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[GWL]: Business and PR rant. :-)


I thought this might be useful for companies hanging out here on Garden 
Writers.  I originally wrote it as an invited "rant" for an online board at 
ClickZ.  I've toned it down and tried to make it as helpful as possible 
although it probably still sounds a little rantlike. :-)  I apologize if it 
does. These are the things I've learned about email public relations and 
the Internet.  You could subtitle it: "When Doug Green works for a pr 
agency." or "How to feed and care for Garden Writers". :-)

* * * * * * * *

To begin with, the only time I'd send a news release was if it promised to 
make a writer's work easier.  Full time writers have enough to do for 
readers, editors, advertisers and publishers already without doing my pr 
work too.  I'd include story ideas with the 5 W's in the release. (Who, 
What, When, Where, Why and I'd throw in How's as well).  I'd never send a 
news release telling you I'd just hired a new salesman if you don't write 
about personnel.  I would make sure the releases had a story angle that was 
important to your readers and not just the usual vapid "news".

I'd never send pictures via email unless you asked for them.  You'd never 
see those pr headshots the boss wanted taken.  I'd put them up on our press 
website and let you know the url in case you wanted to see them. (You 
wouldn't)

Same with flower pictures.  I'd never send them because if they're good 
enough for magazine use, they'd be way too big for many of your computer 
systems and would crash the system.  I'd put simple scans on my web pages 
but make excellent jpegs available to art directors for downloading.  Then 
I'd let you know the story angles for these pictures and give you urls.

Similarly, my news releases would never be in html.  I know that more and 
more spam is being sent out in html and the slow downloads only annoy many 
full time writers.  I also know that many computer firewalls won't let html 
code through so the news releases and letters wind up looking like junk 
code rather than the professional look I'm trying to achieve. Many of you 
don't yet know this, so my simple text story releases would be used and 
you'd be still wondering why your fancy work is being lost.

         Attachments would not be part of my vocabulary.  Attachments carry 
bugs that do nasty things to computers.  I'd send text information in the 
body of the message and ensure you could read the lead sentence when you 
opened your email.  I know that if you can't read that lead, you're likely 
to erase the entire news release without scrolling down.  You're prone to 
do that on Monday mornings so most of my releases would go out later in the 
week.  I'd test all releases by sending them to myself first to make sure 
they work before I'd send them out to the network.

         I'd ask you before sending you email.  I know that unwanted email 
is called spam and even though you're a garden writer, you may not want to 
know about my newest lawn gizmos.  You might be upset if I just added you 
to my newsletter without your permission so I'm going to write you a nice 
letter first  asking you if I can add your name to the list.  If I can't 
convince you to take my free email information about gardening, I would 
rewrite my sales letter (quickly).

         I'd have a database of contact names.  Some of them get plant news 
releases, some would get  personnel changes or plant sales 
information.  Some would get story ideas, some would even get story ideas 
with visual suggestions.  My database would tell me who to send what 
information and I'd tailor that information to the person receiving the 
data.  That's the power of the computer and the Net.

I'd never use the cc key when sending out releases  That shows all the 
addresses to everybody who gets the message.  These can be very 
embarrassing to the person sending the note. Instead I'd use list 
management software.

         It's a small thing, but I'd insist that all the business cards in 
the organization be changed.  I want them to have a blank space along the 
bottom of the card so when the rolodex hole punch works its magic, vital 
information like email or telephone numbers are not neatly chopped 
out.  This will be irrelevant soon as more and more of you change to PDA's 
with electronic sharing of data.  I'd have a PDA.

         I'd want to keep you as informed about my business as I could and 
I want to send you story ideas that are relevant to your geographical 
season.  I'd send them out quarterly and give you a full range of ideas 
along with urls to graphics so that at least one would strike your 
fancy.  Knowing that you have to write 52 columns a year, I'd like to try 
to give you 16 stories (4 each quarter) to make your job easier.

         And that's the key  as a pr person I want to make the writer's job 
easier so they'll write about my clients.  As a former management 
consultant and salesman, I know that you don't want any barrier between 
your client and the sale.  As a pr agent, I'd feel the same way  my 
objective is to remove barriers between the writer and the story that needs 
to be told.  My client's story.

End of rant.  Doug :-)
Douglas Green,
Freelance writing: You've got a story to tell - I can write it.
http://www.simplegiftsfarm.com/clips/clipmaster.htm
Tell your friends - a free gardening newsletter at http://www.gardenbrew.com

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