To further illustrate why I don’t think John’s pitch for the Marketing Playbook (see below) was too bad, let me compare it with a pitch I got from the Viral+Buzz Marketing Association.
Now this is an association concerned with VIRAL MARKETING!
Their PR person (I’m not naming and shaming at this point) came up with this fantastic pitch:
Tom:
I just wanted to make you aware of a press release that just came out.
It is a press release that announces the following:
Then they inserted the first paragraph of the press release and….. wait for it… attached the press release as a Word document…
Now does the class remember what Tom wrote about Word documents last week? Hands up…
Yes, Word documents are the spawn of Satan because they contain hidden mark-ups. (See here).
Well the first thing I did with this press release was check the hidden corrections and BINGO! all the revisions are included in the press release.
Just in case you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s a screenshot….
I could share more of the changes with you, but I think this illustrates my point.
This is fairly negligent pitching. Why? Well:
- The PR person didn’t do ANY research into what I cover here
- There’s was no personalization except the word “Tom:”
- There was no pitch…. just the first para of the press release
- Word attachments…
I could go on but I haven’t enough time, energy or the inclination…. and I’m sure they won’t see it…
Murphy's Law 