Blasting journalists with emails? Beware!
January 19, 2009 by ShannonCherry
Filed under Marketing
More and more journalists are considering press release emails spam.
At least that’s what one reporter – Josh Bernoff of Forrester’s Groundswell – feels about his own recent emails.
In his recent blog post, he names three PR ‘firms’ that have sent him emails in the past few days. He’s upset, and rightly so, since these three release have not targeted him. The sender simply sent an email out to as many journalists as possible.
I discussed a bit about targeting last month, but it seems some haven’t heeded my warning.
So let’s get a bit deeper.
Reporters want your news, if it’s what they are already covering. Blasting emails to everyone on your list doesn’t work. And could get you publicly humiliated.
How do you find the journalists who want your information? That takes work – and you must be willing to put in the work (or hire a good public relations person) to do it for you. Here are the basics:
- Monitor the news outlets you would like to target
- Find reporters who are covering your beat consistently
- Reach out to those journalist via PHONE first. Find out if they truly are the ideal person for your pitch.
- Find out how they would like to receive your news. Then deliver good releases!
Image credit: chotda, on Flickr
