Posted elsewhere, but may as well bung it here too
http://www.alistairpulling.info/2009/12/actually-honest-guide-to-really-quite.html
Or 'The Idiot’s Guide to PR'
This is intended to be a candid article giving my thoughts on PR after a few years in the business. It's probably a bit cynical, but it may well end up either saving you money or helping you out, one way or another.
There’s an awful lot written about PR and how to get coverage in the media and a lot of people will try to tell you all about it. Most of it is nonsense designed to get you to pay an agency to do it for you and then misdirection and trickery to make the PR agents art seem somehow magical, arcane and beyond the ken of ordinary mortals.
However, in the same manner that Penn and Teller reveal how their magic tricks are done (that is, they reveal the simple ones but keep the really good stuff well hidden), I’m giving away a few secrets, so that (like P&T) I can convince you that I know the game inside out, and unlike all those other guys that’ll bluff and bluster you, you can actually trust me to tell it to you straight.
So here we go.
The first harsh truth is; no one cares about your press release.
Sorry, but you need to get your head around this before you’ll have any sort of a clue about PR.
Don't bother sending out a press release to try to promote whatever it is you want to promote. No matter how pretty it is, or how informative, or how many times it’s rewritten and tweaked and made beautiful, your press release won't work.
At least, not to any hugely useful extent, anyway.
Press releases work best when there’s already some interest there. Which is why they will get some attention if you’re a government department (so long as you aren’t one of the really boring ones, but are one with bombs or spies or that produces legislation that people will get very upset about and riot over) or you’re Elton John. Then, sure, go right ahead. But if you’re not at that level, or you’re in one of the boring government depts, then no one cares.
Physical, printed, press releases sent through the post will almost always be classed as junk mail. Don’t bother with them. These are usually just a way for agencies to up their expenses claims, anyway, as printing, postage and stationery costs will be bumped up on the invoice. If you retain a PR or Marcomms agency that posts out press releases, it's ripping you off. If you run an agency that does this, shame on you.
So, email then.
Mass-emailed press releases sent to multiple addresses, even if you put these in the bcc field, will almost always go in the spam bin. However, that doesn’t mean don’t email. It’s definitely the best way to start. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Oh, might as well mention one golden rule right now - never cold call journalists. It can kill any potential future working relationship you could have with them. If you catch them when they’re busy and try to tell them about something fairly banal, they won’t want to hear from you again. If you do it regularly, they’ll stop taking your calls completely.
However, that also doesn’t necessarily mean ‘don’t call journalists out of the blue’. If you’ve got something interesting and know that whoever you’re going to be talking to will be interested, that’s a different matter. But sitting and calling every journo on a list a media database has spewed out, to try and sell in a story on the off-chance that a tiny percentage of them might be interested is a stupid idea. It’s something PR agency bosses love getting lower minions to do, so they can bump up their contact sheets and say that such-and-such a journo said they were ‘interested’, just because they didn’t slam the phone down immediately, but it’s really just a demoralising, pointless waste of time for all involved and PR people really should stop it.
But, come on, let’s be positive! There are ways to get results! The first thing to do is research your targets and make a hit list of places you’d like your PR to reach. Do this very carefully. Spend as much time thinking about it and checking titles and journalists and whether they're relevant as you might on your super-pretty press release. Use existing contacts. Don't bother with newswires, or anything like that. Time spent planning can be much, much more beneficial than the scattergun approach of spamming everyone that looks even slightly like a good target.
Now - this is one of the biggest secrets that I’m going to give away. Listen carefully:
A polite one line email, which should be in PLAIN TEXT ONLY summing up what you're offering, sent to a very small, carefully focused mailing list can get you far more coverage, and billable coverage at that, than the kind of thing that most boutique agencies offer, which is a whole set of beautiful press releases sent out to a massive mailing list.
These beautiful press releases, with lots of pictures and flowery borders will get stuck in spam filters and lead to your email address being blocked and marked as a spam source, and even when they get through, they'll usually get ignored on time conservation grounds.
Don't put images into your initial email. In terms of html it's probably okay to include one link only, to relevant web content. That doesn't, however, mean you should say ‘hey, check out this website!’ and leave it at that. Make sure the web page it goes to is relevant and tailored towards your desired end result.
Once you've got some interest from journalists THEN you send out the press release, if they ask for it or want more info. But don't fill it full of hyperbolic and exaggerated crap and don’t ever, ever, ever use the words 'the world's leading', or anything similar even if you know you’re the world leader in your field. If you are, you won’t need to say so. If it’s vaguely debatable, then don’t say it. It’s a bit like d-list celebrities asking club doormen ‘do you know who I am?’ If you have to try and push the point, you’re trying too hard. Journalists are hard-bitten cynics as a breed and will mock you for it. That is, if you’ve even caught their attention in the first place. And there are a dozen ‘Bad PR’ blogs run by bored hacks that will love to post your hyperbolic press release to take the piss out of, and you probably shouldn’t try counting that as billable coverage in your client report (although, if you manage to pull that one off, do let me know, as it would be quite funny).
Anyway, back to the press release - add in INTERESTING AND RELEVANT quotes, if you have to. Not 'we're delighted to...' stuff, or crap like that. Informative quotes that are relevant to a human interest angle only are acceptable. Company MDs or CEOs love to be quoted in press releases, but they generally don't have anything useful to say, other than how delighted or proud they are about whatever it is you're promoting.
Which no one cares about.
Find an angle, then write something for them that actually comments on important issues, or a human-interest angle, in an useful way. If there isn't anything worth saying, leave out the quote and let the actual relevant information stand on its own.
DO NOT let them put their 'We're so proud... world's leading... dedicated team... delighted to...' crap in there. Journalists play quote bingo with press releases. Don't encourage this. Be harsh with your boss. Make sure the boss knows who’s really in charge when it comes to talking to the press. Boss type creatures are always ‘delighted’ or ‘taking this matter extremely seriously’. Which, most people these days are savvy enough to know is shorthand for ‘I’m too boring to say anything original, interesting or useful’ or ‘Yup, we were caught utterly by surprise and we’re trying to crisis manage this on the hoof.’
When writing quotes for senior staff, don't be cute or clever. Don't use puns, clichés or jokes. Unless you're a genius like me and can write outstandingly brilliant ones.
If it's the B2B or trade press that you've had the interest from, then you write the whole story for them, and put what you want in there, making sure you keep to their word limit and they’ll print it for you as they’re the laziest of the lot (love you really, guys!) but and here’s another golden rule - DON'T FORGET THE BLOODY SALES TEAM'S CONTACT INFO AT THE END! That's the whole point to B2B. Don't leave that out and you're halfway there.
If you’re aiming for the general media, or lifestyle/consumer press, then the give the journo the basic facts and an UTTERLY OUTSTANDINGLY HEARTBREAKINGLY BEAUTIFUL IMAGE, saved as a hi-res jpg. Then they'll write the review or feature themselves and it'll be a lot better than the copy in your press release, as there's a reason they're journalists and your in PR. (HINT: it's because they prefer to see their name in print and believe in the craft of writing, rather than having a desire to earn the actual proper money that PR types can make. Not that I'm earning anything decent at the moment. Sob. Weep.)
Aaaanyway...
One thing that you should do, however, is to get a web address quoted - and for a retailer where someone can actually BUY the product from, or get directly in contact. A journalist will bung in a good picture over and above anything else, so have some good ones. They'll always slap in a decent picture in preference to words, if they can get away with it. DON'T photoshop them, other than for very basic corrections or to tidy them up. Sticking your product in the hands of a model shot from an image library is outstandingly naff too. Just don't do it. There are blogs that will post bad photoshop jobs to mock too. And again, this doesn’t count as billable coverage.
So there you go.
Sticking to the above tricks will get you coverage worth hundreds of thousands in terms of the amount you would have to spend on advertising, in order to get the same number of column inches. Or, you could pay me a few hundred quid to do it all for you.
Further to this: If you want to get your product, or story or whatever, all over the Internet, then here's the trick for doing so. I’ve giving away a really big secret here. Well, it was a big secret few years ago, but people are now catching on.
Anyway, here you go:
Do your homework on blogs that cover the sector you're promoting. Pick one that's got fairly low traffic, but is quite niche. Contact the author. Offer him or her an exclusive first look. Give them a really nice picture. Send them a sample and tell them they can keep it. If they don't bite, try another, but if the blog's actually active, they always will. Make sure they include a web link, either to a retailer, or to your client's website (and remember, if you want people to buy something, and it's on sale already ALWAYS link to a retailer, not the manufacturer) Then when they've put their piece up, submit it as a link to digg, reddit, and also all of the other high traffic blogs which let their readers submit tips. Find a few current Top 100 Blogs lists and then get yourself a private email address and submit that sucker to other blogs and as many sources that take tips as you can. News begets news. And there’s no harm in helping it along. But you’ve got to pretend someone else started it, not you. Do be a bit subtle here, please.
You’ll get an existing blog story featured on bigger blogs and higher traffic websites far more easily by helping it along the way virally than you'd be likely to get a press release featured if you approached them directly. That's just how the web works. It's fairly simple to play the game, and you can get about fifty grand's worth of advertising equivalent spend, just by taking an afternoon to follow blog links and clicking about. It even looks and feels like slacking off by websurfing, so it's fun all round. Just don't get too sucked into the other content on these sites and spend too long on any one of them.
Oh - another tip - if you're going to do this, then it's also worth search engine optimising your links. Try to get the original piece to include a link that actually features the product or company name in the link text. Often if you send them an HTML link that's already set up they'll cut and paste it into their feature, and then you've essentially got someone googlebombing for you, as you ...encourage... the spread of the feature around the web. Acutally, ALWAYS think about how to SEO any and all links you're releasing into the wild. It pays off.
So, forget traditional PR and marketing tactics - the above is wisdom that will get your product, book, band, worthy cause, interview, or whatever, a whole load of coverage for very little outlay. And yes, I’ll do all that for you too, for a reasonable fee, if you’re too busy.
A couple of other points before I go:
- TV programme researchers will blag samples of anything and everything you're offering. Make sure you're talking to an actual production assistant and discussing schedules when something will be likely to actually appear before sending out samples for TV coverage and not just a runner. However, if you're not far away and can deliver stuff to the set yourself, do it anyway as it's always fun to see what's going on and actually to chat to people you usually only email. Making friends with the runners can sometimes be advantageous as they tend to go up in the industry and might be production assistants or even producers before long.
- If there's a big trade show that your company or client is attending, you'll get far more interest from journalists who DON'T go than from ones that do, unless you're Apple or Sony. That is, if you offer (via the magic, polite one line email) to send them a cut down PDF version of your press pack directly, instead of expecting the journos that actually do attend to visit your stand or pick up a press pack from the show's press office, which they will then ignore amongst all the other freebies and crap they've picked up. That way they can file a story and make it look as though they've been to the show, even when they haven't. They like that sort of thing.
That's it, really. There is more, but I’ve got to keep some stuff back. And in case you’ve missed the subtle hints I’ve been dropping throughout this piece, if you want someone to do PR for you, I’m available and cheap. Okay, maybe not that cheap, but I’ll get you better results than you’d get by paying a hundred times as much on advertising or a big agency that pulls the kinds of sneaky, invoice bumping tricks I've warned about. Which, you have to admit, does make me pretty good value.
Of course, if you're one of those big agencies, and want to give me a few decent clients to handle for a decent salary, then I've got noooo problem whatsoever removing this piece from Her Majesty's Internet and pretending it never happened.
Or 'The Idiot’s Guide to PR'
This is intended to be a candid article giving my thoughts on PR after a few years in the business. It's probably a bit cynical, but it may well end up either saving you money or helping you out, one way or another.
There’s an awful lot written about PR and how to get coverage in the media and a lot of people will try to tell you all about it. Most of it is nonsense designed to get you to pay an agency to do it for you and then misdirection and trickery to make the PR agents art seem somehow magical, arcane and beyond the ken of ordinary mortals.
However, in the same manner that Penn and Teller reveal how their magic tricks are done (that is, they reveal the simple ones but keep the really good stuff well hidden), I’m giving away a few secrets, so that (like P&T) I can convince you that I know the game inside out, and unlike all those other guys that’ll bluff and bluster you, you can actually trust me to tell it to you straight.
So here we go.
The first harsh truth is; no one cares about your press release.
Sorry, but you need to get your head around this before you’ll have any sort of a clue about PR.
Don't bother sending out a press release to try to promote whatever it is you want to promote. No matter how pretty it is, or how informative, or how many times it’s rewritten and tweaked and made beautiful, your press release won't work.
At least, not to any hugely useful extent, anyway.
Press releases work best when there’s already some interest there. Which is why they will get some attention if you’re a government department (so long as you aren’t one of the really boring ones, but are one with bombs or spies or that produces legislation that people will get very upset about and riot over) or you’re Elton John. Then, sure, go right ahead. But if you’re not at that level, or you’re in one of the boring government depts, then no one cares.
Physical, printed, press releases sent through the post will almost always be classed as junk mail. Don’t bother with them. These are usually just a way for agencies to up their expenses claims, anyway, as printing, postage and stationery costs will be bumped up on the invoice. If you retain a PR or Marcomms agency that posts out press releases, it's ripping you off. If you run an agency that does this, shame on you.
So, email then.
Mass-emailed press releases sent to multiple addresses, even if you put these in the bcc field, will almost always go in the spam bin. However, that doesn’t mean don’t email. It’s definitely the best way to start. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Oh, might as well mention one golden rule right now - never cold call journalists. It can kill any potential future working relationship you could have with them. If you catch them when they’re busy and try to tell them about something fairly banal, they won’t want to hear from you again. If you do it regularly, they’ll stop taking your calls completely.
However, that also doesn’t necessarily mean ‘don’t call journalists out of the blue’. If you’ve got something interesting and know that whoever you’re going to be talking to will be interested, that’s a different matter. But sitting and calling every journo on a list a media database has spewed out, to try and sell in a story on the off-chance that a tiny percentage of them might be interested is a stupid idea. It’s something PR agency bosses love getting lower minions to do, so they can bump up their contact sheets and say that such-and-such a journo said they were ‘interested’, just because they didn’t slam the phone down immediately, but it’s really just a demoralising, pointless waste of time for all involved and PR people really should stop it.
But, come on, let’s be positive! There are ways to get results! The first thing to do is research your targets and make a hit list of places you’d like your PR to reach. Do this very carefully. Spend as much time thinking about it and checking titles and journalists and whether they're relevant as you might on your super-pretty press release. Use existing contacts. Don't bother with newswires, or anything like that. Time spent planning can be much, much more beneficial than the scattergun approach of spamming everyone that looks even slightly like a good target.
Now - this is one of the biggest secrets that I’m going to give away. Listen carefully:
A polite one line email, which should be in PLAIN TEXT ONLY summing up what you're offering, sent to a very small, carefully focused mailing list can get you far more coverage, and billable coverage at that, than the kind of thing that most boutique agencies offer, which is a whole set of beautiful press releases sent out to a massive mailing list.
These beautiful press releases, with lots of pictures and flowery borders will get stuck in spam filters and lead to your email address being blocked and marked as a spam source, and even when they get through, they'll usually get ignored on time conservation grounds.
Don't put images into your initial email. In terms of html it's probably okay to include one link only, to relevant web content. That doesn't, however, mean you should say ‘hey, check out this website!’ and leave it at that. Make sure the web page it goes to is relevant and tailored towards your desired end result.
Once you've got some interest from journalists THEN you send out the press release, if they ask for it or want more info. But don't fill it full of hyperbolic and exaggerated crap and don’t ever, ever, ever use the words 'the world's leading', or anything similar even if you know you’re the world leader in your field. If you are, you won’t need to say so. If it’s vaguely debatable, then don’t say it. It’s a bit like d-list celebrities asking club doormen ‘do you know who I am?’ If you have to try and push the point, you’re trying too hard. Journalists are hard-bitten cynics as a breed and will mock you for it. That is, if you’ve even caught their attention in the first place. And there are a dozen ‘Bad PR’ blogs run by bored hacks that will love to post your hyperbolic press release to take the piss out of, and you probably shouldn’t try counting that as billable coverage in your client report (although, if you manage to pull that one off, do let me know, as it would be quite funny).
Anyway, back to the press release - add in INTERESTING AND RELEVANT quotes, if you have to. Not 'we're delighted to...' stuff, or crap like that. Informative quotes that are relevant to a human interest angle only are acceptable. Company MDs or CEOs love to be quoted in press releases, but they generally don't have anything useful to say, other than how delighted or proud they are about whatever it is you're promoting.
Which no one cares about.
Find an angle, then write something for them that actually comments on important issues, or a human-interest angle, in an useful way. If there isn't anything worth saying, leave out the quote and let the actual relevant information stand on its own.
DO NOT let them put their 'We're so proud... world's leading... dedicated team... delighted to...' crap in there. Journalists play quote bingo with press releases. Don't encourage this. Be harsh with your boss. Make sure the boss knows who’s really in charge when it comes to talking to the press. Boss type creatures are always ‘delighted’ or ‘taking this matter extremely seriously’. Which, most people these days are savvy enough to know is shorthand for ‘I’m too boring to say anything original, interesting or useful’ or ‘Yup, we were caught utterly by surprise and we’re trying to crisis manage this on the hoof.’
When writing quotes for senior staff, don't be cute or clever. Don't use puns, clichés or jokes. Unless you're a genius like me and can write outstandingly brilliant ones.
If it's the B2B or trade press that you've had the interest from, then you write the whole story for them, and put what you want in there, making sure you keep to their word limit and they’ll print it for you as they’re the laziest of the lot (love you really, guys!) but and here’s another golden rule - DON'T FORGET THE BLOODY SALES TEAM'S CONTACT INFO AT THE END! That's the whole point to B2B. Don't leave that out and you're halfway there.
If you’re aiming for the general media, or lifestyle/consumer press, then the give the journo the basic facts and an UTTERLY OUTSTANDINGLY HEARTBREAKINGLY BEAUTIFUL IMAGE, saved as a hi-res jpg. Then they'll write the review or feature themselves and it'll be a lot better than the copy in your press release, as there's a reason they're journalists and your in PR. (HINT: it's because they prefer to see their name in print and believe in the craft of writing, rather than having a desire to earn the actual proper money that PR types can make. Not that I'm earning anything decent at the moment. Sob. Weep.)
Aaaanyway...
One thing that you should do, however, is to get a web address quoted - and for a retailer where someone can actually BUY the product from, or get directly in contact. A journalist will bung in a good picture over and above anything else, so have some good ones. They'll always slap in a decent picture in preference to words, if they can get away with it. DON'T photoshop them, other than for very basic corrections or to tidy them up. Sticking your product in the hands of a model shot from an image library is outstandingly naff too. Just don't do it. There are blogs that will post bad photoshop jobs to mock too. And again, this doesn’t count as billable coverage.
So there you go.
Sticking to the above tricks will get you coverage worth hundreds of thousands in terms of the amount you would have to spend on advertising, in order to get the same number of column inches. Or, you could pay me a few hundred quid to do it all for you.
Further to this: If you want to get your product, or story or whatever, all over the Internet, then here's the trick for doing so. I’ve giving away a really big secret here. Well, it was a big secret few years ago, but people are now catching on.
Anyway, here you go:
Do your homework on blogs that cover the sector you're promoting. Pick one that's got fairly low traffic, but is quite niche. Contact the author. Offer him or her an exclusive first look. Give them a really nice picture. Send them a sample and tell them they can keep it. If they don't bite, try another, but if the blog's actually active, they always will. Make sure they include a web link, either to a retailer, or to your client's website (and remember, if you want people to buy something, and it's on sale already ALWAYS link to a retailer, not the manufacturer) Then when they've put their piece up, submit it as a link to digg, reddit, and also all of the other high traffic blogs which let their readers submit tips. Find a few current Top 100 Blogs lists and then get yourself a private email address and submit that sucker to other blogs and as many sources that take tips as you can. News begets news. And there’s no harm in helping it along. But you’ve got to pretend someone else started it, not you. Do be a bit subtle here, please.
You’ll get an existing blog story featured on bigger blogs and higher traffic websites far more easily by helping it along the way virally than you'd be likely to get a press release featured if you approached them directly. That's just how the web works. It's fairly simple to play the game, and you can get about fifty grand's worth of advertising equivalent spend, just by taking an afternoon to follow blog links and clicking about. It even looks and feels like slacking off by websurfing, so it's fun all round. Just don't get too sucked into the other content on these sites and spend too long on any one of them.
Oh - another tip - if you're going to do this, then it's also worth search engine optimising your links. Try to get the original piece to include a link that actually features the product or company name in the link text. Often if you send them an HTML link that's already set up they'll cut and paste it into their feature, and then you've essentially got someone googlebombing for you, as you ...encourage... the spread of the feature around the web. Acutally, ALWAYS think about how to SEO any and all links you're releasing into the wild. It pays off.
So, forget traditional PR and marketing tactics - the above is wisdom that will get your product, book, band, worthy cause, interview, or whatever, a whole load of coverage for very little outlay. And yes, I’ll do all that for you too, for a reasonable fee, if you’re too busy.
A couple of other points before I go:
- TV programme researchers will blag samples of anything and everything you're offering. Make sure you're talking to an actual production assistant and discussing schedules when something will be likely to actually appear before sending out samples for TV coverage and not just a runner. However, if you're not far away and can deliver stuff to the set yourself, do it anyway as it's always fun to see what's going on and actually to chat to people you usually only email. Making friends with the runners can sometimes be advantageous as they tend to go up in the industry and might be production assistants or even producers before long.
- If there's a big trade show that your company or client is attending, you'll get far more interest from journalists who DON'T go than from ones that do, unless you're Apple or Sony. That is, if you offer (via the magic, polite one line email) to send them a cut down PDF version of your press pack directly, instead of expecting the journos that actually do attend to visit your stand or pick up a press pack from the show's press office, which they will then ignore amongst all the other freebies and crap they've picked up. That way they can file a story and make it look as though they've been to the show, even when they haven't. They like that sort of thing.
That's it, really. There is more, but I’ve got to keep some stuff back. And in case you’ve missed the subtle hints I’ve been dropping throughout this piece, if you want someone to do PR for you, I’m available and cheap. Okay, maybe not that cheap, but I’ll get you better results than you’d get by paying a hundred times as much on advertising or a big agency that pulls the kinds of sneaky, invoice bumping tricks I've warned about. Which, you have to admit, does make me pretty good value.
Of course, if you're one of those big agencies, and want to give me a few decent clients to handle for a decent salary, then I've got noooo problem whatsoever removing this piece from Her Majesty's Internet and pretending it never happened.