In conversation with Peter De Meyer from the University of Antwerp
“Smart.pr is our back office”
Smart.pr has been available in Belgium since 2019. In addition to the online software with which we are the market leader in the Netherlands, we also offer a database with more than 4,000 Belgian journalists. Peter De Meyer from the University of Antwerp was one of the first customers. Because we are curious to know how he likes it, we decided to visit him for an interview. It was a nice conversation about public relations, software and underwear…
Can you briefly tell us something about your work?
After eight super exciting years in newspaper journalism, I moved to 'the other side' in 2010 and started working as a press officer at the University of Antwerp. Soon I also got the job of spokesperson.
As a spokesperson, I want to bring the mountain of information out through the right channels and reach the right audience with it. This is done via social media, but also certainly by sending press releases. The classic media is still very important in this and press release reporting is a channel to bring the news to the right people.
As an educational institution that offers high-quality education, it is important to be present and visible. In addition to education, the University of Antwerp also conducts scientific research, and we naturally want to share this with the outside world. That's what I deal with every day.
Peter de Meyer from the University of Antwerp
"Journalists change jobs faster than they change their underwear, so keeping track of everything is difficult to do on your own."
How did you maintain the university's press relations before you started using Smart.pr?
Previously, we worked with Outlook and Excel. The biggest problem was that you had to keep track of a lot of work yourself via Outlook. This was quite an annoyance.
We also kept press lists in Excel, but it quickly became difficult to maintain an overview. There was never really time to update the lists or invest in finding new contacts. The lists themselves had been collected over the years, but there wasn't really a policy for it.
How does that work now?
Smart.pr is now our back office. Those lists have been imported into our address book in Smart.pr. The lists are now safely stored there and clearly organized. Moreover, some of those contacts are now automatically maintained by Smart.pr. Smart.pr takes a lot of work off our hands.
With Smart.pr, you also have insight into the error messages. Previously, these were not immediately visible, or you would receive 20 or 30 error messages in your inbox, but there was no time to replace the email addresses.
The media world is constantly and rapidly changing. Journalists change jobs faster than they change their underwear, so keeping track of everything is difficult to do on your own.
How did you send press releases before?
Previously, we worked with "regular mail". This means that we sent press releases via Outlook, without too much formatting. In Outlook, it is much more difficult to format a message nicely by, for example, including a photo or videos. It is important for the university that our messages look professional and that they are neatly finished. Smart.pr's software helps us with this.
How does Smart.pr help with that?
With Smart.pr, formatting a message is much less error-prone, it takes us less time and it looks better.
Moreover, we can include photos and short videos. This adds value to the press release, which is also great. If you include a good photo, it will be used directly by the media. This works for us and allows us to influence our own image.
Our goal is now to send out as optimally as possible, instead of just issuing a press release because we had to, as was the case before.
You can then make improvements with the data from the sent campaigns. For example, we use the data as an argument to choose whether or not to send about a certain topic. Previously, we did that on gut feeling. We can also see trends and respond to them better. For example, in which period are press releases opened more often?
How do you like working with our journalist database?
We can now approach very specific journalists. In addition to science and culture, we now also know how to generate attention for specific professorships such as animal rights and animal welfare. Now we can approach the right journalists in a very targeted way. For example, we found 106 journalists in Persfilter who write about animal welfare. Previously, we would not have been able to find many of these journalists.
We also have access to the journalists' own mailboxes, instead of just editorial offices. Another example is our publication on heritage (statues and old paintings). Personally, I don't know any journalists within conservative techniques, but in Smart.pr I could find 28 who work with heritage restoration. Our message was immediately picked up by a specialized Dutch website.
By working with Smart.pr, we have a broader range of journalists that we can reach. In the old workflow, we already had good reach among Flemish journalists, but now Dutch journalists have also been added. We have improved enormously in the Dutch market and have added a network of a few thousand journalists. This is very interesting for us because many Dutch students come to Antwerp. That extra reach in the Dutch media is very nice.
Would you recommend Smart.pr to other organizations?
Certainly. The software makes it easier to prepare and send press releases to the right people. When, like us at the University of Antwerp, you send out press releases on very varied subjects, you can make maximum use of the numerous keywords in the journalist database.
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