Category Archives: Common sense

Unless you’re Steve Jobs, don’t call to pitch me me in the middle of an Apple keynote. (Or Google, or Microsoft… you get the picture.)

New! Tip #180 Sounds like one thing, is another

If potential customers who hear your product or company name can’t guess the spelling from the hearing, you will lose business you’d otherwise get. Fallback: Spell it when you speak it.  Better: Don’t choose a product name for which the spelling isn’t obvious.

If part of your Web service demo is going to be a search query on my name, test it before you show it to me. Make sure the results are accurate and timely. If the top result is a minor story I wrote more than two years ago, it’s not good.

Many reporters like taking notes on business cards. So resist spending extra money to get yours printed on glossy stock that we can’t write on.

PS: Yes, front and back.

If you’re pitching me at a busy conference, like Demo, and it’s late in the day, and especially if I have a drink in my hand, you should know that I’ve already heard dozens of pitches. My brain is full and I’m tired. Simplify. Even more than you usually would for a journalist. Or wait until the morning of the next day.

Before you press “send” on your bulk e-mail press release, make sure the site you’re pitching is actually live.

I won't be back.

Ryan Block said it best: “Pro PR Tips can always be summed up as: Do your homework and be courteous.”

This is tip #100, the end of the guaranteed daily Pro PR Tips. Thanks all for reading and for the support. From this point on, I will post Pro PR Tips as events that warrant them happen to me or as people send me ideas (rafe.needleman@gmail.com), but I just won’t be posting every single day.

And in  case you were wondering: All 100 tips, except those attributed to others, are based on my own personal experience. I didn’t make anything up. I’m not that creative.

Thanks again!

-Rafe