When Doing PR For Anti-Spam Firm... Don't Spam

netbuzz writes "Rule #1 when doing PR for an antispam vendor: Don't spam. This isn't exactly brain surgery, yet the fellow at a PR agency called Rocket Science managed to violate Rule #1 while attempting to drum up publicity for Singlefin, which provides e-mail, IM and Web filtering services to the likes of Juno and NetZero. He also violated Rules #2 and #3." Given the hundreds of press releases I get in my inbox on a weekly basis, PR folks in general need to learn that lesson regardless of their clients.

Perfect Marketing

[PylonHead]

Actually if you have an anti-spam product, then advertising it by spamming is the perfect strategy.

You'll only reach the customers that need your product.

Is that spam?

[The-Bus]

Given the hundreds of press releases I get in my inbox on a weekly basis, PR folks in general need to learn that lesson regardless of their clients.

Which inbox... your personal or your business one? Your personal one shouldn't get any PR material. But your business one... well, that's just how the world works. Businesses will get mail targeted for what they are doing. That at least is relevant. I have a tad bit more patience for relevant advertising mail than for "be$t CIA1is softabs!" and Rolex replicas.

Press Releases aren't, they're just tedious. And everyone writes them. Even OSDN and OSTG [google.com]. And considering you are a news source, consider it a blessing that you get press releases; it confirms your relevance. Plus, every once in a while, you'll find one that's actually interesting.

*hangs head*

[blinder]

while i do not work in pr, my degree *clears throat* is in public relations... and if there's one thing our school taught is... learn to question your bosses/managers/clients. i mean, to be an effective pr person, you have to be able to ask questions like "well, gee, sending a spam might not be the best for our reputation."

now, in the case of this particular story -- the pr person who prepared this is just, i believe, a moron. the other thing we were taught in pr is that every news organization has something akin to a "wall of shame." these are places where stupid/poorly written/misdirected/etc. releases get posted for all (in the newsroom) to laugh at. this fact is always a motivator for a pr person to get it right (at least one who wants to do a good job).

included with this is the knowledge that just about every journalst/editor you come across will, of course, have a superior attitude (which i always found funny - because without pr people, journalists would either not get a story or have to do a significant amount of leg work to get it, and well, journalists, also, by and large, are lazy.)

so, with all that in mind, every release has a lot riding on it, and an effective pr person knows this and just doesn't do a half-assed cluster-fuck of a job in writing or distributing releases. pr people are targets. easy targets. highly mis-understood targets, and therefor its up to the pr people to make damn sure they don't make it any easier.

Astroturfing, too

[jfengel]

The submitter is "[e-mail]"; the article is at networkworld.com. Of course nww.com is just an alias for networkworld.com. I couldn't immediately tell if buzz == Paul McNamara, but it's at least astroturfing for the site.

It wasn't a screwup - quite the contrary ...

[tomhudson]

It wan't a failure. Remember - "The only thinkg worse than bad publicity is NO publicity."

Look at it this way - with 116 emails, the guy has gotten his story onto slashdot as a front-page article. So, who are the 116 people I have to email to get the same treatment?

Re:Screw ups

[tomhudson]

If the guy was some "nobody editor" then why was his email on the list in the first place?

Pls read TFA - the "nobody editor" was bitching because his name WASN'T on the list of people it was emailed to.

All of which I might have let slide without remark if not for this final indignity: Nowhere among those 11 Network World addressees, three former employees, and 102 other journalists could I find the name that matters most: mine.

So he's bitching because ... wait for it ... he wasn't spammed!

This has got to be the WTF for the day!

Meh.

[machine of god]

I would never have heard of these people. Now I have heard of them.