The Decoder

In our daily PR blog surfing, we came across an article from The Bloggess (who, in her opinion, is like Mother Teresa, only better)…

Basically, The Bloggess received a pitch from an unnamed PR practitioner, trying to get coverage on and sell a new, magical, makes your pores tiny and your skin glisten like Snow White, shield cream on her blog (note:  maybe try to sell us at The Decoder, we will gladly try your cream - assuming, of course, that The Bloggess’s comments aren’t true ).  He even included a link to a video showing how it shields from rock-dissolving acid!

The Bloggess, known to subtly mess with PR and marketing people, responds that she would love to try this magical shield cream to protect her eyes from rocks in her industrial lawn mowing job…

(Please note… this is a true story…)

Instead of the PR person realizing his mistake (that he didn’t actually read her blog to determine if his magical shield cream was relevant), he responds with this - and this is a direct quote….

“You should keep goggles (just to protect your eyes from rocks), but you can use the lotion prior to wearing goggles to prevent allergic reaction to latex. I will have two bottles sent - one with and one without SPF15, hope to get a collective review from the whole lawn maintenance team!”

Really?!?!

We can all learn from this  mistake.  Let’s bring it back to the basics, fellow PR pros.  Before you send a pitch, stop.  Take a deep breath.  Ask yourself:  Is this pitch/source/product/information relevant to their respective publication/blog/media outlet?

Okay, and before you begin to pull the “But I’m so busy and I have five million other publications to pitch this to, why don’t I just get it over with” excuse (we are too quick for you), remember that reading the blogs and publications are going to actually help you in the long run.

By putting in that extra time up-front, you will not only be able to understand the readership and publication’s focus (thus inevitably getting you more coverage), but you will also waste less time pitching to publications that wouldn’t ever, in a million years, cover it.

So take this pitch disaster from the Bloggess as a lesson learned.  Do your homework.  It’s that simple.  Start reading and understanding the publication.  Tweak your press list so it’s focused.  Tailor your pitch to the readers.  Make the point, “This is relevant to your publication and your readers because…”  Then press send.

And if you are ever pitching magical shield lotion, please feel free to send us samples at The Decoder.  Just please include a fair warning if your product does not protect against flying rocks… (But really - we love free samples)

Lastly, to satisfy your curiosity, click here to read The Bloggess’s full posting.

Each month, we put our two cents in about the stuff that’s just a little controversial, discussing everything from the latest news on the Twitter feed down to innovative and “out-of-the-box” PR strategies. Doing something interesting at your agency? Share it with us. Time to put your thinking caps on folks.