A-Z Guide of PR and Social Media
Paula Gardner, gives us a peek into her new book with an extract from the A-Z of Growing Your Business through Press, Networking, and Social Media
F is for FREELANCERS
Getting hold of good freelance contact details is one of the biggest challenges of PR. As they don't work from the office it's almost impossible to reach them by phone, and of course, most publications will never give out their contact details. However, building a good list of freelancers on your media list is vital. So, how can you do this?
RESPOND TO MEDIA REQUESTS
You can sometimes see posts from the press in online forums or networking groups. Often they will be asking for case studies or, in some cases, experts on a particular subject. Responding to these, or just keeping the journalist's details if they are relevant, is one way to build up your freelance contacts. It can be time consuming to trawl through forums and web posts to find these, so I set up the Divine Publicity Club to do just that. I find these media requests and send them straight into your inbox and you can action them at once. Check out the www.doyourownpr.com website for details.
BUY A LIST
This works best with niche journalists who have their own association or group such as the Circle of Wine Writers or Guild of Travel Writers. You can purchase a list of members and get a good pre-qualified list. These can sometimes add up to a few hundred pounds so, if you know someone who would also be targeting the same list, make a joint purchase and share the cost.
LOOK AT THE PUBLICATIONS
Some publications, especially national newspapers, actually do print a freelancer's email address at the bottom of an article. Often it's a generic [email protected] but it's better than nothing.
POST IT
Things sent in the post have more chance of being sent on than emails.
GOOGLE OR FACEBOOK THEM
Freelancers are business people, just like you and me, and most of them have their own websites to sell their writing wares. So, if you've seen an article by a particular writer that you want to contact try Googling them, or seeing if they've got a Facebook page.
J is for JUNK MAIL
You've spent a day on the release, honed it to perfection, sourced some great pictures, pressed send and then it speeds out into the world and ends up as junk mail or spam, in over half of your press list's inboxes. Not the scenario you wanted is it?
And the fact that most journalists work for large organisations that will have their own spam filters and firewalls may make it even harder not to fall into the trap.
Whilst I don't think you can ever make your email 100% safe from being marked down as spam, here are some suggestions that I have come across to help ensure that your email reaches the inbox of the person you intended. Whether they read it or not is another matter...
- Spam email filters and junk email traps do not declare their rules, and they are always changing, but you can start off by looking at your own spam filter and trying to work out what made those emails end up in it.
- Definitely avoid terms like free and cheapest.
- A personal "Hi Fiona...etc" at the beginning, with an even more personal sentence to follow might help.
- Make sure you have an unsubscribe option on your list. Most online database providers (like Constant Contact) have these already. Indeed, with Constant Contact you can actually assess your email and see its spam rating and how likely it is to fall foul of spam detectors.
- If you're sending it out from a personal account send it to a few trusted friends or colleagues to see if it reaches their inbox first.
- Keep contact regular but not overbearing. Daily emails are too much, unless it's to a group that has specifically signed up for them.
- I know that when I did my newsletter in text format it reached a lot more people. It seems that spam filters are often triggered by things like logos, formatting and photos. So, if you are doing a HTML newsletter or press release I'd suggest trying to keep it as clean as possible.
- You can post it online and send the recipients a short message with a link telling them to click here for the latest news. Whilst this may work well with a newsletter list, I'm not sure it would be a great idea for press, unless they specifically knew your name and would click out of curiosity.
- Leave off the attachments. If you've got great photos tell them to email you for them or post them online where they can download them in the format they need.
Finally here are some of the warning bells that one spam filter looks out for:
- Body of message incorporates a tracking ID number
- Body of message contains a large block of hexadecimal code
- Body of message contains one or more lines of "YELLING" (i.e., all-caps)
- Message includes Microsoft executable program
- Message body has at least 70 percent blank lines
- Message header indicates message was sent directly from dynamic IP address
- Message From field appears to not contain a real name
- Message From field ends in numbers
- Message header contains numbers mixed in with letters
- Message subject includes the term "offer"
- Message to: field contains spaces
- Message Reply to field is empty
- Subject has exclamation mark and question mark
- Subject is ALL-CAPS
- Message subject starts with an advertising tag
- Message From: field contains the term "friend"
- Subject contains "As Seen"
- Subject starts with dollar amount
- Subject contains "Double Your"
- Subject contains "For Only"
- Subject contains "FREE"
- Subject contains "Free Instant"
- Message contains excessive images without much text
- Message body contains the term "nobody's perfect"
- Message body claims not to be spam
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