How a Good CRM Can Help You Improve Your Coworking Media Relationships

Hi everyone, its Fred at Prezly with a few more PR tips to help you promote your coworking space. So far, weve covered social media press releases, creating great visual content, and sending effective pitch emails. These are basic building blocks for any PR campaign, and theyre really important.

But ultimately, PR isnt about creating press releases or sending emails. Its about building strong relationships. Luckily, you dont need to be a master networker to do this well. You do, however, need a good CRM, or Customer Relationship Management system, to help you manage communications of your coworking space and keep track of important information about your contacts. I know that Ramon, the author of the coworking handbook, just spent a long time choosing a CRM. He might chip in in the comments with recommendations for a CRM.

Knowledge is power (and power is a good CRM)

When it comes to forging great media relationships, knowledge is power. The more data you can gather and store about your media contacts, the more power you have to understand what they care about, remember past conversations, and recall important details. All of these data points will help you build trust and create stronger relationships.

Of course, lots of data can quickly become difficult to manage, especially if you use Excel to keep track of your contacts. Theres no shame in relying on a spreadsheet for this purpose. Most PR people do. Keep in mind, though, that Excel is designed to make calculations and graphs, not help you manage a database. Thats where a CRM comes in. A CRM is much more than a glorified Excel spreadsheet. Among its many advantages, a CRM can help you:

  • Document emails, phone calls, and even social media conversations with every influencer. Many CRMs will even let you send pitch emails directly from the platform.
  • Search for contacts by name, communication history, beat, PR campaign, or any number of tags that are important to your business.
  • Measure the impact of your efforts with thorough reporting on response rates and new PR opportunities generated.
  • Share knowledge across your company by keeping it in a universally accessible platform, rather than a spreadsheet saved to your hard drive.

Getting started with CRM

CRM systems range from simple and relatively cheap to sophisticated and very expensive. Whatever CRM you use, dont sweat your choice too much. The important thing is getting a system in place to help you manage your data. This allows you to focus on the human side of PR: creating and cultivating great media relationships.