PR Advice for Professionals

Too Lazy To Make A News List

by Patty

An obvious key to being successful in the PR world is configuring a news list that pertains specifically to each one of your clients. It is a lengthy process to trim your list down to include people that actually care about your client’s news and look forward to receiving it.

In the past, sending out news releases could be pricey – not anymore. All you have to do is gather up some e-mail addresses, as many as you please, and shoot them out all over the world free of charge.

Seth Godin covered this topic on his blog in October and said, “The smart PR folks (the successful ones) struggle to make their lists smaller and smaller. The lazy ones just try to make them bigger.”

Calling John Doe

Despite our continued journey into the new age of technology, the key to a good PR firm will always rest on its ability to build strong relationships.

If you have a client that is dying to be placed in a monthly real estate magazine, do some research and find out some contact information for its editor (let us say his name is John Doe).

Instead of adding Mr. Doe to your client’s real estate news list and inundating him with e-mails from a person that he has never met, take the old-fashioned route.

Email Jon Doe personally, or (heaven forbid!) call him and introduce yourself. Your chances of actually placing your client in the publication increase exponentially if you get to know him and express that you are around to make his life easier.

Beware of Being Lazy

As simple as this approach sounds, there are PR firms across the world that don’t find the time to do this. Some might argue that it is to save time while others would call it LAZY.

Chris Anderson works for Wired Magazine and gets hundreds of PR-related e-mails every day. Let’s just say he is not a fan of the lazy PR professional.

So, pick up your phone and call someone to avoid landing on a list just like this!

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