One ancillary benefit I receive from writing this blog is that I every day I get a taste for how journalists have to contend with sometimes less-than-perfect PR pitches.
Remember the movie Freaky Friday? Exactly. I guess this is my punishment for working in PR. It’s akin to Bill and Ted being sent to their own personal hell in Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey (circa 1991). (OK, enough lame B-movie references, I promise.) Here’s a pitch I received last week…
Steve,
We are getting ready to release version 4.0 of our Widget and would like you to cover it. Widget 4.0 is an integrated blah blah, blah blah, dessert topping. What differentiates Widget 4.0 is:
~~ List of speeds and feeds deleted ~~~
If you are interested in covering our software, please respond to this email and I will send you a complimentary version of the new release.
We plan to release 4.0 next week.
Looking forward to your response.
Warmest Regards,
Name Deleted to Protect the Innocent
Now put aside for a moment that fellow PR people are pitching me to write about their products – which in an of itself is a rather interesting development. In the scheme of things, this isn’t a terrible pitch. But what jumped out at me was the underlined phrase “would like you to cover it.”
For years, at least in my book, I have felt that is a big no-no to ask a journalist for coverage. If you as a PR professional are providing a journalist’s readers high value information, you shouldn’t need to ask for him/her to write about your client, company or product. Just give ’em the facts and let the pitch stand on its own. Be proud! If you feel you’re not offering high value information, go back to the drawing board and re slant your pitch until you come up with something truly compelling.
When pitching a blogger, however, the stakes are much higher. Someone can easily cut, copy and paste your email into a blog post and put it up on the Web lickity split – like I just did. Although not everyone will be as nice as I was in cloaking the identity of a pitch’s author. The lesson here is that the rules of engaging citzen journalists are in some ways similar to working with the pros, yet vastly different.
Back in my early career my mentors used to tell me never put anything in email to a journalist that you wouldn’t want on the front page of The New York Times. Well, nowadays you need to think bigger. I say, never put anything in an email to a blogger that you wouldn’t want to stick on your own forehead for life! For more, read Jeremy C. Wright’s advice.
The only thing I would add here to what Jeremy wrote is leverage exclusivity. Plant a powerful idea with an influential blogger and then ride the Long Tail.
Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.
He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.