Ten things we’d like from PR folks
In the olden days, getting news meant going to trade shows or being sent press releases, via the US Postal service. Not anymore. At any given day, I wade through several hundred press releases from numerous sources. That’s time consuming. I can’t blame marketing and PR folks for trying to get the word out because it’s all about getting noticed and making the sale. But not all PR activities are as productive as they should and could be. So below are some of my pet peeves.
1. Announcing products as if they were new when, in fact, they are not — Some companies have the bad habit of cranking out “news” releases simply to draw attention to themselves. They may, for example, announce a new line of rugged panel computers. Only, there’s nothing new about them. They have been part of the lineup for a long time. That’s a waste of everyone’s time. And it means we won’t take their news releases serious anymore.
2. Announcing products without backup information — We frequently get news releases that describe exciting new products. But when we go to the company’s website, the new product isn’t listed yet. What gives? Are we supposed to simply regurgitate what the press release said without actually seeing the product and its specs? Not going to happen.
3. Facebooktwitteritis — Social media can be great, but having to track down and piece together everything on Facebook and Twitter and Google+ and LinkedIn and Tumblr and Pinterest…, it can be a real drag. Especially when it means neglecting the one place where all the news SHOULD be, like the company’s website. We now routinely see abandoned company news pages. That is frustrating and looks really bad.
4. Clueless and bloated press releases — We realize that the great majority of the media will simply reprint what it says in a press release. But that is no excuse for dumbing down press releases or spiking them with meaningless hyperbole. While, at least in the tech sector, the facts are usually correct, it’s annoying to see every company described as “leading,” every product as “innovative,” every update as “productivity enhancing,” and so on and so on. It simply means that we have to surgically remove all that verbal bloat to distill things down to its meaningful essence.
5. Announcing phantom products — Some companies announce products that are real. You can buy them the day they are announced, or shortly thereafter. Others announce products that are little more than wishful thinking. Those products tend to have awesome features, great pricing, and great advantages over the competition. That’s because they don’t really exist. No one should do that.
6. The missing pictures — Not all press releases need to include pictures, but many should. In many instances, a picture says more than a thousand words. And since that’s the case, help us media folks out and includes professional quality shots that we can actually use. It greatly helps us help you spread the word.
7. Advance warning — News releases are usually coordinated and many have an “embargo date.” That’s to keep getting news out before it should, not an easy task in an era of gossip sites that all seek to blurt out news whether it’s embargoed or not. That makes it difficult for those of us who honor embargo dates. There’s nothing more frustrating for me than to learn of a great new product in our field the morning it is released. That means I have to drop everything else and quickly cobble a news item or a product page together. It’d be so much nicer if those of us who honor embargoes would get the news beforehand so that we can do the new product justice when it is released.
8. Review samples — Often, the only way to truly describe a product to interested parties and potential customers is to have hands on with it. At RuggedPCReview.com, for example, we pride ourselves in creating extremely detailed product reviews that show and explain the product. We provide feedback to manufacturers and do whatever we can to provide what press releases can’t: detail and a third party opinion. So please be upfront with us what we can and cannot get in terms of review product. In the niche tech press, we fully understand that a paragraph in USA Today or CNN, or a couple of paragraphs in the high-viz tech gossip sites may be more important than our far more detailed analysis. We get that. What we need in return is clear communication.
9. Don’t call my cell — I love my iPhone, but I don’t like being interrupted in my work ten times an hour by someone telling me about the latest product of their client that’s not even in my field. And I don’t like calls asking whether I received the email they sent an hour ago. Most of us press folks have stated our preferences in how we like to be contacted. Please honor that.
10. And some stuff that’s a bit more difficult — In the rugged computing industry, there are many companies that sell products, but there are only a few true manufacturers. There are also many shades of gray. A product concept may originate somewhere, be executed somewhere else, and then built in a third place. Even for us here at RuggedPCReview.com it’s not always easy to figure out if a company really makes a product, or if it simply puts its name on it, or whether it’s somewhere between. It’s be really good to have some more transparency here, even if it’s not necessarily for publication.
11. Feedback — We realize that PR folks have lots of customers and can’t always respond to notifications that we did, indeed, follow up on what they sent us, or perhaps even covered it in significant detail. But if we do go the extra mile and put up, for example, a detailed review, some feedback would be good.