November 21, 2005 in Media Orchard, Media Relations by Scott Baradell

I Promised Myself I Wasn’t Going to Do This, But…

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… I’m going to anyway.

I get several PR pitches a week now. I generally regard them charitably; I’m in the same business, after all.

But it’s been eight months since Nick Wreden posted the “7 Habits of Highly Effective Blog PR” — time enough for public relations firms to figure this out. Steve Rubel, Jeremy Pepper, Tom Murphy and many others have contributed to the discussion.

Steve, in fact, has an excellent post today on the Audible blogstorm, a case study in media relations vs. blog relations — and how neither should be neglected (particularly for technology companies.)

So given all that, why did Media Orchard get a generic pitch today about something we don’t cover and addressed to someone else? (I assume that we were bcc’ed along with many other random bloggers.)

This was sent to me by a veteran, mid-sized, technology-oriented PR firm with offices in cities across the country. I’m going to be charitable and not name the firm or the product — this time.

As I point out elsewhere on the Idea Grove site, for many agencies, media (and now blog) pitching is a bulk activity. A staffer — usually a junior staffer — might make 100 media calls on your behalf to get your company mentioned in, say, three publications. The agency typically will present that to you as a success.

I’ve always believed it was just as important to worry about the 97 other calls.

Specifically, did the PR staffer, because of his or her inexperience or lack of knowledge, have embarrassing interactions with reporters (or bloggers) that will cause them to never write about your company? Believe me, it happens.

We’ve vowed never to take a “bulk” approach at the Idea Grove, in media relations or anything we do.

Sorry if that comes off as blatant self-promotion. But if you’re going to come at us with a PR pitch, don’t bring the weak stuff.

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SB

Dave: Yes, you should definitely be allowed the occasional leniency. But I don't blast out my blog posts to a hundred people's inboxes, so I get a lot more leniency in posting my blog than in sending out pitches.

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Dave

All good points. True, too many PR professionals (of which I am one) don't take the time to at least TRY to research and verify that the contacts on their media lists are topically relevant, but how hard is it to delete an email or simply say, "Sorry, I'm not the right person for that."? After all, not all of YOUR articles -- or blogs -- suit my immediate informational needs. Are we not allowed the same occasional leniency?

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Wayne E. Pollard

Scott, you touched on one of my former pet peeves. As a correspondent/freelance reporter for two Gannett-owned newspapers in NJ, I often got pitched stories that had nothing to do with what I covered (primarily business and healthcare). Now that I have a PR firm, I’ve finally realized the problem: many of today’s PR rookies lack journalism experience. As a result, they don’t know how to pitch a story, to whom to pitch it to, etc. More important, they don’t know the damage they do by pitching an inappropriate story to someone. Frankly, I found it insulting. You want me to cover your company yet you cannot even take the time to read my articles? PR people who did that to me were on my list – and I don’t mean my call back list. I don’t know if an internship at a newspaper is required for all PR undergrad/grad majors, but it should be. Wayne E. Pollard, Author, “Minds Before Market Share: The Art of Public Relations”

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