Tech PR in Germany: “Media relations can achieve extraordinarily good results – if the journalist is seen as a partner”

Interview: Karsten Hoppe, Tilo Timmermann, TDUB Kommunikationsberatung, Hamburg – („Tech-PR in Deutschland: Medienarbeit kann außerordentlich gute Ergebnisse erzielen – wenn wir die Journalisten als Partner sehen”: Laden Sie den Text auf Deutsch herunter)

In a globalized world where technology industries and media landscapes are rapidly changing, it is crucial to understand the different approaches to PR. That’s why we asked tech agencies in our IPRN network to share their experiences of how public relations work in their respective markets. The collection of perspectives provides an exciting overview of the different approaches and challenges faced by PR professionals worldwide. In this “blog parade”, we take a look at what characterizes the PR landscape in different countries, with a focus on effective media relations and strategic corporate communications.

Check out the other articles, too:

• Tech PR in France: “Despite the digitalization of the industry, human relationships remain fundamental” (Mascaret Partners)
• Tech PR in Greece: “We are shifting from traditional media to a digitally driven approach” (extrovert)
• Tech PR in the USA: “Trade publications, blogs and influencers plus thought leadership content are often the best route” ((W)right On Communication)
• Tech PR in UK: „Capturing the attention of journalists has become more challenging” (AMBITIOUS PR)
• Tech PR in Polen: „Building mutual trust can create long-term allies” (Public Dialog)

Let’s start with our Managing Directors Karsten Hoppe and Tilo Timmermann, who highlight the unique conditions of tech PR in Germany. They explain why close collaboration between PR agencies and journalists is crucial to achieving excellent results for clients, how the German market has developed, and which trends will significantly influence PR work in the years to come.

How is the tech market and the tech media business developing in general in your country?

Tilo Timmermann: In Germany, there is still a wide range of specialized media, even print media are still a thing, there is a special media law and journalists follow a particular ethos. You can’t know all this if you don’t trust the local experts.

Tilo Timmermann

In our agency, we specialize in finding creative and successful ways to raise awareness in B2C and B2B media relations, not only for consumer electronics gadgets, but also for supposedly boring medium-sized companies, the typical German “Mittelstand”, which in fact is highly innovative. Another big part of our business consists of tech companies from abroad, especially from the US, giving them access to the markets in Germany, Austria and Switzerland (“DACH”). The tech business is characterized by always new trends and innovations, be it new generations of devices in consumer electronics or big data, cloud, AI or decarbonization in B2B business. Working with these topics for so many years has enabled us to gain deep insights into the markets.

Karsten Hoppe

Karsten Hoppe: There is currently a heated discussion about the trend away from performance marketing and back to brand in Germany. The big players have realized that a pure focus on sales is not enough to anchor the brand with consumers and achieve a long-term ROI. Marketing Managers today remember the old wisdom, that “you don’t buy, what you don’t know”. And there’s enough experience showing that Performance Marketing alone doesn’t help to make people wanting your brand and your products. Cutting brand activities destroys your brand awareness and its attractiveness in the target group. That’s a bad thing in the long run. So today we are seeing a trend more in the direction of convincing than selling. This strengthens the earned channels, especially media relations, in a classically understood PR.

Storytelling is therefore of central importance in the relationship between companies and journalists. PR in Germany is conducted at a highly professional level and with great intensity. Standard measures such as sending press releases or invitations to a press conference alone are not very promising. We know tech journalists whose inbox is flooded with 500 emails every day. With such an overwhelming flood of information, journalists only read e-mails from brands and people they know and trust. Of course, it helps if you have an established relationship and can even reach the journalist via text message or LinkedIn, or simply meet them in person. In this situation, the journalist is a customer for the PR consultant, just like his client – we have to stand out from the crowd, offer a particularly useful service, and lower the hurdles to reporting. We can only reach them with high-quality information on specific, established channels.

What has changed in tech PR in Germany over the last 5 years?

Tilo Timmermann: Two factors have fundamentally changed the way PR works in Germany: the ongoing digitalization and the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.

Caught up in the transformation, many traditional media have still not found a viable business model for refinancing with online media. If journalism is freely available online and hardly any online subscriptions are sold, publishers have to save on editorial costs. This can mean a restriction for PR if the editors quite simply no longer have time to search their inbox for press releases or do in-depth research like they did in the last century. But it can also be an opportunity if the PR person gets exclusive access to the gatekeeper and can provide them with tailored, quickly usable, relevant information.

The coronavirus pandemic has permanently changed many established processes in Germany. You can no longer simply call the editorial office because most journalists now work remotely. Direct access via a personal cell phone number or a LinkedIn contact has therefore become much more important. Quantitative measures fail, the quality of the collaboration becomes fundamental: only if you have the trust of the journalist, if he knows that you regularly provide good information and no spam, will he work with you in partnership.

That is why traditional media relations can achieve extraordinarily good results in Germany – if the journalist is seen as a partner and not as a vehicle. However, it must be understood as a long-term task and requires regular review and improvement. Classic media relations must also be integrated into a portfolio of other activities, such as influencer marketing, events, business networking, corporate publishing or sales campaigns.

What is your preferred PR approach for addressing tech media?

Karsten Hoppe: In PR, we have to convey abstract, complex topics in a way that allows journalists to experience them and develop an emotional connection to the topic. This can be done through a test device, an editorial visit or phonecall or a trade fair appointment, but also via a digital event – the main thing is that the target person can experience the PR topic in action and exchange ideas with other people about it. The object can, for example, be integrated into a narrative context through relevant studies with generally valid statements that make the benefits immediately understandable. The editor must learn what major problems are solved by the product or solution and why it is so relevant for his readers.

In our business, buzzwords, trends and new disciplines abound. Everyone tries to present themselves as the spearhead of marketing. But while you’re constantly chasing the new, you definitely shouldn’t underestimate the tried and tested. We once tried to promote a Finnish cybersecurity company with advanced digital and guerilla marketing campaigns. But the audience just didn’t want to hear anything about being insecure in the web, they simply didn’t click. So, we have gone back to the roots of PR: It’s a people’s business. We established direct contacts with the most important journalists and recommended our cybersecurity experts to them whenever a major hack or leak hit the media. Our client explained to journalists, and thus to readers, what this global incident meant for them. With this very traditional “news hijacking” approach, we achieved incredible reach and won several German PR awards.

Of course, the target groups of PR in Germany are also expanding into the digital realm. Many influencers have a greater reach and enable higher interaction than traditional media. For C-level or expert positioning, business networks, new channels such as podcasts or unconventional speaking opportunities offer the chance for building up thought leadership. Good PR concepts seamlessly integrate digital channels. And big, creative PR stunts are a good way to increase reach in the DACH region, provided the appropriate effort and creativity is put into their implementation. They don’t even have to be expensive. However, I am convinced that they must speak a language that multipliers in the media and on the internet understand and accept.

From a high-level perspective, it is always about moving beyond the first-person perspective and adopting the role of the consumer: what interests them about our customer’s product, what is relevant to them? After all, this is also the question of the editor, who wants to write an interesting article and whom we have to convince. So first of all, we have to internalize and pursue the customer’s goals. Then, in a second step, we have to find out what is relevant by changing our perspective. Thirdly, we have to package this in an attractive story.

What changes do you anticipate and how will tech companies have to react to it?

Tilo Timmermann: No new technology has ever caught on as quickly as AI. In companies, it already has a great deal of influence on production, services and marketing – this applies equally to Germany and the rest of the world. We are even at the forefront of applications; I am thinking, for example, of the language tool DeepL, based in Cologne, which delivers automated translations of previously unimaginable quality. In the next few years, tech companies will develop or apply solutions that have little to do with a chat or a graphics tool. Agents with human support will take over entire processes.

In PR, AI has become a buzzword like big data or cloud, that even editors are now getting bored of. A simple “We also do AI!” only leads to yawning in the German media. You have to explain very precisely what revolutionary significance the new tool really has for the business world or for consumers. So it is becoming increasingly important to create trust in dialogue with target groups and stakeholders, especially journalists, and to make the topics to be pitched less abstract and more tangible. Which brings us back to storytelling. With the new tools, companies and their PR people can gain new insights into economic contexts and create better-targeted content for differentiated target groups.

Karsten Hoppe: In Germany, economic development is an issue at present. However, we do not believe that the technology sector will go down for a long time or that communicators will fall silent. There is always an opportunity in change, and as a company you can tap into this by being the first to position yourself positively and present the right solutions. Crisis and new technologies leave stakeholders with a lot of open questions. So times like these offer the best opportunity for thought leadership, based on the hot topics of the agenda.

Are the prejudices about working with Germans true?

Tilo Timmermann: You will certainly have heard judgements like this: Working with Germans is formal and structured. Germans attach great importance to punctuality, precision and thorough preparation. Decisions are often made on the basis of data and facts, which leads to a careful and methodical way of working.

Another prejudice concerns their direct way of communication: Germans are said to express their opinions openly and honestly. This can sometimes be perceived as rude, but may also be appreciated as a sign of professionalism and efficiency.

From my point of view, I can confirm: This is all true. But still, things are very different than you think. The reputation of German engineering and organization has suffered greatly. And Germany is loosening up: in more and more situations we have ditched the suit and tie, and we no longer use the polite “Sie” in many places. We do like having some fun and smalltalk in e-mails and at the same time, we find dialogues such as “Tilo, send doc ASAP! TY” irritating and impolite, which may be considered efficient in the US. When we deal with customers or journalists, we Germans are usually open, binding, transparent and reliable. Nobody likes to be ripped off or wants to waste their time. That’s why there are few professional situations that are decided by the mere exercise of power. We tend to strive for solutions based on partnership that benefit both sides.

Our Experts

Karsten Hoppe and Tilo Timmermann are two out of three founders and managing directors of TDUB Kommunikationsberatung from Hamburg, Germany.

Tilo Timmermann has been a member of the Executive Board of IPRN for one year and now chairs the International Market Expert Group for Tech PR within the network.

Contact: Meet Tilo Timmermann and Karsten Hoppe on LinkedIn!