In the PR Industry, we often hear about PR flacks sending out mass emails to reporters hoping that a few people will pick up on their boring pitch. I have always tried to avoid spamming reporters with untargeted pitches, but I've never truly been able to empathize with them until now.
What happened?
A few weeks ago I decided I wanted to start up my own website. I purchased a domain, but then soon realized I would need some HTML and CSS help. I decided to put up a short and specific ad on Craigslist with what I wanted: HTML design help and a flat rate of $50 for the work put in.
What did I receive?
To date, I've had over 50 responses to the brief ad...and most of them are entirely irrelevant to what I posted. As they came pouring in I was left wondering "Didn't these people read my ad? Why are 90% of these emails copy & paste jobs?"
Most responses:
I would estimate that about 90% of the respondents saw that I was looking for web design help didn't read the rest of the ad. They copy and pasted their pitch and sent it on over to me. Most of them charge anywhere from $300 to $3000 per web page built. Does that sound like something I would be interested in? Also, a few of these people who sent me bad pitches followed up with again after I didn't respond to them. If I was interested in a $1500 web page, believe me I would have responded.
Another 5% sent me an email that was literally spam or completely irrelevant. Only 5% of the emails I received were actually genuine people who read my ad and responded sincerely.
The moral of this story should be obvious to all PR people: don't spam journalists. Keep crying wolf by sending journalists untargeted pitches and by the time you have a solid pitch for them, you will probably be on the black list.
Take this advice from Peter Shankman, which he gives before you join his HARO list:
Next: This is really the only thing I ask: By joining this list, just promise me and yourself that you'll ask yourself before you send a response: Is this response really on target? Is this response really going to help the journalist, or is this just a BS way for me to get my client in front of the reporter? If you have to think for more than three seconds, chances are, you shouldn't send the response.
In the end, we could probably all stand to do this a bit more, huh?