April 26, 2008

You Can Only Pitch Me In Reverse Polish Notation or Pig Latin




















  1. Good points...Of course Old Word companies would have a problem with these new age techniques. The upside for newer pitch-salesman is that they WILL be able to communicate with the WEB 2.0 world. It looks like a "evening of the playing field" to me. Out with the old and in with the new!

  2. THANKS for writing this. It needed to be said. let me add a few:

    @Rafe's pitchrant:
    Just got a PR pitch on *Plaxo*, which is even worse than getting pitched on Facebook

    great post that sums up the opinions of:
    Merlin Mann


  3. I can do regular Polish notation, but not reverse. It takes too long.

    Sorry... all of this is crap for me. Stowe, I love you, but if it's a compelling product, it shouldn't matter how they pitch as long as they get their point across in an interesting way.

    I don't care if it's an email, an instant message, or a carrier pigeon. Write it in crayon on toilet paper if you want. Show me that you have something I'm interested in. That's it. A few weeks ago I gave a great example of what NOT to do; Piggly Wiggly had a press release that buried the most compelling part of their news, and then pitched it to the wrong people. They got little coverage aside from my vivisecting of the release.

    All these dictates coming down from the mount on Techmeme-sponsored tablets are more an assertion of A-list status; "I'm too busy to deal with you unless it's via my preferred method of communication."

  4. I disagree with you here. I think you missed RWW's intention regarding the "pitch via RSS" post - what Marshall is saying, in a nutshell, is that what bloggers want is not just an inbox filled with PR. We want the opportunity to get to know the company, follow their news, and establish a more personal relationship.

    As far as twitpitch, I love the idea. Why not publicize your new product/service and give everyone the opportunity to blog about it instead of just sending emails to select A-listers? I found some great stuff on #twitpitch the other day!

    Bottom line is that the are all just ideas for getting heard - facebook, twitter, RSS - they are ways to separate yourself from the masses who pitch exclusively via email and by doing something different you might give yourself an edge.

    Your tone here seems to imply that these ideas are just bloggers being whiny & demanding and I think that misses the point altogether.

    Just my 2 cents.

  5. Sarah, I hope you're 100% right. The best way to get good PR is to know the reporter and for them to know you. E-mail alone does not constitute a relationship.

    But on the Twitpitch idea, etc., it's not always about hitting A-listers, but instead timing a launch and making sure you've briefed everybody in advance. Ideally, you have the face to face, the phone calls, and pick an embargo by which the news and/or product are ready. Twitpitch basically says to the world "come look at me!"

    The press release is the last thing to happen, not the first.

    RSS, Twitter and Facebook ARE all good new ways to get pitched. But the way it is being portrayed is that they won't listen UNLESS they do it a certain way, which to me, does look whiny.

  6. @elliott ng

    And I agree - that's a *great* post by @BrianSolis!

  7. I don't agree 100% with the Twitpitch idea. Personally, the medium or tool used to pitch is secondary to the actual context of the pitch.

    Even if I were to write guidelines on how someone were to pitch me, say Twitter, if they're for items that have no relevance to me or my niche or done in the way that suggests to me that they're just throwing as much of it out there hoping 1% of the population takes up their offer (as you nicely put it, the "spray and pray method"), then it wouldn't matter that they followed my preferences to the letter.

    Will companies follow what bloggers prefer? Probably not. Will those who do reap bigger rewards? Probably yes. And that might just be where the battle is won.