Marketing Roadmaps

Susan Getgood

Anatomy of a good pitch

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Far too many of my posts lately have been examples of lousy PR pitches. It’s beginning to wear on me, so I thought I would share a good pitch with you for a change. This is courtesy of Mir Kamin from Woulda Coulda Shoulda and WantNot.net, and is one of the examples we discussed at the Improve This Pitch panel at BlogHer Business last month.

One note: while I do black out the names and companies in the bad pitches, because this is not about beating people up, it’s about learning how to do it better, I have not done so with this screen shot. The client was Outback Steakhouse and the PR person who sent the pitch is Charlie Kondek of MS&L Digital. A little link love for doing a nice job.

This is a good pitch because:

  • Charlie has taken the time over a couple of years to get to know Mir. He regularly reads her blogs — "pretty pretty Mir" refers to a blog in-joke that Mir and her readers understand without explanation.
  • He doesn’t assume that "her readers will love this offer" or ask her to write about it. He simply presents it and suggests it might be a nice giveaway for one of her blogs. 
  • He gives a couple interesting facts and a link, not seven paragraphs, embedded photos and multiple attachments to clog up her inbox. 

Let’s review.

  • Relationship – check
  • Relevant, personal communication – check
  • Short – check
  • Respectful of the blogger, her time and blog purpose – check
  • Bonus points for use of humor, which he knows she’ll appreciate because, see point one, he has taken the time to get to know her.

I want to write more posts like this one. If you have examples of pitches you really liked, please email them to me at sgetgood@getgood.com

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The real PR problem (black list debate part 3)

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The real PR outreach problem we should be solving:

 

This email was sent to multiple parent bloggers today. All of whose names were not available.

This problem doesn’t get solved by talking about how to punish the transgressors. It gets solved by making the investments in training, technology and research that avoid mass blast emails sent to "Name Not Available." Pony up, PR agencies.

 It gets solved when clients start having realistic expectations of media and blogger outreach, and realize that the customer should be the focus, not them. Let your agency lead with something compelling and relevant for the customer. If the agency doesn’t suggest a more personal, more customer centric approach, get a new PR agency.

Count ’em: six references in the first graph to the specific brand/company (the black boxes) , three to the category, photo gifts, and only  two, if you stretch it, to the customer. We can’t in good conscience count Name Not Available as a reference to the customer.

We have got to start treating our customers right. Or suffer the consequences. Because as we’ve seen this week, there will be consequences.

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Black lists don’t work, part two

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In Stowe Boyd’s responses to the latest black list flap, he advocates a totally transparent model for what he terms microPR:

"So, this is an additional argument for MicroPR: forcing PR firms to approach us in the open, on open social flow apps like Twitter, and in the small, where they have to jettison all the claptrap of the old press release model. In the open, that can’t lie easily, or they will be caught on it. In the small, they have to junk the meaningless superlatives, the bogus quotes that no CEO ever mouthed, the run-on phrases, the disembodied third party mumbo jumbo, as if the press release were edited by God."

There is some merit to bringing the entire conversation out into the light, but I can’t see it happening any time soon. There are too many impediments, including, but not limited to, the inevitable control issues. Companies and their PR agencies still think that they can maintain control over the process by managing it in a certain fashion. Wishful thinking.

So while I don’t think every communication between company and blogger has to happen in public, I believe we ought to act, write and speak as though they were. We used say:  would you do it, say it if your actions would appear on the front page of the NY Times tomorrow? Well, now, they could spread even wider. Act accordingly. Expect that your pitch will be published in full on a blog. Or used as an example.

More important than where you have the conversation is what you talk about. We have to stop being product centric and start being customer centric. For real, not just lip service.

The blogger isn’t simply an intermediary. He or she is your customer. Instead of asking the question:  how can we get the blogger to write about our laundry soap or tech widget? companies, and their agencies, should be asking, How can I help my customer? What information from us would be truly valuable and useful in their daily lives? What can we do for them? I guarantee you, it isn’t that your juice has 25% less sugar than yesterday or you are now at version 2.4.5.x of your software.

Companies should be talking to their customers where they are. If they are on Twitter, and they, like Stowe Boyd, want to be Twit-pitched, great. But if not — if the place is Facebook or MySpace or some other community, that’s where the company employees and PR reps should hang out. Get to know the people, their interests. Let the people get to know them. And then make the customers, not the company, not the product, the center of the story. However you pitch it, public or one-to-one.

"But that’s so hard and takes so long," says traditional PR flack.

Hhmm. Yes. But isn’t talking with your customer worth a little time?

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Black lists don’t work

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This week, the idea of a black list to stop PR agencies from spamming bloggers and journalists reared its not terribly attractive head, this time from Gina Trapani of Lifehacker who published a list of domains that had sent unsolicited email to her personal email address.  In the not distant past, we had the same invocation from Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired.

They have a point, and I don’t dismiss the concern at all. More and more, PR pitches are poorly targeted, poorly written spam. Bad when sent to journalists. Inexcusable sent to bloggers.

But black lists don’t work. Not really. They didn’t work for Joseph McCarthy in the 50s and they aren’t going to stop bad blog pitching now.

Why? Because they trap the innocent, the naive, the well-intentioned as much as they trap the disingenuous, the guilty, the spammers. And since the truly guilty are playing a numbers game, a block here or there matters little to them.

Our collective attitude about PR is no different than our attitude toward advertising. It’s not that we don’t like ads. What we don’t like is bad advertising, poor direct mail and fundraising calls during dinner.

For the most part, we don’t want to block ALL email from PR and marketing agencies. Just that which is untargeted, irrelevant, impersonal.

So companies, and their agencies, need to get with the program and figure out how to reach out to their customers online in positive ways. Reactive and proactive.

How? It starts with understanding what interests your customer. Perhaps your product, but generally, campaigns built around products fall flat. You need to think beyond YOUR product and into your customer’s interests. Needs. Desires. Hopes. Aspirations.

That’s not so easy for your average cereal or soap marketer. And why so many campaigns end up in the bad pitch column. Even when they aren’t necessarily that bad.

And unfortunately, there is no magic formula. Anyone who tells you there is? Liar.

It’s a process. It starts with preparation, research and active participation with the bloggers that matter to you. And for whom you matter.

Then when you go to engage — to pitch — it means developing a program that is as much, or more, about them than it is about you.  A press release about your latest announcement does not qualify. Sorry.

Watch this space over the next few months for some examples of companies that seem to understand what this means and have done outreach programs that resonated with bloggers.

And, please, stop looking for the bogeyman. There isn’t one — not even at the stupidest, spammiest PR Agency . Focusing our energies on looking for one obscures the real issue.

How do we want to engage with our customers online?

Want some help? I don’t often promote my consulting business here on the Roadmap. I figure if you want to call, you will. But please don’t forget that helping companies meet their customers online is my business. If I can be of service to you, nothing would make me happier.

Especially if it reduced the number of bad pitches landing in our inboxes.

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A Mother of a Day: Mom bloggers on the Today Show and a bad-pitch-apalooza

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What a day!

It started with the C-string on the Today Show — that’s the team after Matt and Meredith, after Al and Ann, which apparently now features Kathie Lee Gifford along with Hoda Kotb. This is where Today decided to effectively bury its taped segment with mom bloggers Jill Asher, Kristen Chase and Mir Kamin as well as its live interview with Heather Armstrong (dooce). Jill, Kristen and Mir at least benefited from a reporter, Janet Shamlian, who actually listened to their answers, although I do wonder about the editing of the interview. As Christina mentions in her post, the women discussed far more topics, including the importance of community, than made the cut.  And amateurs on YouTube do a better job with chyrons than whoever edited the taped piece. Here’s just one example — below is a screen grab of Jill Asher from Silicon Valley Moms. Maria Bailey is later in the piece, without a chyron at all.

But it was a decent segment and also included mentions of BlogHer. Too bad the network showed it at a time when it has relatively few viewers. So few in fact that it the local affiliates run second and third tier advertising. And in my case, the weekly tests of the emergency broadcast system.

The interview with Heather Armstrong was … There are really no words other than to say that the decision to employ Kathie Lee Gifford shows how out of touch the network is with its audience. Gifford was absolutely awful. I wish I had video skilz because then I would create a mash-up of the segment with the discussion on Twitter running alongside. You would literally pee your pants at some of the very on-target comments. Just do a few searches on tweetscan and summize, on Today show and Kathie Lee (use various spellings and intials, no one was too fussed about spelling it right).

Let’s just say no one was too impressed with Kathie Lee, her attitude, her preparation for the interview or the way she stomped on Heather’s answers.

I ask again: why did NBC think hiring Kathie Lee was a good thing? Seriously, I’d rather watch an infomercial. At least they are honest. Gifford has the gall to judge mom bloggers for writing about their kids when we ALL remember how she pimped her own kids on Regis & Kathie Lee. Blecch.

Moving on to the bad-pitch-apalooza. Apparently Mother’s Day brings out the best in bad pitches… Does that even make sense? Today, two duds crossed my desk, shared with me by mom blogger friends. Names have been removed to protect the innocent and guilty. Here are the first paragraphs from both.

and

Where, oh where, do I start? I know. How about:

  • Grammatical English. Moms, not Mom’s
  • Learn the tools, people. The parenthetical comment in the first is just embarassing. For those PR folks that still don’t get how bad this crap is, read it. And weep. The pitch was awful too, but it almost doesn’t matter. Nobody read past the parens.
  • As for the second. Sent to mom bloggers? Uhm, last I checked, they weren’t going to prom. For most of us, our kids don’t even have all their adult teeth, forget about zits. I did an informal and completely unscientific survey on Twitter and many moms I know personally received this mass emailed pitch. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Especially given the analysis Johnson’s  recently experienced.

There’s no excuse for this sort of error. It is absolutely crystal clear that no one is doing any homework here.

Compare and contrast with this pitch I received today:

Now, that’s refreshing. A PR person who actually understands that sending me a pitch is risky business. A calculated risk on the sender’s part that I would appreciate this approach, but if you read my blog, you’d be smart and take the chance. As she did. Sure, I’m critical, but always in the interest of doing it better, getting it right.

I also feel strongly about helping junior people get it right. My friend Liz Gumbinner (Mom-101 and Cool Mom Picks) regularly replies back to PR folks  for the same reason. We know they are young kids, thrown in the deep end, without enough help or training. "Just send these emails."

In this case, the pitch, for a market research report, was on target but way too long. No one would read it. I certainly didn’t. I also do not recommend asking bloggers to write. If the pitch is good, you don’t need to ask.  I gave her some input and asked for the report, and was pleased to receive, along with the report, her grateful reply that she was re-writing her email pitch based on my feedback.

Amen. And thanks.

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