I’m finding a consistent issue. Public relations folks sending press releases or pitches to bloggers, digital news organizations, or others, that don’t even include links. Out of 100 items I see, 80+ will not have links. And this is by PR firms that frankly, should know better.
Most times, people want to help you. But I can guarantee your pitch, dear PR person, will be thrown in the trash or ignored unless you include links to relevant material. I have watched in multiple situations over the past few months otherwise good stories get chucked because it’s just too much work.
With so many things coming at once, the first revision of cuts goes to all the people who have made the story difficult to put together. And social media coverage? Provide no links and you can completely forget about it. That works in real time.
Do you have an event? Have a place where you have all the information online, and even better, a place to sign up. A product reveal? Bloggers need to be able to easily get pictures of the thing.
No Excuses
The good news is that there is ZERO reasonable excuse to not do this. There’s free and cheap services – even some that integrate with email services like Constant Contact (disclosure – a PDM partner) that offer automatic archiving if you sent your press release via email. A press release isn’t the preferred link (a link in context to your site or blog is better) but it’s a start.
Let’s think about this logically. How is someone supposed to tweet, Facebook, etc. without a link to somewhere? They’re going to have to create all the content themselves. And that realistically just doesn’t happen very often. You’re making a for a much higher bar to get coverage or noticed.
Not to mention, even when writing their own material, journalists and bloggers want links to refer to. The links give their post credibility online, and obviously, some traffic to your site (not to mention, the easier you make the job, the better you’ll do).
So get more coverage for your clients – and look better yourself. Put links in your communications.
I may add some suggestions, but I’d love to hear yours on ways folks can reinforce their press releases and communications with links, knowing that at times they might not even have access to their company website for changes (a real challenge in many more businesses than you may think).
Jeremiah, my entire comment could be summed up as, “What he said.” I’m a former broadcast producer (and still sometime radio talk show) who’s now worked in public relations for 15 years. This appalls me. There is zero excuse for it. We’re not even talking about full blown social media releases. This stuff is BASIC!
On the other hand, this lack of competence gives my material far more chance of being used, posted and linked. I am a sole practitioner, not particularly technically skilled. My website has a newsroom and ALL my releases have live links. It was custom built for me and well worth the investment. To my knowledge I’m the only PR pro in my region who’s got an online newsroom for her clients like this. If I can do it, why isn’t anyone else doing it?
I’m prepping a talk on effective media relations to a new professionals group in San Diego Aug 31 and I will add this tip in my presentation. I get asked to do these a lot. It’s almost embarrassing how basic my presentations need to be. A local news service editor just told me the majority of releases he gets for news conferences fail to put the street address in the release. WTF?!? A local magazine editor just posted on Twitter that a PR person called her with a pitch, and when the editor pointed out the pitch wasn’t about anything local to our area, the PR person said, “Oh, is that what you are looking for?” She had called SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE. These people make our profession look bad. No wonder editors dread picking up the phone.
I guess it shouldn’t surprise me when I hear stories like this, but it still does. In fact, it makes me crazy. Gayle and Jeremiah…you’re both right…it’s common sense. Personally, I think it speaks to the majority of “PR” people not being trained in writing for the media, because that’s where I learned basic information like how to write for a daily, magazine, broadcast, etc. When you don’t learn that in school, you have to depend on someone else to teach you what type of stories journalists are looking for when they go pitch their editors. Unfortunately, journalists become PR practitioner trainers. It’s aggravating, to say the least. All I can say is that we’re not all like that (you already know this), and that many of us in PR share your frustration and do our best on a daily basis to help those coming into the field to not be the next person listed on the Bad Pitch Blog.