As the publisher of a highly-trafficked wedding blog, of course I get a lot of public relations pitches every day. What’s most remarkable about these pitches is how completely and comically off some of them can be. Here’s my big guidance for public relations folks: if you’re pitching a publication, it’s worth taking five minutes to familiarize yourself with that publication’s focus.
For instance, if you’re pitching a publication dedicated to nontraditional weddings, a publication that’s got an entire archive dedicated to women who propose to their partners, why would you angle your story this way?
December marks the most popular month for wedding proposals. An angle to report on might be how engagement rings have changed over the years and what’s trending now.In the last decade, engagement ring expert XXXXXX has seen the size of a girl’s best friend go from considerably under a carat to most often considerably over one carat. What’s changed?
“It’s the emboldened modern woman,” said XXXXX, who heads the online division of XXXXXXXXX. “Women are definitely more upfront about what they want.”
A story about how the “emboldened modern women” gets engaged could be interesting… but not when the angle is that being “more upfront about what you want” equates to… AND YOU WANT AN EVEN BIGGER DIAMOND RING FROM YOUR BOYFRIEND. (And yes, I said boyfriend, cuz you *know* this pitch is not talking about how emboldened modern lesbians get engaged.)
And “a girl’s best friend”! *Falls over dead*
Listen: I am all for bling, but Offbeat Bride has never been about diamond as dick size, something any publicist would know if they took a few minutes to read the site before sending pitches.
For more bad pitch comedy, I highly recommend this link. Oh and now might be a great time for me to link this post: Tough love: are you making these marketing communication mistakes?