Kibbe on Marketing: Go Fetch

There’s no doubt that Web marketing and social media have made marketing and public relations far more targeted and intimate. Unfortunately it’s also made people just plain lazy.

In the last couple of years, there has been an increasing trend of just throwing some URL into a press release instead of including the actual release. I kid you not. Not only are releases becoming less and less specific to media folks in some sad, wasted effort of “marketing by pin the tail on the donkey,” now some marketers aren’t even bothering to include a release. There’s no lead, no pitch, just a Web link.

Want to piss off the media? Make them do the work. Seriously, do you think I have that kind of time to go hunting for a release? Not only do I have to figure out if the pitch is worth coverage for my publication, I have to go find the darn thing to begin with. And don’t get me started on how many of these non-pitches have broken links! (You just know the subject says “Press Release,” too.)

Simply copy and paste the press release into the body of the email. What’s the logic behind making me “fetch” it?

I do want, and even expect, links to the company’s Web site, the marketer’s site and email, and even possibly links to other important information.

Here’s an example of a good use of URLs:

A publicly traded company is announcing stellar quarterly results. The release is included in the body of the email, containing the CEO’s analysis and comments, and there is a link to the full release that includes the financials. There are also links to the company website, perhaps links to previous quarters’ results, and email addresses of the PR folks.

This is a very simple pointer – it’s just as easy to copy and paste a release into an email as it is to copy a URL. Please don’t make me fetch the bone that’s being tossed. Like all disinterested dogs, I’m not going for it.


Cindy Kibbe, an editor for a New England business publication for nearly a decade, can be reached at cindykibbe@comcast.net.