Are PR Embargoes Dead?
The embargo is one of my favorite PR tactics, but it looks like it will soon be another casualty of the Internet, if it isn’t already.
In the ooollllddd days, you could hand out embargoed news and assuming you had a good relationship with the media, the news would sit in the can until the agreed-upon [...]
3 No-No’s When You Pitch the Media By Email
Almost all journalists say they want to be pitched by email. So guess what — they are deluged with email pitches! And to make matters worse, most of them are bloated, non-news pitches that get deleted faster than you can say, “did you get my email?”
How to avoid the trash bin? That’s easy — pitch [...]
If You Can't Measure the Effectiveness of Your PR Effort , You'll Never Get to the C-Suite
Here’s your business school saying of the day: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Here’s your Catching Flack corollary of the day: “If you’re not measuring the effectiveness of your PR programs, your career path will be severely limited.”
I’ve railed recently about the lack of professional standards in our industry and how [...]
How to Keep Your Spirits Up and Boost Your Success in PR
Doing PR can be a pretty frustrating job, with endless client/boss demands, temperamental reporters and editors (and bloggers), pitching difficulties and the like. It’s a wonder any of us enjoy making a living at this at all!
Over the years, I’ve found that working in teams, brainstorming with colleagues and having the occasional bitch session with [...]
It's The Content, Not the Pipes
As this blog has noted many times, PR writing needs a major, major upgrade. On second thought, cancel that — as long as PR writing sucks, I’ll probably still be able to make a living, because I know how to string two words together.
But seriously — I would like to see the profession’s writing skills [...]
The Big PR Lesson of "Thank You For Smoking"
I finally got around to seeing “Thank You For Smoking” last week — my bad. It’s an absolute must-see for anyone in the PR industry and if I was a university PR professor, I would use this film in my course and devote a couple of weeks to watching and analyzing it. It is a [...]
The 3 Essential Skills of PR – Part 3
In my first post in this series, I laid out the three skills every PR person should have if they want to succeed:
Developing strategy
Writing
Pitching
Today, let’s talk about pitching.
At first glance, pitching might appear to be the most tactical element of PR and not one of the three essential skills. But in fact, it is the [...]
The 3 Essential Skills of PR – Part 1
There are three essential skills every PR person should have if they want to succeed:
Developing strategy
Writing
Pitching
In today’s post, let’s talk about how to be a strategist. Tomorrow and Wednesday, we’ll cover the next two.
Being a strategist is the hardest part of PR, which is why the best strategists get the big bucks and the best [...]
The 3 Essential Skills of PR – Part 2
Yesterday, I laid out the three skills every PR person should have if they want to succeed:
Developing strategy
Writing
Pitching
In yesterday’s post, I talked about being a strategist. Today, let’s talk about writing. Tomorrow, we’ll talk about pitching.
As I’ve said repeatedly on this blog, the paucity of good PR writers is baffling. It may be the single [...]