be fine.  However, if you’re trying to actually get media coverage, it is generally better to utilize PR professionals, even if it is just on a part time or consulting basis.

The media has always been inundated with more press releases and story ideas from companies than they possibly can cover.  With the growth of AI, the number of releases, story proposals and media queries that the media receives have skyrocketed.  Making your outreach standout in this climate is both key and a challenge.

A key to success is personalization - and not the kind of personalization of AI.  AI, at best, can provide mediocre PR writing, from press releases to story proposals.  As AI-based PR tools proliferate, it is personalization and knowledge that can get your company in the news.  Like knowing that a certain magazine is interested in one type of story, that a TV station could be interested in a live remote broadcast for another, and that a certain trade magazine might be interested in a contributed article from you.  And then being able to write the story proposal, segment proposal, press release or other PR idea specifically for them.  

That’s how you break above the noise and reach the media in a time of AI.  Real personalization.  Real PR storytelling.  Not AI generated PR.