Example of a Great PR Pitch

May 21, 2008 · Comments

Tom O’Brien took a chance tonight. He decided to send a pitch to a blogger, and see what would happen. And now, I’m going to show Tom (and you) what happened, first by reprinting his letter to me, and then, by commenting on his letter to me.

Tom sent this from his personal account. It was real and human right from the start.

Hi Chris:

As I read your (and lots of other blogs), it’s clear that bloggers don’t like to be blindly pitched by PR Firms. (As a (not prominent) blogger myself, I think I’d welcome the attention – but I digress.)

Tom has led with deference to what a blogger wants (thank you) and then self-deprecation that made me appreciate his point of view. I want to address Tom’s point about attention: sure, we love the attention, and it feeds a small part of our ego if we feel like you’re opening up a new relationship, and not just lobbing a press release at us (or me, at least. Let me say “me.”). Tom made me feel at home with this opening.


So, here’s my own pitch, I hope it isn’t too spammy.

1. MotiveQuest has developed a tool to measure brand advocacy in social media
2. This measure has been proven as a leading indicator of sales.
3. We have just announced it – the Online Promoter ScoreTM

Easy. It’s a list. It’s a numbered list. I love this. Brevity at it’s finest. I didn’t have to wade through a stupid fake newspaper headline and quotes from people I don’t know or care about.


Given the continuous debate about social media metrics around here, I think this is big news. And this is my Social Media Release.

Tom’s right on key here. This is DEFINITELY something we talk about a lot. I spent a little time with an agency today, and that was the key thing we talked about as a sticking point.


If you would like to learn more and perhaps write about this you can:

1. Schedule a brief call with me at MotiveQuest (tobrien@xxxxxxxx.com)
2. Here’s the press release
3. Here’s the Brand Advocacy landing page with the how, what and why of Online Promoter Score
4. Here’s the AdAge article about it: Linking Web Buzz to Mini Sales
5. Here’s my blog post about it Brand Advocacy Matters
6. Here’s our del.icio.us page with lots of articles about brand advocacy and related topics.

Again with the list. This was AWESOME. It felt like choosing off a menu. I felt like I knew immediately what to do with this opportunity.


If you can’t stand to get any more email from me, just let me know and I won’t do this again.

Funny and disarming, and also very very very human.

Lessons Learned

Dear PR Professionals–

Tom did everything right here. He started by identifying with me on a personal level, and letting me know within the first paragraph that he knew my perspective. He went on to tell me why this might be pertinent to me. He went into very brief, simple, bulleted lists, showing me how I could pursue the opportunity to write about this. He finished with a human offer of opting out.

Please try to dissect this further, take it to your labs, and learn from it. Please realize that maybe what’s missing, is a two part process.

  1. Send me the disarming email with simple-to-digest info first.
  2. If I respond positively, then see whether I need your big fat press release written as if it’s going to Walt Mossberg’s next article.

Step 1 is the secret sauce here, PR friends. Start by establishing your human side. Connect with me. Give me something really easy to consider.

And THEN see if I want a Step 2.

Is this faster? no. More efficient? no. Best way to do it? I think so.

What do you think?

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  • Best way? Absolutely, as far as the list is concerned.

    I try and make sure all my action-seeking emails are segmented either by bullets or numbers. This way the reader gets:
    * something concise (no getting lost in paragraph hell)
    * something clear (issue - resolution needed)
    * something skimmable (for when they come back to the email).
    * Then a call to action.

    When I do this I almost invariably get responses about how easy & clear it is to deal with me via email. And things get done faster.

    (I just wish everyone did this)
  • A great example of knowing your audience since you are obviously interested in social media metrics! My guess is that now that you posted this, you'll get a lot of similar pitches. :-)
  • Yep, he pretty much nailed how to do it right. Maybe a bit long even though?
  • Sharon
    The PR biggies get this; they hire people with a good sense of social skills and communication, and -interest- in their field focus.

    What Tom did is what most people who communicate for a living would consider to be basic 101 smart common sense. Good for him.

    Nicely done in calling this out Chris. Perhaps some of the folks out there, will change their standard spam and slam modes and try this approach instead.
  • Totally agree - as a small business owner with his hands in every decision, I've become very defensive of my time. Most times, rightly so, but occasionally I forget to step back and take a second to really evaluate the product being pitched to me. The approach taken in this letter would certainly get my attention, so long as the subject line (or envelope, if by snail mail) was "hand written" so to speak.
  • I don't even think it's so much specific techniques (although that numbered list thing is smart) as attitude. There's a "getting it" in his approach that's hard to fake. Nor should anyone need to fake it. Hang out, pay attention, and keep some humility--it won't take you all that long to start getting it.
  • I'm not sure that your 2 step process is ideal. If the PR person has done their homework, and is writing to you about something relevant, then requiring you to write back before getting any news might be seen as inconvenient.

    Your first assessment is what I'd stick with. He did a great job understanding what you'd be interested in and gave you an easy bulleted list of ways to get more information for yourself.

    You're in control. You can choose to respond to the PR person, or not. Check out the links to the news, or not. Read the articles already published, or not.

    He's given up control. And it looks like it worked.
  • Glad to see we're not all low-life flacks. :)
    It's definitely faster and more efficient if you get more coverage. Tossing out news releases blindly might be a faster way to get them out of sight, but if bloggers are ignoring you because they're not interested/don't care, it's not effective or efficient.

    Thanks for sharing this Chris.
  • I liked the part where in his PR message, he referred himself as "I", that shows that he is really representing himself (he made it clear about that at the start).

    And he made it very brief and went straight into 3 short and easy to understand points.

    The "Social Media Release" is exactly the key. That's his agenda. He made it easy to find, it was after a short few sentences, and I'm certain that it doesn't require much searching, scrolling, or reading between the lines to know what the sender was up to.

    The last part was neat. Instead of blasting a huge composition of the things he could have copied and paste right out from those links, he consolidated them and presented the outbound information in links that are nicely written.

    Very human indeed! Sure made us feel important while allowing him to fulfill his task at the same time. :)
  • I've got to say, as I am wont to say: I don't dislike PR people. I dislike bad PR practice.

    We have a new directive here on Earth: get back to being human.

    Weird, when you think about that, eh? If we focused a bit more about what it means to be human...
  • I think this approach IS more efficient. Rather than leave a bad taste in the mouth of an influencer, it has the chance to make an impact both on him and his audience. Sort of like the 99:1 rule or something--if 1 message takes 99x as long but get 99x the results then who cares if the other 99 people don't receive it?

    There's nothing efficient about a bad practice. Efficiency isn't about scale, it's about impact.
  • Actually, I think your list of two things he did right misses the first big thing he did right--taking the time to do his homework and target a blogger who would truly have an interest!

    Tracy
  • Its simple for me, what was the response? Did you take the next step or just admire the pitch and throw it out? Will he get a call or an interview?

    A pitch that gets a response is good.

    Dr. Wright
    www.wrightplacetv.com
    www.twitter.com/drwright1
  • Chris:

    Thanks for publishing my pitch. I have to say I am really overwhelmed by the number of comments already up. In our brief email exchange (where you asked me if it was ok to post) here is what I said:

    ------------------------
    Funny, I had our PR guy working on a social media release (and email) and when I started editing his work – I said forget it, I’ll just send these one at a time from my personal email and see what happens.

    We preach to our clients all the time – just be human and honest – and sometimes that is just the hardest thing – isn’t it.
    --------------------

    Thanks - TO'B
  • nicole garst
    Indeed a well played pitch. Benefit messaging right up front. Concise. From human being who has done homework, not just 'spray and pray' methodology.

    Nearly like, *gasp* a real person is behind the text!

    Thanks, Chris, for the great post.

    n
  • Hey Chris,

    As usual you've done a great job and a great service with your illustrative and highly readable analysis.

    Some people can communicate well, some are better at dissecting and reassembling ideas. You are one of the lucky rare few who seem to do both with aplomb. You've found what you love and are very gifted at it.

    This single post could be the basis for a lesson in a college level marketing class. Combine it with the "Fart in your Face" post and you have an excellent Do & Don't lecture.

    By the way, I still have nothing to pitch. However, I do occasionally pitch your blog to my cohorts at work.

    Take care and thank you,
    Shannon Ehlers
  • This is great. It also happens to be the way I approach sales.

    Sometimes I am tempted to just email spam all my contacts with the latest request for . When you're got thousands of sales contacts, it is sometimes hard to keep on top of them all while also sleeping and eating. The shotgun approach still works, so it has appeal.

    But it doesn't work well.

    I've found that if I spend time talking with people about their business - learning about the products and services they offer - my sales pitches are better received. This is partly because I'm better informed about the target company, but it's also because my contact and I have a personal relationship. And nothing will ever replace the value of a personal relationship with a business partner or client.

    The proof? Oft times I will not have to cold pitch a contact. I can usually ask them, flat out, what their budget is and then create a custom pitch that it tailored to their business needs.

    They rarely say no.
  • I'm in the minority here, Chris.

    He sent me precisely the same note. It's spam.

    Spam because I don't like pitches, spam because I didn't ask for it and spam because even though he wrote it nicely, when 1,000 other PR "professionals" do the same thing, I'm toast.

    It's simple... manners are nice, but spam is not. It wasn't anticipated, personal or relevant, at least not to me.
  • Yep - I agree. Brevity is better. Bullet points, too. Main thing? Humanity. Oh yeah!
  • Chris, this reminds me of the conversation when you and I first met. You had asked about a press release template leading up to the first PodCamp in Boston.

    I replied way back when and said to forget press releases and instead focus on making real contacts in the media and targeting your information.

    I told a story back then about when I used to work as a news producer at CBSNews.com in Manhattan almost 10 years ago. At the edge of one desk was a fax machine where we received press releases all day long. The fax machine was positioned so that as faxed press releases were received, they would feed out of the machine and directly into a trash can on the floor. Once a day someone emptied the can.

    Think of how much wasted effort went into all those press releases. If you blindly send out one or a zillion press releases and no journalist ever runs the story, you have failed.

    Instead, in the example Chris wrote about, Tom did exactly what I coached Chris to do years ago - carefully target and establish a personal relationship with the person he wanted to publish his info. And it worked!

    Thanks for revisiting this topic, Chris!

    P.S. Looks like Seth Godin just put the whole conversation in a new light.
  • I knew I shouldn't have sent it to Seth! Initially I held back and didn't sent it to him (common sense) but after my very positive reception from Chris and others, I went ahead and sent it anyway. Oops!

    TO'B
  • Tom, by contacting Seth and having him comment here, you instantly changed the tenor of the entire conversation. You had a taste of success, got greedy, and violated everything you were trying to advocate. What a shame.
  • Hi Dale:

    Yup - got greedy. Wouldn't have done it at all if "The Purple Cow" hadn't been a big part of our inspiration when starting the company - so I thought I had some kind of connection - wrong.

    The good news - I won't pitch Seth again because he did respond directly and politely that he wasn't interested.

    TO'B
  • This is great. Thanks, once again, Chris, for all your insights and guidance. I'd nominate you for President of Awesome if I could. :)

    I love the bullet points and instinctively use them when collecting my thoughts (even my personal blog breaks every post into Five Things,) might as well do the same in pitching...can't believe this didn't occur to me before.

    With the tensions between PR pros and bloggers right now, we need this kind of conversation to happen more than ever. Especially what has played out in the comments. Anyone who didn't take a lesson away from this post probably didn't need the schooling in the first place.

    Kudos Chris...and Tim!
  • Pitching bloggers such as Chris and Seth are much different than pitching the traditional journalist.

    Traditional journalist write on a wider variety of topics. They're rushing around on strict as print deadlines. They really do need tips on current events.

    Bloggers tend to have slightly more flexible deadlines, but still write a ton (if not more). Their jobs tend to be 24 hours a day jobs. They tend to be much more focused, and because of that focus in on a particular topic or interest, they're pretty up-to-date.

    Especially the "big boys."

    Companies love when their PR folks get the "Big Boys" but in blogging, the Big Boys read other blogs (and twitter and and and) for their filtered news. The key is to hit the mid-range folks. The folks with 20-1000 links coming into their blog.

    They tend to be more responsive. Don't get me wrong, Chris and Seth are like the Holy Grails... if you can get it, you're a legend but chances are you're going to wind up wasting time -- their's and yours.
  • notice he was a blogger -- that's the lesson for PR people

    have a blog, post on it, get involved

    you'll know what to do naturally !!
  • Good stuff, Chris -- and good on yer for calling out an example of someone doing it BETTER. We all gripe enough (and more than enough) about those who get it wrong.

    Let me echo something Rick Weiss touched on above -- something you addressed with this: "Is this faster? no. More efficient? no. Best way to do it? I think so."

    The takeaway lesson for the GOOD p.r. folks who are committed to doing things better: you want an EFFECTIVE pitch, not an EFFICIENT pitch. Efficient distribution (via no personalization, etc.) means nothing if it leads Brogan et al. to "efficiently" toss the pitch in the circular file.

    Mind you, it still might be spam to some. If Godin wants out, looks like he can send a one-liner back to Tom saying so and Tom will respect his wishes.

    You can't please everybody. But by approaching people individually, you can do BETTER.
  • Great information here and thanks for sharing a good pitch. As the Seth revelation appeared and the conversation turned, I guess the lesson for pitching is to pick one blogger, send out that personalized email and then wait. If the blogger is interested, good for you. If no response (or a decline), pick another and repeat. One at a time. Multiple similar emails = spam.
  • Linda Eskin
    I recommend the book "Why Business People Speak Like Idiots" almost weekly. It's great for people who try to sound "official" and "businesslike" but instead come off sounding pompous and officious.

    Tom doesn't need to read it.

    Even if it *is* spam, it can still be well written.
  • I have a question for you Chris:

    As a person in the PR field (sort of), I find my self stuck in between the personal touches and the need for velocity. How do I find the balance between how much time to take researching and tailoring a pitch to the individual and getting enough coverage?

    I understand the call to going back to humanity. I preach it myself, but how much time should a PR person spend on each outlet?

    My issue is unique as I'm pitching dozens of different types of sites.
  • I think I can see why it wasn't a Seth Godin pitch. A way to go with Seth may have been to wait until you had an interesting story that related to your product - like a suprising metric or how a company used the product...but ya know, remarkable. Then I'd send that story to Seth as a paragraph or so and expect nothing in return...but at least you're trading in the same currency Seth is.

    Sending this Brogan makes perfect sense. It's spam but maybe I've been to Hawaii enough where I know all Spam isn't bad. Tom made some nice spam...fried so it tastes like bacon!
  • @Troy - it's a great question. I think there are lots of pressures. My thought? There's a workflow here, one that permits for communications relationships. It's not super easy, but it's definitely something that can be built and structured.

    Not to sound pitchy, but I'm developing a training module for this very purpose, because I know what *I* would do in your shows, and I think I can show you in steps HOW to do it. We'll see if this is useful.

    @Lee - I really like your point of view on this. Quite interesting.

    @Tom - I don't know if you got greedy. I'm not convinced. But I respect Seth's take as well.

    @Seth - Thanks for coming by. Will we meet in 2008? I'll have to make a plan to get that to happen.
  • I think the pitch is good but I think sending the press release is too forward. I can see @Seth's point the pitch was uninvited but to Tom's credit it seems relevant to your blog (I get scores of irrelevant pitches each month and I hate it). When I pitch bloggers I always start with a request for their permission and should they accept my overtures ask for their preferences and only pitch those folks who are writing about my topic after they "opt-in". I always comment on their blog before I send them email (and not just minutes before) and try to insert myself only after I understand their point of view and have become part of their community.
  • On the surface, I agree with your article. As far as a PR email goes it's very good. It is conversational and easy to pick out the relevant info. Initially, it seems pretty personable, but this same pitch can (and apparently was, to some extent) be splattered across the blogosphere just like any other. The best marketing is done when people get interested organically. If you are doing something interesting, the blogs will be stirring about it, and we'll actively seek out more information. Be interesting and people will seek you out.
  • By the way, I never knew until Shannon Paul explained it to me today that most mainstream press organizations are grateful to be on mailing distributions for pitches (provided they're relevant to their space), and that the journalists just delete the ones they don't want without any fuss.

    I'd never heard that, nor did I know much about it.

    Interesting, that.
  • I have been getting a LOT of old school press releases emailed to me these days. As a blogger not in the PR business, I laugh and say "why did they send this to ME? Oh, do you think they want me to blog about this topic?" It's not really obvious. For all I know, I could have just gotten on the wrong company distribution list after being on their website. I tend to file these under "bloggable" but never go back to my file.

    On the other hand, I had a communications professional from one of my alma maters (what's the plural of alma mater?) notice I was blogging news about the school, so she emailed me her thanks. Voila! Instant relationship created. She now periodically sends me a note with advance notice of news going onto the website with a "deep link" to the story if I decide to blog it for when it rolls off their front page. I let her know if/when I have blogged about it. Great relationship!

    To me, you can't get much more personal and relevant than this.

    Cheers,
    Connie
  • Fundamental problem is that the few PR pros who get it, really get it, and do a fine job.

    The majority though. Still no.

    I write about this pretty regularly, and am in the middle of a series called Good Pitch, Bad Pitch. If you've got any other particularly good or bad ones, I'd love them for the series.
  • Funny, I think what this person did was smart. They developed a message that was generalizable, but made people feel that it was personal. Seth sees this and then shows us that what we thought was personal was not.

    I think the only thing that could have been done to make this more authentic would be to actually read the blogger's stuff and connect (if possible) the bloggers actual interests to your clients offering.
  • @chris

    "Pitchy" or not, it's relevant. Do you have an ETA?
  • Great breakdown, Chris!

    I don't expect a PR person to personally re-write every email, but a unique opening sentence or two that shows they have an inkling as to who I am/what I do helps.

    I do agree with other commenters that I'd rather have all the information available to me in the first email so it doesn't devolve into a long process of emailing back and forth. I can always ignore the links in Email #1 if I'm not interested.

    I was sent a long, annoying email awhile back from someone asking me to pimp a Twitter Guide on their blog. They weren't following me (not to mention their experience with Twitter was extremely limited). Fail.

    Now that I'm a community evangelist, I find myself on the "other side" sometimes, and it's a bit strange. I'm connecting filmmakers with paying projects, not asking them to buy anything, and while I like to think this means my emails are more well-received, I still make sure each email is personal and I only message people whose blogs/tweets/etc. make it clear that they'd likely be interested. It's also my goal to stay connected with people after hooking them up with video gigs -- I still read their blogs, follow them on Twitter, etc. and that's the kind of relationship I would want on the flipside of that situation, too.

    This post inspired me to blog about someone else who I feel is doing a great job at communicating: http://typeas.com/blog/ryan-lee-does-it-right/
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