We live in a world awash with information. Conversely, finding good quality information is a real challenge. That’s a big part of my job, cutting through the crap to provide the readers of The Concrete Producer the bits that matter to you. In pursuit of this objective, I receive hundreds of emails each day, many of them pitching something. Please publish our stuff, they say, it’s important.
Of course it’s not all important, at least not to TCP’s audience. So I pick and choose among all the press releases, newsletters, new product announcements, and project case studies that I receive. And with the volume of content the decision is made rather quickly—perhaps sometimes too quickly. So I throw the responsibility back to the sender—you’re going to have to catch my attention right away in your email or else one click and it’s in the trash and I’m on to something else.
Recently I made a presentation to a group of people who are promoting their organizations and wanted insight into how to get their content published. Here are a few of the tips I provided:
- Understand the media outlet’s audience and don’t send irrelevant information. For example, a manufacturer announces that it is opening a new dealership in Moose Lake, Minnesota. Do I care?
- Provide a preview of what the press release is about in the email. If I have to open the press release to learn what it’s about, that may not happen.
- Send content I can use without much extra effort. If I have to pull it out of a PDF file or do a lot of editing to cut the 15 times a product is mentioned, it might sit in the inbox for a long time.
- Send good photos—poor quality photography will kill a news item while good photography might get something published that would otherwise be marginal.
- You can pitch a product, but do it in context. Show me why it is valuable don’t just tell me how great it is.
- Email is the best way—you can call to follow up but if you call all the time to pitch something I don’t really want, I’ll soon stop answering.
- And always tell the truth. If I discover that there are untruths (also known as lies) in some content, that will be the end of it for me.
If you’d like a copy of my full list of tips, send me an email.
