Seven tips for PR people

As someone who gets a hell of a lot of press releases from all kinds of organizations I feel qualified to make a few polite suggestions on how PR people can improve their communication with the press.

First, don't send paper. Every journalists has an email address now. There's no need to post press releases by snail mail, and there's definitely no reason to send whopping great 388-page reports by FedEx to people who may or may not be interested.

Second, don't send spam. There are times when you'll want to send unsolicited emails to people who you think will want to know what you have to say. Do so rarely, and always provide a prominent unsubscribe link at the end. Not doing so isn't just impolite; it's liable to get your company added to the list of known spammers or even prosecuted in certain jurisdictions.

Third, don't send unnecessary attachments. These include ALL Microsoft Office documents, podcast files, movies or high-resolution images. Some of us spend hours every week trying to clear unnecessary junk out of our mailboxes and if your press releases regularly come in at 500KB then chances are they'll get sent straight to the trash can. What's more, any non-standard file formats (yes, that includes Microsoft Word documents) will cause problems on the receiving end. Use PDF (portable document format) files instead.

Fourth, when sending PDFs, make sure they are compatible with all PDF readers; allow text to be selected, copied and pasted; and don't let the file measure more than 25KB per page.

Fifth, don't impose unnecessary embargoes. It may appeal to your vanity to think you're so important you can hold the news hostage, but the chances are you're just making life miserable for journalists. Embargoes break a fundamental principle of journalism (news wants out!), so use them sparingly.

Sixth, provide contact details for everybody named in the release. If journalists can't check a quote, it's useless.

Finally, don't sit on your press release until 7pm and then leave the office as soon as it's been sent out. You're likely to get a callback, and there's nothing more annoying for a journalist than not being able to reach the person responsible for keeping them at work late.

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