One of the services we provide for select Allen Media Strategies clients is to "pitch" them to the appropriate media outlet, with the goal of securing free interviews. With other we show them how to deliver the "pitch" themselves.
When done properly, the TV, radio or print media professional on the other end of the phone (or email) is happy to receive the "pitch", because it is:
A) Well targeted to the media outlet
B) Provides a unique, compelling angle
C) Is pitched in a professional, brief manner
Unfortunately, many times pitches and the follow up calls that go with them are totally blown, and cause the "pitcher" to lose credibility, and the all important interview/PR, that they would've received.
Here in Washington DC, Washington Post writer Gene Weingarten wrote the following very funny, but also completely accurate article about this sad practice:
WASHINGTON - Whenever I check my office voice mail, I have to spend the first 15 minutes deleting messages. They all sound pretty much the same:
"Hi! This is Amber McChippie of Ernest N. Forthright Communications, and I was just following up on an e-mail I sent you about our client's intriguing new book, Squat-Thrust Your Way to Inner Peace and Firmer Abs, and ..."
"Hi! This is Madison Rosen-blatt-Gonzalez of Constance Naggington Communications, and I was just following up on an e-mail I sent you about our client's exciting new line of kangaroo-themed party bunting, and ..."
"Hi! This is Heather ..."
The reason I get these calls is that, many years ago, someone apparently furnished my name to several companies that publish media contact lists for PR people. And, for some reason, I was identified as a "lifestyles reporter." So far as I know, "lifestyles reporter" is a newsroom designation that doesn't actually exist except in the wishful thinking of PR professionals who need to believe there are people whose job compels them to be interested in "news" releases about upholstered lawn tractors, hip-hop accordion music and lemon-scented dental floss for dogs.
I have tried to get my name expunged from these lists, with little success. But just the other day, I got an e-mail from one of these companies, asking me if I wanted to update my listing with additional information. This was a hugely exciting development.
Below, verbatim, are the questions, along with my responses.
Q: What are your beats?
A: My primary responsibility is to savagely attack the quality of retail products and services. I rely on initial cold-call contacts from PR professionals to select which companies I will attempt to bankrupt through unfair reporting techniques leading to shockingly unfounded criticism. For example, I will fail to disclose that the bicycle I panned as "slow, sluggish and difficult to maneuver" was test-driven at the bottom of a swimming pool.
My secondary responsibility mostly involves ripping PR professionals a new one.
Q: What types of stories would be of most interest to you?
A: I have many interests, principal among which is exposing America as a flabby, complacent society addicted to the purchase and consumption of products and services no one really needs, while famine spreads all over the globe. Some examples of this disgusting excess are every single product and service your particular company represents. I would appreciate a list of all your clients.
In addition, I am interested in exposing the unholy alliance between the aforementioned PR industry and the soulless marketing industry, which exists to dehumanize people, categorizing them not by any meaningful demographic that relates to their needs or abilities, but by the likelihood they may be cajoled or deceived into making silly, discretionary purchases they cannot afford. Here are some analogies and comparisons I have used in the past to explain my feelings about the evil entity created by the entwinement of the marketing and public relations industries:
"The marketing-PR axis makes the team of Hitler and Mussolini seem benevolent."
"When a sulfurous, steaming dish of public relations is liberally seasoned with oily globules of marketing, the resulting concoction could nauseate a carrion vulture."
"Marketing professionals are to PR professionals as Erzsebet Bathory, the 16th-century noblewoman who killed her servant girls and bathed in their blood, is to the Gaboon viper, a 6-foot-long spatulate-headed central African snake with 2-inch fangs whose bite causes massive tissue damage, catastrophic internal hemorrhaging, hemorrhagic fever and a slow, shuddering death."
Q: What tips would you give PR professionals who may want to contact you? What is your preferred method of being contacted?
A: I encourage midnight visits to my home by PR professionals who have no immediate relatives or close friends. Note: Please enter through the basement dungeon room.
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That's how you do it wrong. Now, three tips on how to do it the Allen Media Strategies way (which has helped our clients secure interviews on KFI Los Angeles, WJR Detroit, The David Letterman Show, Howard Stern, NBC Nightly News, The Lars Larson Show, The Jim Bohannon Show and hundreds more):
1. Media folks don't hate all follow up calls, just the stupid ones like Gene mentioned in his article. If you follow up to offer an additional piece of information exclusive to that media professional, or to suggest a more topical/timely idea to augment your earlier pitch, chances are the media person will welcome your call.
2. Never follow up to ask journalists if they received your press release and if they know when you can "expect to be on the air" or "when it will be printed". Remember, you're a guest in their house…be respectful of that status.
3. You may have to follow up as many as five to 8 times, using a combination of phone and email, before you hear back. If, after repeated follow-ups, you hear nothing, stop contacting them. That doesn't necessarily mean that the media person isn't interested. Sometimes, the media person will store your email message in an "ideas" folder, then return to it later on a slow news day.