A version of this blog post appeared on the Future Buzz on January 17, 2012.
Chris Abraham recently published a case study on the “art of writing the perfect blogger pitch.” There’s a lot to like here. For one, the time and thought Chris and his team devote to this esoterica are rare. For another, spilling your trade secrets takes guts.
And yet, for a purportedly “perfect” pitch, the Abraham Harrison technique, approach, and diction leave much to be desired. Here’s why (in web-friendly fashion, via a list with headings).
1. Spam. In a classic act of burying the lead, Chris notes, “We reach out cold to upwards of 5,000 bloggers at a time.” This is perhaps the most disappointing aspect of Chris’s technique. After all, anyone can subscribe to a database such as Vocus or Cision, select key audiences and areas, compile a media list, and blast out a pitch. Industry insiders call this the “spray and pray” technique. Others know it as a form letter. The bottom line: it’s spam.
By contrast, another technique is to craft individual messages to specific bloggers. Take it away, Lisa Barone:“You know you’re sending the same e-mail to 20 people. I know you’re sending the same e-mail to 20 people. But sometimes you gotta fake it to make me feel special and pretty … Woo me … Talk about how you grew up in the same hometown (only if you really did). Comment on a post I wrote that gave you a bad case of the giggles, or how you think my Twitter feed should come with an NC-17 rating … I’ll be a lot more receptive once you’ve” connected with me personally.
2. WITFM. The best PR makes it appear as if you’re doing a favor for the person you’re pitching, letting him in on something important and intriguing. By contrast, Chris makes it clear that he’s the one requesting a favor: “If you are able to post about this issue in any form, it would really help spread the message of homelessness in its many diverse forms and maybe suggest ways to help improve many lives.”
Leave the guilt trips for Willy Loman. Instead, demonstrate the WITFM—“what’s in it for me?” To wit, don’t tell me why homelessness matters; tell me why my readers will care about it.
3. Subject line. Everyone agrees that your subject line is critical, so it’s surprising that Chris’s—“November Is National Homelessness Month”—is so boring. (As a colleague puts it, “It’s about as ‘perfect’ as an event notice whose headline reads, ‘Mark Your Calendars.’”)
To be sure, Chris seems to think this is a virtue; he explains, “We want [our subject lines] to be as neutral and as informational as possible. Teasing or tricking a blogger into opening [the e-mail] by being cute, mysterious, or clever … has almost always blown up in our faces.”
This is myopic: you need not sacrifice cleverness to be straightforward. While “Help Feed Homeless Children!” may be exploitative, a line like “What Are You Doing for National Homelessness Month?” is catchy without being too cute.
4. Intro. Chris refers to his opening paragraph as “poetry,” labored over by a team of three. But again, his copy is a snooze-fest:
“November is National Homelessness Month and I’m reaching out to you to discuss the issue of homelessness in America. I’m also hoping that you’ll discuss this issue with the readers of <<Blog Name>>. I am a volunteer at a small kitchen for the homeless in DC and while working there it occurred to me that this issue affects every town, village, and city in America.
This is the best a powerhouse like Abraham Harrison can do? Sure, it’s clear, but it’s nothing special, and it’s hardly inspiring. Indeed, not only does it lack cadence and cohesion; it also lacks commas.
5. Astroturfing. For each campaign, Chris creates a new e-mail address with its own domain. In this case, he’s using cjabraham@MiriamsKitchenNews.org, which is separate from the “real” Miriam’s Kitchen domain, MiriamsKitchen.org. This is problematic for various reasons.
a. Let’s give Chris the benefit of the doubt and assume that “bloggers don’t trust PR firms.” This is why his signature says “on behalf of Miriam’s Kitchen,” rather than Abraham Harrison. Yet there’s no getting around the fact that masking your employer is deceptive.
By contrast, consider the total-transparency approach taken by New Media Strategies: when its employees do something as simple as retweet something from a client, they’re required to use the hash tag “#client.” Ultimately, shying away from full disclosure only gives the PR industry a bad rep.
b. Given a limited budget and limited time, creating and managing a new e-mail address domain is a poor allocation of resources.
c. In this case, Abraham Harrison created an entire microsite at http://MiriamsKitchenNews.org. But, again, most campaigns can’t afford this expenditure, so what happens then? Do you leave MiriamsKitchenNews.org empty? Do you redirect it to your own firm’s site? Do you throw up a simple landing page that repurposes your pitch e-mail?
d. What happens if, six months from now, someone you contacted replies? (We’ve all received one of these e-mails.) If you’re not still checking cjabraham@miriamskitchennews.org, does the sender get a bounce-back or an auto-reply? Or nothing? If you are still checking cjabraham@miriamskitchennews.org, given that you’re creating a new address for each campaign, I envy your endurance in monitoring what must be dozens of addresses. And to complicate matters further, what do you do with these addresses when your contract with the given client expires?
6. URLs. Chris deliberately omits the “http://” prefix in links; he says that e-mail clients will auto-activate incomplete URLs. While Gmail is sophisticated enough to do this, many other e-mail clients are not. This inability is especially damaging when a message arrives in plain text, which is the only form Chris sends.
Not many people will gladly share 3,000 words on the subject of e-mail communications. For that, Chris deserves gratitude and respect.
He also offers important insights, especially the one that a good pitch will spark a conversation. In that spirit, he’s agreed to respond to my critique.
So, Chris, over to you. How can two pros who’ve been working with bloggers for so long reach such divergent conclusion?
Enjoy this post? There’s more where this came from on Twitter, where I challenge sacred cows 140 characters at a time @jrick.
A version of this blog post appeared on the Bad Pitch Blog on October 5, 2011.
Practice deftness, not deafness
In a recent blog post, Chris Brogan describes a scenario familiar to anyone not living under a rock: “Today, I sheepishly deleted several e-mails … that were waiting for a quick response … Dozens. Maybe 100 overall. So that means almost 100 people got my attention, got me to read something, got me to think that maybe I should do something,” and then never heard back.
Why does this happen so often to so many? Brogan’s diagnosis is convincing: Because “we don’t fully understand the syntax of saying ‘no.’”
He offers a graceful example of how to construct this elusive sentence: “What you’re doing is important, and I’m very supportive of you, but I’m not able to take on what you’d like me to do because of my own full plate of commitments.”
In other words: Thanks, but no thanks.
Amen.
Whether in business or romance or friendship, surely most of us would prefer the certainty of being rejected to the uncertainty—and looming false hope—of being ignored. To be sure, no reply typically is a reply, just as postponing a decision is a decision. But there’s no getting around the fact that silence stings.
Sadly, this sting is all-too-common among those you’d think would know e-etiquette by heart: PR pros. As workday spinners, we’re paid to frame the conversation, to help a particular perspective prevail. So it’s bemusing that when we confront this challenge in our own lives, we shrink from it instead of enlisting the opportunity. After all, what better way to demonstrate our savvy, our tact, our profession?
No likes to deliver bad news. It’s unpleasant and messy. Yet it’s also the hallmark of a professional. And as Brogan demonstrates, you can apologize, explain, and decline all in just 32 words.
That shows the opposite of rudeness. That shows character.
Mention the phrase “blogger engagement” to today’s marketer, and you’re likely to get an eager response, followed by self-professed ignorance. “We’d love to do that—we just don’t know how.”
To some, this scenario spells new business. (In part, this explains why manyagenciesseparate their “digital” practice from their traditional ones.) Yet an honest blogger whisperer will let you in on a secret: If you can pitch a reporter, producer, or booker, you can pitch a blogger. After all, bloggers are just people—susceptible to the same charm-and-disarm techniques that every PR pro performs every day.
Indeed, the best way to understand bloggers is to view them as members of the media. Think of blogger engagement as public relations, albeit a new kind. Neither straight reporter nor pure pundit, the blogger is a hybrid creature who observes his own rules.
For example, you wouldn’t pitch the Joe Fridays at NYTimes.com, whose practices would make the Columbia School of Journalism proud, the same way you’d pitch the wits at Gawker Media, who aspire to an “angry-creative-underclass voice.” Instead, in order to get the results you want, it would behoove you to treat bloggers on their terms, not your own.
Here are nine of these terms—with the caveat that only after you know the rules is it ok to break them.
1. Write As if Your E-mail Will Be Published
Think of this as Joe Kennedy 101. The patriarch of the Kennedy family famously advised his children not to write “anything down that you wouldn’t want published on the front page of the New York Times.”
Indeed, if your pitch is good, your blogger may integrate your copy into his verbatim, without acknowledging his source. If you pitch is bad, your blogger may forward it to the Bad Pitch Blog. As SHIFT Communications advises, “If you pitch isn’t good enough to be published as is, don’t send it.”
2. Connect and Flatter
Think of this as Psychology 101. Like most things in life, blogger engagement is built on relationships. And relationships that flourish tend to sprout from common interests. As Lisa Barone, of Outspoken Media, advises (my emphasis):
“Snuggle me a little. You know you’re sending the same e-mail to 20 people. I know you’re sending the same e-mail to 20 people. But sometimes you gotta fake it to make me feel special and pretty … Woo me … Talk about how you grew up in the same hometown (only if you did). Comment on a post I wrote that gave you a bad case of the giggles, or how you think my Twitter feed should come with an NC-17 rating … I’ll be a lot more receptive once you’ve stroked my ego.”
In other words, your initial message is your opportunity to demonstrate that you’ve done more than copy and paste the blogger’s name and e-mail address. Show that you’ve taken the time to learn about this guy and are familiar with his work. Show that you’re someone worth engaging with.
A related point. Blogging is a personal and relational medium, so send e-mail blasts only when you must. Ask yourself: Do you treat messages in which you’re CCed differently from those in which you’re the only recipient?
3. Make Your Pitch
Think of this as Public Relations 101. The secret to PR: Make the blogger feel as though you’re doing him a favor, not asking for one yourself. Explain why the blogger should care about what you’re throwing him.
4. Exude Enthusiasm
Think of this as Showmanship 101. If you aren’t jumping for joy about what you’re pitching, your recipient won’t be, either. Enthusiasm is contagious. Spread it around.
5. Don’t Pitch—Talk
Think of this as Communications 101. Hacks have long relied on flacks. But bloggers, especially in tier one, tend to look at PR people askance. As Nick Denton, founder of Gawker Media, puts it, “Our sites are allergic to corporate boilerplate.”
This is understandable. For one, while it’s common to spam a hundred reporters with a press release, bloggers loathe releases. Instead, omit the manufactured quotes and summarize the key points—maybe in bullets for easy reading.
6. Be Brief
We live in an era of texts and tweets. According to blogger Brian Solis, “The escalator is the new elevator when it comes to pitching.” To wit: You now need to be both succinct and brief. This means resisting the urge to cram everything into a single message.
Instead of attaching PDFs and PowerPoints, use links generously. Your goal is to whet your blogger’s appetite, to spur an ongoing conversation, rather than a once-and-done correspondence.
7. Make the Ask
Think of this as Sales 101. Before you close the deal, you need to make it clear what the deal is. In the same way, don’t forget to tell your blogger why you’re e-mailing him. If you’re looking for him to write something, say so.
If you’re just introducing yourself or asking for feedback, say that. Be explicit without being Donald Trump.
8. Exploit the Subject Line
Think of this as Marketing 101. Most people devote all their energy to crafting a compelling pitch, then wrap their labor in a cheap bow. That is, they treat the subject lines of their e-mail as an afterthought.
Big mistake. Your subject line is an opportunity. Like the headline of an article, its point is to persuade the reader to continue onward. Accordingly, make sure that your subject line does your body text justice.
9. Practice Full Disclosure
Someone’s paying you to talk with bloggers, a fact it behooves you to disclose. Some experts would advise you to begin your e-mail with something like, “Hi, I’m Jon Rick. I do online communications for the Department of Labor.” Others suggest that your signature block serve as your introduction.
Whatever you prefer, remember that not only is transparency important in itself. Transparency also breeds trust.
In one e-mail, Mercurio offered to help write and place an op-ed if the recipient, blogger Chris Soghoian, would lend his name to it. The savvy Soghoian asked who was bankrolling the campaign, and when Mercurio declined to say, Soghoian made the e-mails public.
What makes this incident interesting is that on one hand, Mercurio did many things right. He used a descriptive subject line: “Op-Ed Opportunity: Google Quietly Launches Sweeping Violation of User Privacy.” His first sentence succinctly and directly summarized the ask. He provided a list of talking points, each supported by a link to an independent sources. And his offer was tantalizing: Who in DC wouldn’t want a byline in the Washington Post?
On the other hand, Mercurio’s pitch suffered from fundamental flaws. He made no effort to connect with Soghoian. He employed the tone of a pitch rather than a conversation. And he refused to disclose his client—a fatal fuse that Soghoian knew to light.
Three minutes after he received the e-mail, Soghoian replied. “Who’s paying for this?” he asked.
The obvious lesson here is the “absolute importance” of transparency, as Burson later said in a statement. But what got lost in the ensuing brouhaha were the positive qualities of Mercurio’s pitch. How, then, do you build on Mercurio’s good practices while avoiding his bad ones?
A version of this blog post appeared on the Rock Creek Blog on January 26, 2011.
Last month, TechCrunch reported that the popular bookmarking site, Delicious, is trapped in “purgatory”: Owner Yahoo wants to sell the property, but in a way that protects Yahoo’s proprietary’s technology that Delicious shares with the rest of the purple family. Yet whatever its fate, Delicious continues to offer a service that’s not only superior to the competition but that also should be part of every digital PR toolkit. Here’s why.
Quick: Your client asks you for a list of articles about X. You’ve been sent many of these articles before—whether through Google Alerts, forwarded links, or even hard copies—yet unless you’re paying to use a service such as Vocus, you likely haven’t been compiling clips. What do you do?
The first three options suffer from at least one of the following headaches: They’re expensive, time-consuming, cumbersome, inefficient, or stovepiped. By contrast, option four—social bookmarking—is free, easy, powerful, and centralized.
This last point is especially important. It means that your data aren’t walled-off on an internal hard drive, but stored in the cloud. No longer do you need to be in the office to access a shared drive or beg the IT department for admin privileges; you just need access to Delicious.com.
As for the “social” part of bookmarking, not only are your clips public (unless you choose otherwise), but Delicious also allows you to see who else is logging the same articles. You then can “friend” these folks and use their links to broaden your reading sources.
To be sure, Delicious isn’t heaven. It works only with articles that appeared somewhere online. It stores only an excerpt rather than the full text. And it can’t sort by publication date. Yet, if nothing else, isn’t bookmarking better than what you’re doing now?
A version of this blog post appeared on Digital Flacking on March 23, 2008.
The below excerpts come from e-mails between Marshall Manson, of Edelman, and Rob Port of the Say Anything blog. They span a two-month period in 2006, though the first four selections all come from the same, original e-mail.
1. The intro (establish credibility and disclose who you are):
Rob: Hello. I hope you’re well. I just wanted to drop you a line and introduce myself. I’m a blogger myself (I contribute to Confirm Them and Human Events’ blogs among others), but for my day job—I do online public affairs for Wal-Mart, working with Mike Krempasky who runs Redstate.com.
2. The flattery (show familiarity with the blogger’s work):
3. The FYI (connect your client’s interests to the blogger’s interests):
As you probably know, Washington-based union bosses have been running a campaign against Wal-Mart. And it’s always a challenge when opponents organize to attack corporations. The companies always seem to have one arm tied behind their backs when they try to respond, so it’s nice to see folks like you defending them when it’s the right thing to do.
4. The ask (intriguing but soft):
If you’re interested, I’d like to drop you the occasional update with some newsworthy info about the company and an occasional nugget that that you won’t hear about in the MSM. Let me know.
5. The caveat:
(BTW—I hate to ask, but if the temptation arises, please resist the urge to cut and paste text from this. Others have fallen into that trap, and I’d be sick if someone ripped you because they noticed a couple of bloggers with nearly identical posts.)
6. The follow-up (I’m here for you; don’t hesitate):
I’m looking forward to continuing to send little nuggets your way. And, as always, we want this to be a conversation. So your questions, suggestions and rants are always welcome and encouraged.
Posted by Jonathan Rick in 
Before entering the digital space…
I flacked for the American Conservative Union and the Cato Institute, and reported for Time magazine and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.