E-mail Blast Disaster
Every publicist has made them over the years, some minor and only noticed by them, others major and noticed by pretty much every PR and media journalist in the world. At Allpublicists.com, we will look at some of the more memorable ones and work out how – if at all – they can be salvaged and what could have been done to avoid them in the first place.
We’ll start with this example, reported in The Guardian. This is a classic know-your-audience mistake.
James Max is a 39-year-old ex-banker and property expert who finished 4th in the British version of The Apprentice in 2005. Since then he has appeared regularly on British radio as a financial and business expert. Assume for a moment that James was your client. What areas would you consider highlighting in your pitch? Which websites, magazines and shows would most likely be interested in booking James? Which contacts in your book would be first on your list?
What about People, Vogue, OK!, US Weekly, or Star?
Probably not but their British equivalents were all targeted by a publicist called Hawar Shawki – actually an intern, along with over 800 other reporters, editors and journalists from across the UK.
Hawar wrote a pretty bland press release about James and his achievements and emailed it out with little specific tailoring to his audience, pushing James’ availability for providing quotes on business and financial issues.
So far so lazy but Hawar’s big mistake was to copy the email addresses of every journalist into the CC box of the email, not BCC. Now every other journalist who receives the release can also see who else has received it.
Word gets out and many of the other journalists start emailing back everybody else on the list with their own jokes and comments and by the end of the day a Facebook Group is set up with over 300 members dedicated to Hawar’s mistake!
Hawar’s main error was a technical one, not a PR one, in that he put the addresses in the wrong box but this should also have given him a clue as to what he was doing wrong. Every release or pitch to a media outlet or blog should be individually written and tailored specifically for that outlet – each has a different audience and make-up, style, tone etc and if you can’t be bothered to research your audience sufficiently on behalf of your client then why should they be bothered to use your client in any way?
Conversely though, James Max is now the most famous business and financial expert in the UK and if any of the titles did have a need for expert comment then at least his name would be pretty close to the top of their lists. Hawar himself should take himself out of the firing line for a week and keep his head down when he gets back to work. Nobody will remember this in a week or so and he will be able to get back to his job but he will hopefully learn his lesson and won’t send out any more generic pitches to all and sundry. It might also be an idea for him to open a new email address as it is likely that the one he sent the release from will be blocked by many recipients.
If you are a company looking for positive publicity or PR then you can’t rely on serendipity to get your message out there any more than you can lean out of a window and shout your latest news into the air hoping a journalist is passing by at the time.
Allpublicists.com is the simple, efficient, one-stop shop to place your free advertisement outlining your specific needs and then you just sit back and pick one of the many experienced and expert publicists with access to the database to contact you. It’s that simple.
Alternatively, you could take a page out of Hawar’s book and email every publicist in America but we really wouldn’t recommend it – unless you want a Facebook support group all of your very own!
