This Week in PR Takes - Week #5

Take of the Week:
This week’s Take of the Week is about pitching journalists and it comes courtesy of Hollie Jade Tanker where she questions if the “Spray and Pray” model is dead. She writes about how she has changed her approach from sending out a generic pitch to hundreds of journalists to becoming more focused. I would question how much noise is created by sending out the same pitch to hundreds of journalists and hope that this approach isn’t being used as much anymore. I do agree that treating outreach like a conversation and not a numbers game may take longer, but in the end will yield better results.

Bonus Take of the Week:
I came across Sarah Kissko Hersh’s post about industry experience and “PR being PR” and felt compelled to add my two cents as well. She eloquently wrote about the principles are the same and transferrable. As a community with so many looking for employment, I believe that we need to shout this point from the rooftops. Personally, I was never an “expert” in the industries for companies that I worked at while in-house. Whether it be consumer electronics and the online device trade-in company Gazelle, automotive and CarGurus or DevOps and LaunchDarkly, I felt that my value was figuring out how Communications can help each business and applying those principles.

The Rest of the Takes:

• Joshua Milne with a reminder that coverage is never a guarantee

• Andrew Petro with some excellent guidance on how to pitch a broadcast newsroom and the difference between booking producers, segment producers, executive producers and more

• Last week Allison Carter put a call out for PR takes and I wanted to close the loop by sending out the story she published in PR Daily

• Filomena Fanelli with a take about how to approach press release quotes

• Jason Ouellette on how an agency is more than media relations

• Dustin Siggins wrote in PR News about crisis comms and talking with the C-Suite based on data from Weber Shandwick’s latest report

• Parry Headrick has 99 problems, but a pitch ain’t one

• Chase with an opinion on agency size and talent

• Jason Mudd on playing the long game with media relations

• Michelle Songy with a checklist for companies to consider whether or not they’re ready for PR

• Juliet Travis on why your company isn’t making headlines