Business schools are a treasure trove of potential media stories. From research on pressing issues to alumni creating great ideas to changing student demands – the possibilities are limitless.
The challenge for business school marcomms teams is not usually a lack of material. They face a different issue: getting people internally to understand when their work might make a good media story. And telling the marcomms team early enough to make it useful.
Why is there a lack of understanding internally?
It’s unrealistic to expect all academic programme teams or academics to become experts on the media. Often, dealing with the media stories is a tiny part of their job. And let’s be honest, they have different professional objectives to that of the marcomms team.
Unfortunately, this can lead to unhelpful assumptions.
Colleagues believe they know what journalists want based on their own media consumption.
People are so caught up in their projects that they are absolutely convinced that the media will be too, even if the topic has no relevance outside the business school.
Some people confuse PR with advertising, so they expect the published copy to be exactly what they imagined. They either demand control or clam up when they realise that they will not have final say over what the journalist writes.
Or, they dampen down a potential story because they don’t want to be seen as “controversial”.
Sometimes, they assume that their work will not be of interest to outsiders OR they expect outsiders will be fascinated in highly technical nuanced work.
It’s a tricky navigating this environment.
So how does a business school marcomms team uncover strong media stories?
The discovery process
Good stories rarely arrive as polished “news”. Usually, they must be uncovered through questions and clarifications and finally polished before pitching to the press.
Business schools that are particularly good at this spend less time asking colleagues for news, and more about the problems that they are solving.
Here are 7 practical ways to improve the flow of media story ideas in your business school.
1. Ask different questions
Asking someone whether they have any news often invites a “no.”
Instead, you might consider asking other questions, such as:
- What are you working on that might surprise someone outside the school?
- What has changed in your field recently?
- Which company, sector or public debate is your research helping to explain?
- What are students asking about now that they were not asking a year ago?
2. Access your inner child
A useful technique can be to write the story in a way that can be understood by an 8-year-old. You can also use AI to help you here.
It’s so easy to get caught up in technicalities, or jargon that we lose sight of what the story is actually about.
Ask yourself – what would a headline about this story look like in the media?
By taking it back to basics, you can help frame the media story in a way that will be understood by everyone.
3. Build relationships before you need a media story
Marcomms people are all busy and sometimes internal engagement gets relegated down the priority list.
But it’s important to plan regular proactive conversations with faculty, programme directors and careers team around the year.
These conversations can be more productive than occasional mass emails requesting ideas. And people are more likely to share work in progress with you earlier on.
4. Make the process feel easy for colleagues
Many internal colleagues worry that engaging with media will take a lot of time, or that they will be quoted out of context.
Be clear about what you need: perhaps a recorded 30-minute conversation that can be written into a pitch or a Q&A via email.
Explain the likely audience, format and deadlines for the media story.
5. Understand the limitations of formal announcements
New appointments, rankings or event launches have limited interest for the media.
Yes, if you have a new Dean, there may be interest from the business education media in what their strategy and leadership style will be.
Again, if you have jumped up the rankings, congratulations! But this really isn’t of interest beyond the business education media and some industry blogs.
The fact that you are hosting an event is rarely news. But dig deeper. If you have an ex-President speaking, a major announcement, or some amazing, never-been-seen-before technology at your event, you might have something to work with.
(The good news is that these types of announcements are great for social media engagement – and don’t forget that hosting them on your website will also help with your SEO and GEO search results.)
You don’t always have to have a “set announcement” in order to interest a journalist. A concise academic perspective on an emerging issue, a distinctive corporate partnership or an unexpected finding from a project can be the nugget that a reporter needs.
6. Get ahead of upcoming research
Journalists thrive on new data, especially large quantitative studies.
But academics often discuss it only once it is published – too late to shape an opinion piece or a new story.
Work alongside your research department, or research comms manager if you have one, to help identify what’s coming up in the pipeline and which results are most likely to interest journalists.
When you get the research paper, don’t just rely on the abstract for the story. Dig deeper. Why is this relevant to your audiences and why now? What problem is it solving in the real world?
And remember that publicising research should be done in line with the school’s strategic priorities – if it’s not a key theme for the organisation, perhaps look at other ways to get it out there.
And please – weed out any technicalities or jargon!
7. Celebrate success internally
When an idea becomes an article, interview, LinkedIn post or media story, tell people what happened and why it mattered.
Share the coverage internally, thank contributors and, if possible, show the outcome: influence, visibility, recruitment interest or a new corporate conversation.
A culture shift
The aim for business schools is not to turn every colleague into a marcomms person. It is to create a culture in which people understand that the benefit of communications for their work, have a sense of how the media works and what journalists want, and to share ideas early on.
Summary
- Ask colleagues about the problems they are solving, changes in their field and questions they are hearing – not simply whether they have any news.
- Turn complex work into a clear story so that people outside the business school can understand why it matters now.
- Build regular relationships with faculty and other teams so they share promising ideas and forthcoming research early.
- Make media involvement manageable by explaining what you need, who the audience is and what colleagues can expect from a journalist.
- Look beyond formal announcements for timely research findings, expert perspectives and distinctive projects. Share successful coverage internally to encourage more ideas.
