Quit Your Pitching
PR Rock and Roll
Are we doomed to a lifetime of mediocre and worse PR pitches? Will shoddily written press releases continue to dominate? Drew Kerr hopes not, but has several examples from the dregs of PR Newswire as evidence that for all our complaining, pitches are worse than ever. “Everybody is trying to get the most information in and out in a shorter and shorter window of time. So why do publicists still write as if none of this is happening? Why do they write long-winded press releases and pitch letters that don’t cut to the chase in the very first paragraph when they themselves often don’t have the patience to read those very same stories? Who is managing these people and letting them get away with this?”
Don’t Be a Tool
Bad Pitch Blog
Are PR tools such as HARO and Pitch Engine a double-edged sword? Kevin Dugan wonders if reliance on these nifty shortcuts is to blame for the sorry state of relationship-building in particular, noting how many times we all receive generic social network requests from someone we do not know. “Maybe I should switch to decaf. And let me remind you that I am NOT dissing any of these tools. Most of them promote better pitches. And LinkedIn has blown me away with the new functionality it’s added in the past 12 months. But short cuts should never take the place of plain old thought. Forms like the “LinkedIn-vitation” inadvertently reinforce boilerplate pitches and other PR Spam.”
Getcher Brands Here!
Greg Verdino
File this one under “interesting, if weird, concept”: IncSpring is a new company that sells pre-made brands. Name, logo, website, all available for purchase for the entrepreneur with a great idea but, apparently, a lack of branding creativity. One interesting element of the idea is that users of the site can rate and comment on some of the branding packages, warning potential buyers against trademark infringement issues, for example. Greg Verdino has all the details. “Most packages include the name, the logo and a set of related graphic files. Many listings indicate what types of businesses the brand may be best suited to and a few offer more detailed descriptions of how a budding entrepreneur might bring the business to life and attach a revenue model.”
PR Rock and Roll
Are we doomed to a lifetime of mediocre and worse PR pitches? Will shoddily written press releases continue to dominate? Drew Kerr hopes not, but has several examples from the dregs of PR Newswire as evidence that for all our complaining, pitches are worse than ever. “Everybody is trying to get the most information in and out in a shorter and shorter window of time. So why do publicists still write as if none of this is happening? Why do they write long-winded press releases and pitch letters that don’t cut to the chase in the very first paragraph when they themselves often don’t have the patience to read those very same stories? Who is managing these people and letting them get away with this?”
Don’t Be a Tool
Bad Pitch Blog
Are PR tools such as HARO and Pitch Engine a double-edged sword? Kevin Dugan wonders if reliance on these nifty shortcuts is to blame for the sorry state of relationship-building in particular, noting how many times we all receive generic social network requests from someone we do not know. “Maybe I should switch to decaf. And let me remind you that I am NOT dissing any of these tools. Most of them promote better pitches. And LinkedIn has blown me away with the new functionality it’s added in the past 12 months. But short cuts should never take the place of plain old thought. Forms like the “LinkedIn-vitation” inadvertently reinforce boilerplate pitches and other PR Spam.”
Getcher Brands Here!
Greg Verdino
File this one under “interesting, if weird, concept”: IncSpring is a new company that sells pre-made brands. Name, logo, website, all available for purchase for the entrepreneur with a great idea but, apparently, a lack of branding creativity. One interesting element of the idea is that users of the site can rate and comment on some of the branding packages, warning potential buyers against trademark infringement issues, for example. Greg Verdino has all the details. “Most packages include the name, the logo and a set of related graphic files. Many listings indicate what types of businesses the brand may be best suited to and a few offer more detailed descriptions of how a budding entrepreneur might bring the business to life and attach a revenue model.”
