A Good PR Pitch - Now That's a Switch!

Just when I'd lost faith in flacks, along comes this excellent pitch from Doug Haslam. It's a study in contrasts with this pitch from hell.

Besides pitching a survey on a topic he knows I follow because he reads my blog and my tweets, Haslam did several things right:
- He responded to my post on twitter pimping my pitch from hell blog post
- He referred to that blog post
- He used bulleted points
- He used lots of white space
- His thoughts are organized and brief
- He provides a sample of survey results in the email instead of making me go somewhere to look for them
- He asks me if I want the whole survey instead of just sending it to me.
- He makes a joke. After all, none of this is rocket science.
- He got right to me, while my blog post and tweet were fresh in my mind
- He says it's ok for me to run his email in my blog. So here it is:

B.L.,

Your PR pitch from hell post caught my eye because we actually had a client called “Booyah!” Fortunately I was not on that account. On the pitch topic though, here is a different survey on social media spending, usage and ROI that a client just released:

Prospero Technologies, a provider of social media platforms for major brands, just released results of a survey about social media use by companies.

I can send full results on request (Excel file), but press release with major points is here:

Some bits from the survey:
o 88% of respondents plan to increase social media spending next year (no big surprise perhaps, but a commanding number)
o 59 percent of respondents reported that social media performance in 2007 met or exceeded their marketing objectives
o 35 percent reported positive ROI and 41 percent said that ROI was “unknown.”

Comparing current tools in use or consideration to expectations for 2008, the following show an expected increase in interest:
o Podcasts
o Video blogs
o Mobile video/image/text submission
o Citizen journalism
o Micro-blogging (Twitter, Jaiku, etc.)
o Virtual worlds (Second Life, Webkinz, etc.)

Thought you might find some nuggets of interest in here. Let me know if you want the whole thing.
Regards (I’ll not sign off with my usual “Shazam!),
Doug Haslam

Thanks Doug!!

B.L.,

You are too kind. It is nice to see that my approach to pitches makes sense to others.

Again, thank you

Shazam!