Image (LtoR): Jack Sheppard, Archie Graves, The Line's Alice Murray, Fay Margo, Lara Hunt, Alesha Cheah, Laura Shelley
Last week in Brackendale’s London HQ, we put the journalistic process and the private equity media landscape under the microscope with Alice Murray, Founder and Editor of The Line, a curated community and platform for private capital’s operational leaders.
Over coffee and home-baked goods, we unpacked the evolution of private equity media, the dos and don’ts of pitching stories and how the best results come from building genuine relationships rather than quick wins. It’s a delicate balance: walking the line between what journalists need and what clients expect.
Media Landscape – Know Your Audience
Private equity has seen significant growth in recent decades, and the media has followed suit. We have witnessed a change in mentality from a growing number of GPs in how they communicate with investors, portfolio companies and the wider public. Favourable press coverage and astute commentary on industry trends build confidence amongst LPs, fellow industry professionals and potential acquisition targets. With more specialised trade titles appearing alongside mainstream financial media, there are significant opportunities to get your name and strategy out there in the press.
Developing meaningful relationships with journalists at different outlets requires a tailored approach for each and an understanding of their readers. While private equity is becoming more understood, there is still a divergence in how the media thinks about and reports on the industry. Trade publications provide a balanced view on the industry and are keen to uncover and report on trends, delving into the minutiae for a niche core audience. Larger mainstream financial publications have a higher threshold for covering an individual company’s news and seek to tie bigger-picture trends and data in private markets with broader macroeconomic storytelling, while national presses can still present a more critical picture of private equity. There are good actors and bad actors, just like in any sector, but until private equity communicates this better, its public reputation will remain patchy.
Publications and journalists have a constant stream of pitches and press releases coming their way. We zoned in on the essential checklist when journalists are writing an article and it’s clear that going into every story having your reader and audience in mind is crucial to ensure it resonates with them. Having a unique angle that also takes into account the macroeconomic backdrop helps to drive a successful story.
Murray explained that a rule of thumb she has always used is that if you hear the same insight multiple times from different sources, it’s likely worth investigating. So, even if a pitch doesn’t immediately meet that threshold, offering a unique angle or timely perspective can still help it cut through the noise and may yield results down the line.
Cultivating Meaningful Relationships & Aligning Strategies
What we believe separates “good” from “great” PR can also be said of investor relations. The two should work hand in hand. In public relations, knowing your recipient and the audience a journalist serves can make or break the success of a campaign. The same can be said for a GP. This means being attentive to an investor’s existing strategies and portfolio, asking questions, understanding their needs and who they represent and recognising that there is no single brush stroke, no one-size-fits-all approach that will lead to commitments.
In the same way that a single good LP pitch is unlikely to lock in a commitment, not every meeting with a journalist is guaranteed to lead to coverage. Editorial plans can change for reasons completely beyond a journalist’s control, and unforeseen macro or personal events can quickly reshape priorities. LPs, much like journalists, are not a box to tick, and skilled professionals must increasingly view their roles through the lens of not just securing one-time allocations or a single piece of coverage but cultivating meaningful relationships that permeate across multiple cycles.
What is beyond doubt, and what we tell our clients, is that every meeting offers the chance to develop strong relationships. Public relations professionals should be minded that one opportunity does not make a relationship, but it can certainly break one. It is in this light that we explored common friction points between journalists and PR professionals with The Line: unrealistic expectations, an overreliance on jargon-heavy language, a misuse of embargos and a lack of context on pitches, we concluded, are symptomatic of a misguided of understanding of how the journalist thinks, their goals and the editorial process. Journalists, much like LPs, spend countless hours consuming information, talking to sources and building a picture of the industry. For PR professionals, pitches must be rooted in this context and demonstrate a clear understanding of the industry and the journalists’ interests.
Finding Your Audience: Distribution, Distribution, Distribution
We wrapped up the afternoon with a timely discussion around shifting audience behaviour and the way content is consumed. The rise of grassroots providers, niche publications and trade specialists are challenging traditional models as readers grow increasingly hesitant to pay for content in a world with endless subscription models. Despite these obstacles, there are considerable opportunities for PR professionals, journalists and fund managers within this fragmentation for those bold enough to share opinions that resonate with viewers.
Building a loyal audience, even around a niche topic, carries value. Many firms are producing their own content such as podcasts, ‘how to’ guides or thought leadership pieces, all of which adds authenticity, amplifies a fund’s narrative in a controllable way and, if executed alongside well-thought out PR efforts, reinforces the expertise that has been validated in external media.
The challenge for funds, therefore, and the key for Alice, is distributing your content so it lands in front of the right audience. For some this is social media, for others it may be a newsletter or a “News and insights” section of the website. Analytics around engagement has become increasingly sophisticated and communications officers have a growing number of tools to measure how, where, and most importantly, why a message is resonating or not.
We’re always keeping our finger on the pulse and it will be fascinating to see where the industry and players’ behaviours will go in the future, and the innovative processes that will follow.
By Archie Graves, PR & Marketing Manager
