HIRE ME TO SPEAK
HIRE ME TO SPEAK

Dear Blogger

I write about strategies to turn fans into customers and customers into fans. I also share ways to use real-time strategies to spread ideas, influence minds, and build business.

Worst Practices  |  Public Relations  |  Media Relations

TrashI'm getting more email pitches that start out with "Dear Blogger".

What a silly way to try to get attention! Here are some of the many problems with this approach:

Dear Blogger tells people that you don’t care enough about them to read their blog and learn their name.

It's much better if you personalize your pitch with an appropriate greeting and some detail about why they were selected.

Dear Blogger means that it is a broadcast pitch going to many other people.

Those of us who create content are looking for something new and different, not the same old thing that everyone else is seeing. When PR people send me a pitch that begins "Dear Blogger" I trash it without reading because I'm simply not interested in being one of many.

It's much better to target one or several people instead of sending a broadcast pitch to a hundred random people you found on a list.

People who write blogs are more than just bloggers.

Bloggers are passionate about what they write about. Most of us share our passion on some combination of other social networks like Twitter and G+ and LinkedIn and Facebook and YouTube. We have "day jobs". Many of us write in other formats (books, newspaper articles, research reports). Some of us are on the speaking circuit. Some of us are quoted in the media.

I get pitched by PR people several hundred times a week. I'm okay with that because now and then there is something interesting that I use. But you've got to let me decide how to use it! Don’t assume I will blog it. Would you like to be in my next book? How about a mention when I am next interviewed on television? Interested in a tweet or a mention on G+? How about having me write about you in the Huffington Post? How about making your story part of my keynote speech?

It's much better to make your pitch and assume that the person has other ways to talk you up than just on their blog. If we’re active in one media (a blog) chances are close to 100% that we are active in other media.

"Dear blogger" is a symptom of poor pitching. Why not take the time to pitch effectively?