{"id":302,"date":"2023-03-14T16:20:54","date_gmt":"2023-03-14T16:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/?p=302"},"modified":"2023-03-22T18:23:20","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T18:23:20","slug":"with-pr-pros-like-this-who-needs-amateurs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/with-pr-pros-like-this-who-needs-amateurs\/","title":{"rendered":"With PR Pros Like This, Who Needs Amateurs?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following is a guest post by\u00a0Jonathan Rick. If you\u2019d like to contribute thinking here, please\u00a0read the guidelines.<\/em><\/p>\n

Chris Abraham recently published a case study on the \u201cart of writing the perfect blogger pitch.\u201d There\u2019s a lot to like here. For one, the time and thought Chris and his team devote to this esoterica are rare. For another, spilling your trade secrets takes guts.<\/p>\n

And yet, for a purportedly \u201cperfect\u201d pitch, the\u00a0Abraham Harrison\u00a0technique and approach leave much to be desired. Here\u2019s why in web-friendly fashion, via a list with headings:<\/p>\n

1. \u00a0Spam<\/strong>. In a classic act of burying the lead, Chris notes, \u201cWe reach out cold to upwards of 5,000 bloggers at a time.\u201d This is perhaps the most disappointing aspect of Chris\u2019s technique. After all, anyone can subscribe to a database such as\u00a0Vocus\u00a0or\u00a0Cision, select key audiences and areas, compile a media list, and blast out a pitch. Industry insiders call this the \u201cspray and pray\u201d technique. Others know it as a form letter. The bottom line: it\u2019s spam.<\/p>\n

By contrast, another technique is to craft individual messages to specific bloggers.\u00a0Take it away, Lisa Barone:\u00a0\u201cYou know you\u2019re sending the same e-mail to 20 people. I know you\u2019re sending the same e-mail to 20 people. But sometimes you gotta fake it to make me feel special and pretty \u2026 Woo me \u2026 Talk about how you grew up in the same hometown (only if you really did). Comment on a post I wrote that gave you a bad case of the giggles, or how you think my Twitter feed should come with an NC-17 rating \u2026 I\u2019ll be a lot more receptive once you\u2019ve\u201d connected with me personally.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0WITFM<\/strong>. The best PR makes it appear as if you\u2019re doing a favor for the person you\u2019re pitching, letting him in on something important and intriguing. By contrast, Chris makes it clear that he\u2019s the one requesting a favor: \u201cIf you are able to post about this issue in any form, it would really help spread the message of homelessness in its many diverse forms and maybe suggest ways to help improve many lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leave the guilt trips for Willy Loman. Instead, demonstrate the WITFM\u2014\u201cwhat\u2019s in it for me?\u201d To wit, don\u2019t tell me why homelessness matters; tell me why my readers will care about it.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0Subject line<\/strong>. Everyone agrees that your subject line is critical, so it\u2019s surprising that Chris\u2019s\u2014\u201cNovember Is National Homelessness Month\u201d\u2014is so boring. (As a colleague puts it, \u201cIt\u2019s about as \u2018perfect\u2019 as an event notice whose headline reads, \u2018Mark Your Calendars.\u2019\u201d)<\/p>\n

To be sure, Chris seems to think this is a virtue; he explains, \u201cWe want [our subject lines] to be as neutral and as informational as possible. Teasing or tricking a blogger into opening [the e-mail] by being cute, mysterious, or clever \u2026 has almost always blown up in our faces.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is myopic: you need not sacrifice cleverness to be straightforward. While \u201cHelp Feed Homeless Children!\u201d may be exploitative, a line like \u201cWhat Are You Doing for National Homelessness Month?\u201d is catchy without being too cute.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0Intro<\/strong>. Chris refers to his opening paragraph as \u201cpoetry,\u201d labored over by a team of three. But again, his copy is a snooze-fest:<\/p>\n

\u201cNovember is National Homelessness Month and I\u2019m reaching out to you to discuss the issue of homelessness in America. I\u2019m also hoping that you\u2019ll discuss this issue with the readers of <<Blog Name>>. I am a volunteer at a small kitchen for the homeless in DC and while working there it occurred to me that this issue affects every town, village, and city in America.<\/p>\n

This is the best a powerhouse like\u00a0Abraham Harrison can do? Sure, it\u2019s clear, but it\u2019s nothing special, and it\u2019s hardly inspiring. Indeed, not only does it lack cadence and cohesion; it also lacks commas.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0Astroturfing<\/strong>. For each campaign, Chris creates a new e-mail address with its own domain. In this case, he\u2019s using cjabraham@MiriamsKitchenNews.org, which is separate from the \u201creal\u201d Miriam\u2019s Kitchen domain,MiriamsKitchen.org. This is problematic for various reasons.<\/p>\n

a. Let\u2019s give Chris the benefit of the doubt and assume that \u201cbloggers don\u2019t trust PR firms.\u201d This is why his signature says \u201con behalf of Miriam\u2019s Kitchen,\u201d rather than Abraham Harrison. Yet there\u2019s no getting around the fact that masking your employer is deceptive.<\/p>\n

By contrast, consider the total-transparency approach taken by New Media Strategies: when its employees do something as simple as retweet something from a client,\u00a0they\u2019re required to use the hash tag \u201c#client.\u201d\u00a0Ultimately, shying away from full disclosure only gives the PR industry a bad rep.<\/p>\n

b. Given a limited budget and limited time, creating and managing a new e-mail address domain is a poor allocation of resources.<\/p>\n

c. In this case, Abraham Harrison created an entire microsite at\u00a0http:\/\/MiriamsKitchenNews.org\u00a0(microsites, by the way,\u00a0are a mistake). But, again, most campaigns can\u2019t afford this expenditure, so what happens then? Do you leaveMiriamsKitchenNews.org\u00a0empty? Do you redirect it to your own firm\u2019s site? Do you throw up a simple landing page that repurposes your pitch e-mail?<\/p>\n

d. What happens if, six months from now, someone you contacted replies? (We\u2019ve all received one of these e-mails.) If you\u2019re not still checking\u00a0cjabraham@miriamskitchennews.org, does the sender get a bounce-back or an auto-reply? Or nothing? If you are still checking\u00a0cjabraham@miriamskitchennews.org, given that you\u2019re creating a new address for each campaign, I envy your endurance in monitoring what must be dozens of addresses. And to complicate matters further, what do you do with these addresses when your contract with the given client expires?<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0URLs<\/strong>. Chris deliberately omits the \u201chttp:\/\/\u201d prefix in links; he says that e-mail clients will auto-activate incomplete URLs. While Gmail is sophisticated enough to do this, many other e-mail clients are not. This inability is especially damaging when a message arrives in plain text, which is the only form Chris sends.<\/p>\n

Not many people will gladly share 3,000 words on the subject of e-mail communications. For that, Chris deserves gratitude and respect.<\/p>\n

He also offers important insights, especially the one that a good pitch will spark a conversation. In that spirit, he\u2019s agreed to respond to my critique.<\/p>\n

So, Chris, over to you (and to The Future Buzz community). How can two pros who\u2019ve been working with bloggers for so long reach such divergent conclusion?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is a guest post by\u00a0Jonathan Rick. If you\u2019d like to contribute thinking here, please\u00a0read the guidelines. Chris Abraham … <\/p>\n

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