At Communicate Media, we’ve been delivering media training courses for over 30 years, and during that time, we’ve seen the number of other providers increase enormously. We’re glad to say that despite this increase in suppliers, as a media training company, we’re working with more organisations than ever to help them prepare their spokespeople to handle media interviews effectively.
But this increase in media training providers means knowing how to choose the right media trainer is particularly important. Whether you’re a public relations consultancy or the head of communications for an organisation, finding the right media trainer is essential. Here are a few things that you should consider.
Will your Media Training provider create a bespoke course for you?
Unfortunately, many large providers have a range of standard Media Training templates that they roll out for every client. This cookie-cutter approach makes life easier for the provider, but it means that the course you’re getting won’t meet your exact needs. It’s important that the media trainer tailors the content, style and pace of the course to fit in with your requirements. At Communicate Media, we create every Media Training or crisis communications training course from scratch. In fact, we take this a stage further – the person that you speak to develop your course is the person who will also deliver it, meaning that you get exactly the course that you commissioned.
It’s also vital that your media trainer still works as a journalist. The media is a very fast-changing landscape. The danger is that if your Media Training course is provided by someone who hasn’t produced a report or done an interview for some years, their experience will not be relevant. Worse still, the role-play interviews they carry out with you and your colleagues and their advice and recommendations will be outdated. Clients like that our media trainers have probably been working on a story in the media the day before the course and will be producing reports the day after. This means they have relevant and recent experience of what they’re talking about and the advice they give to participants on our Media Training courses is up to date.
It’s helpful if your media trainer has relevant Media Training experience in your particular sector. We work with various companies, organisations and individuals. We have particular experience providing media training for law firms, financial services firms, fashion and apparel businesses, retailers, architecture practices and luxury houses. We know the issues that live here and, perhaps more importantly, how professionals in these particular industries think and learn. This means that we can tailor our courses to meet their exact needs.
Are you getting value for money?
This is particularly relevant these days. The danger with some big media training consultancies is that they have sales teams to support them as well as having to pay to maintain their studios. This all adds to their overheads, and these costs must be passed on to you, the client. Choosing a niche, agile agency with lower overheads means you get better value for money. You know you’re paying for the training you’re receiving and the post-course support and account management that will benefit you directly. You’re not contributing to the cost of those sales teams, that studio you didn’t use, and the other overheads the agency has to support that aren’t relevant to you.
Finally, the chemistry has to be right. Plenty of journalists with impressive CVs offer their services as media trainers, but just because you can identify and tell a media story effectively doesn’t mean you can train. Finding someone with journalistic experience and knowledge of your sector who can also teach and run a training course in a way that will keep the participants engaged, provide them with relevant, usable tips and recommendations and challenge them while ensuring that they feel supported in a safe environment is essential.
Media Training Near Me
We’d be delighted to help you with any of the issues we’ve mentioned above. Come and talk to us about media training, crisis communications training and presentation training.
To book your course today, please call 07958 239892 or email gareth@communicatemedia.co.uk.
