This is a screen shot of a real press release than landed in my inbox recently. I’ve taken off the name of the unfortunate public relations executive because I don’t want to embarrass them because frankly this is just about one of the worst examples of PR I have ever been sent.
It is typical of the mass-send-out style of PR. It starts with Good Afternoon (name) and presumably it was supposed to say Good afternoon Liz, but they forgot to change it before sending to me.
Didn’t really make me warm to the message. Neither did the subject title which popped up in my inbox of Pump Sales Direct entice me to click on it…
So perhaps two major learning points if you are sending out press releases. Firstly, make sure it is individual rather than a mass send out – change the content to suit the journalist or editor if need be. Secondly, make sure you have something enticing in the subject line.
Perhaps, it’s also worth adding that this is not the type of subject matter I even cover. So thirdly, make sure the person you are sending it to actually covers that sort of topic.
Then again it was so bad and dull that it did make me click on it out of disbelief that anybody could send such a shoddy release. I’m also writing about it now so maybe it was a double bluff and I’m just missing the point!