Getting a story in is not the hard part.
Knowing what to say is.

01Is it worth reporting at all

Companies send us more material than can actually be written. We start with three questions:

• Is there a new fact? Not "we did well" — what went into production, what was certified, how much faster than before.
• Is there a benchmark? A reader needs something to compare against before they know whether this is large or small.
• Can someone else back it up? One sentence from a customer, an association, a broker or a partner beats ten of our adjectives.

If none of the three can be answered, we will advise holding it back. Forcing one out spends the credibility of everything that follows.

02Four steps from subject to placement

1. Sort the facts Break the material into points that can be verified, marking what can be written and what still needs evidence.
2. Choose the angle From the same facts, pick an angle an editor will take and a reader will finish. With the wrong angle, even a good piece does not run.
3. Match the outlet Features and interviews in the core financial press, news distribution through portals, industry analysis in trade media, and Hong Kong, China and overseas outlets for cross-border communications.
4. Placement and archive Links, reposts and search position archived on schedule. What a placement leaves behind is a link, not an invoice.

03How we tell whether it worked

We do not count pieces published. Three measures tell you more:

• Who reposted it Whether peers or the industry leader picked it up. That decides whether the release rose above the noise.
• Whether you show up in the first three pages Three months later, if the first pages still show old news, nothing settled.
• Whether sales actually used it Cited in a pitch, a tender or a job ad — that is communications working.

All three show up in the monthly report. If they do not, change the approach.