Disruptive Conversations

Over on his blog, Jeff Pulver wrote a great post: 'Today's unsolicited email: "Still looking for a PR firm/publicist?"' that is worth reading if you are in the PR field. I have to agree with Jeff's various rules:

• Rule #1 whenever pitching someone – do your homework!
• Rule #2 when pitching Jeff – define the deliverables and be modest for what you take credit for.
• Rule #3 – Jeff will hold you accountable for promises made want to be treated as a person and want to know his account matters.
• Rule #4 – The account manager should show interest in the work being promoted.
• Rule #5 – Talk straight and don’t take credit for work that you didn’t do.

Especially his Rule #1. It continually amazes me the high degree of "spam" that I get from PR firms who obviously haven't taken 10 seconds to look through my site to see what I cover. I've just wound up on some email distribution list and so as a result I get spammed.

Sadly, I have no way to know how many good PR people out there did take a look at my sites, determined that I was not appropriate and therefore didn't pitch me. All I typically see are the many spam pitches and every now and then someone who actually does it right. I have one in particular that I'm planning to highlight here at some point because she did the pitch so well!

Anyway, Jeff's post is worth a read. What do you look for in a PR firm?

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