Greed versus fear. Risk versus reward. Truth versus deception. You can find it all in a late night session of Texas Hold ’Em.

There are two basis approaches to playing poker. One type of player believes that victory is possible with any hand, if you know how to read your fellow players and how to skillfully execute a bluff. The other believes in waiting for a certain combination of cards that indicate a high probability of victory, then betting aggressively on those strong hands.

In Texas Hold ’Em, you receive just two cards before placing your first bet. The best players will avoid betting at all unless those first two cards are strong cards. They will bet only if they have some combination of aces, kings, queens, jacks or tens, or if they draw a pair.

Anything less, and they fold their hand.

This strategy is called “tight and aggressive.”

It’s tight, because player will bet only in very specific circumstances. It’s aggressive, because (once player gets combination he wants) he plays hard to win, giving up only when it becomes obvious that another player has a stronger hand. When dealing with reporters, PR flacks and their clients play as if they can win with any hand they are dealt.

They begin with some vague notion that they have a bit of news that someone out there is eagerly waiting to publish. So flacks hammer out a press release, which passes through a committee that usually includes top executives and legal staff.

If release contained any real news value before it went to this committee, it is now buried under a pile of ego and adjectives. Next, flacks transmit release to a long list of media outlets, not bothering to target any specific reporter or editor, hoping information will find its way into right hands.

They are then shocked when their story idea finds few takers.

They are playing a loose game of PR, betting on any hand and hoping to bluff their way to victory. They play like amateurs.

PR Rainmakers play “tight and aggressive.” Like professional poker player in a game of Texas Hold ’Em, PR Rainmakers insist upon having certain cards in their hands before placing a bet.

You should apply techniques of PR Rainmaking, which is practice of using news media to attract customers and clients to your enterprise.

Any effective campaign of PR Rainmaking is grounded in three fundamental ideas:

a) The reporter is consumer.

b) The story is product that must be tailored for and sold to that consumer.

c) Reporters will buy your story for their reasons, not yours.

First, reporter is consumer

Today’s PR specialists often forget this basic principle. The bad ones – ones that reporters ridicule as mere “flacks” – never learn it.

To some of these folks, reader or viewer is their primary consumer. Others consider their client or their CEO to be consumer of their work.

Wrong.

The PR Rainmaker knows: When it comes to getting your story into media, you must look upon reporter as your consumer.

Without reporter, nothing happens. There is no story for your target audience to view or to read. There is nothing for your CEO to show his directors. There is nothing for your sales team to hand out to prospects.

Without reporter, all you have is a story idea.

The reporter is consumer. The reporter is customer. And you must act accordingly.

Second, story is product

It is not enough that you want to sell something. Countless enterprises have lost money trying to sell a product they wanted to sell and no one wanted to buy.

No matter what you produce, you must find a market that wants to purchase your product.

The same holds true when placing your story in news media. The PR Rainmaker knows that story is product. The story must be tailored for consumer, who is reporter. Then it must be sold to that reporter.

This is where PR flacks lose their direction. They look upon media relations as mass production. They want to build an assembly line. They want to crank out one press release after another, send out a blast fax, and read their story in newspapers next day.