How Foreign Companies Can Navigate the U.S. Media Landscape

When a European company expands into the U.S., its executives generally expect to deal with a business environment quite different from the one they know. Read also: Mexico-US Trade Talks Postponed, Fourth Round May Move to October They prepare for unfamiliar regulations, study American consumers, develop new marketing strategies and try to understand how American business relationships work. What they may not anticipate is the U.S.’s different media culture—and that matters more than some companies realize. A business can have an excellent product, a carefully developed U.S. market-entry strategy and a substantial marketing budget and still struggle to gain attention in the U.S.’s enormous and highly competitive media landscape. Finding the Right Niche Successfully approaching American journalists may require different tactics from the ones that worked well back home. Sure, they ostensibly do the same things. They interview people on television or radio, and they write stories to be published in print or online. But journalistic traditions vary widely from country to country. Journalists can have different expectations about what constitutes a newsworthy story, how companies should approach them, and even what kind of relationship should exist between reporters and the people seeking media coverage. One of the most important things foreign companies need to understand about the American media is that a company’s desire for publicity is not, by itself, a reason for a journalist to cover it. Media Coverage Is Not Marketing That may sound obvious, but it is not unusual for a company entering a new market to think of media relations as just another part of its marketing plan. To be fair, publicity has become largely content for use in marketing. But it’s content with considerably higher credibility. Company management may believe that opening a new U.S. office or hiring a high-level executive should be reason enough for the media to take notice. But the media usually has a different take, and it may look something like this: “Why should my readers, viewers or listeners care?” A company may be much more likely to attract attention if its story illustrates a larger business trend, a shift within an industry or a development affecting consumers. For example, an Italian manufacturer expanding into the U.S. might have a more compelling story if its expansion reflects a broader effort by European manufacturers to establish a foothold in the American market. Similarly, a company executive may be a useful source for a journalist not because the executive wants to promote the company, but because he or she has firsthand knowledge of an issue the journalist is already covering. That requires companies to think less about what they want to announce and more about the conversations journalists and their audiences are already having. A Pitch Is Not a Sales Brochure American journalists tend to expect a fairly specific approach when they are contacted by companies and public relations professionals. A typical pitch is concise and targeted. It should quickly explain why a particular journalist might find the proposed story interesting and why it is relevant to that journalist’s audience. And that may require some homework before the pitch is made. A reporter who covers international trade is unlikely to be interested in exactly the same story as a journalist covering consumer products. A local business reporter may be interested in the economic impact of a company’s new American facility, while a national publication might instead focus on a broader industry trend. Sending the same generic announcement to dozens or hundreds of journalists is rarely an effective strategy. Nor is a pitch generally the place for an extended company history, a lengthy list of awards or a detailed description of every product the business sells. Journalists can find that information on a company’s website. Additionally, don’t assume that getting quoted or featured in top-tier publications such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal should be your main goals. So-called trade publications that speak to audiences in specific industries can go further in burnishing your credibility with potential customers and partners. Ditto for local business publications in whatever American city or town you have operations. What’s more, such publicity can help you with efforts to expand to new, bigger U.S. markets. Give the journalist a reason to want to know more This is another area where cultural assumptions can cause problems. What might be considered an appropriate professional introduction in one country can come across as overly promotional or insufficiently relevant in another. Companies accustomed to thinking primarily in marketing terms can also misunderstand the distinction between paid and earned media. Advertising allows a business to control its message. The company decides what it wants to say, where it appears and, within the limits of advertising regulations and platform requirements, how it is presented. Editorial coverage works differently. A journalist (not the company) ultimately decides whether a story is worth covering, which questions to ask and what information to include. The result may be valuable precisely because it represents an independent, third-party assessment rather than a message created by the company itself. That can make credible media coverage particularly useful for a foreign company trying to establish itself in the U.S. An unfamiliar business featured in a respected industry publication or quoted as an expert on an important issue can gain a level of recognition that traditional marketing alone may not produce. But the company must accept the basic rules of the editorial process. The goal should not be to persuade a journalist to reproduce a marketing message. It should be to determine whether the company has a legitimate story to tell, or useful expertise to contribute. Think Like a Participant, Not Just a Promoter The most effective media strategy is frequently not built around repeatedly telling journalists how successful a company is. Instead, it involves finding ways to participate in larger conversations. A European company entering the U.S. market may have executives who can offer insights into supply-chain challenges, changing trade policies, manufacturing trends or the practical differences between doing business in Europe and America. An Italian food company might have useful expertise on changing consumer attitudes toward authenticity and regional products. A manufacturer might be able to discuss the challenges of moving production or establishing new distribution networks across borders. Those perspectives can be interesting to journalists even when the resulting story is not primarily about the company itself. Over time, such contributions can also help establish executives as knowledgeable sources whom journalists may contact again when related stories arise. Learning the Culture Behind the Headlines None of this means that American media culture is inherently better or worse than the media culture of another country. It is simply different. And that is the larger lesson for companies expanding internationally. Businesses routinely invest significant time and resources in understanding foreign markets. They study consumer preferences, hire local experts and adapt their products and messages to different cultural environments. The same kind of adjustment may be necessary when they begin interacting with the media. International expansion involves more than translating a website, finding distributors and adapting a product for a new audience. Companies must also learn how the professional cultures of a new market operate, and that includes the culture of the journalists who help shape how industries, companies and ideas are discussed. Understanding that culture can be an important step toward something every foreign business wants: not simply arriving in a new market, but becoming part of the conversation there. Author bio Paul Abercrombie is president of Abercrombie Communications Inc., a public relations firm that works with companies and professional services firms in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere abroad. A former journalist, he has written for such publications as The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, National Geographic Traveler and Wine Enthusiast. The post How Foreign Companies Can Navigate the U.S. Media Landscape appeared first on Global Trade Magazine.