Boost Your Pitching Success Rate

Play-off baseball is here and once again we are reminded that even the best hitters in the game fail seven out of 10 times. When it comes to pitching stories, what is your batting average? More important, will your client call you a superstar if you connect one-third of the time?

One way to boost your average is to have a better relationship with the people you are pitching. One way to get that better relationship is to talk to them even when you are not selling.

No one thinks of the person that calls them only when they need a favor as a friend. That’s not a relationship; it’s a one-way street. But the person that calls just to say “hi,” even when they don’t want anything in return, well…that’s a relationship.

Here are a few tips to help you increase your average.

Notice Their Work
Read stories by the people you are pitching, especially the ones that aren’t yours. When you see one you like, call the reporter and tell them so. You’ll be surprised how shocked they’ll be that you have no ulterior motive for calling.

Keep it Brief
Follow the first tip, but, just as if you were pitching, be considerate of the reporter’s deadlines and time restrictions.

Stay Upbeat
Having a relationship doesn’t mean that you’ll place every story you pitch. Take rejection well. Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

PR is all about relationships and calling people even when you are not selling is a great way to start. It won’t happen overnight, but as the poet Josiah Gilbert Holland wrote, “That which grows slowly, endures.”

Four Keys to Promo Success

Yesterday, the New York Yankees were eliminated from play-off baseball. Their biggest loss of the season, however, came two days ago when a series of public relations errors led to a mangled Mariano Rivera Bobblehead Night.

The plan was to give the coveted promotional items to the first 18,000 fans through the gate. The 18,000 fans were there. The gates were there. The only thing missing was the bobbleheads. Delayed by transportation issues, they didn’t arrive until the third inning.

When distribution finally began, lines grew long and tempers grew short. Angry fans took to social media and lambasted the Bombers. Repeatedly. Yesterday, the Yankees announced that fans that can prove they attended Tuesday’s game will get free tickets to a 2014 game. The scenario brings attention to four rules that will help your promotions run smoother.

Have a Plan
Perhaps the most obvious step of any good PR tactic is also the most ignored. Flying by the seat of your pants very rarely works. You never know where you’ll land and once you do, you’ll probably have no pants. And that makes you look silly. Almost as silly as not arranging to have your 18,000 promotional give-a-ways arrive at your location BEFORE the day of your event.

Have a Plan B
How ironic that a team that unexpectedly lost their starting third baseman, shortstop, first baseman, leftfielder, centerfielder, catcher and several pitchers did not have a back-up plan for a promotion. Say it isn’t so!

Be Other-Based
When things go wrong, don’t think about yourself, think about those people most impacted by the situation. Then ask yourself, “How would they like to be treated?” Then do it. This isn’t rocket science. Hint: Keeping the gates locked so fans can’t come in is not being other-based.

Run, Don’t Walk (apologies to Robinson Cano)
Everyone knows “too little, too late” is no good. But guess what? “Just enough, too late” isn’t much better. Every tactic needs to have a mini crisis audit and a back-up plan (see above). List everything that can go wrong, and then figure out what you will do if it happens. The time to prepare for disaster is before things go south. This is why ships carry lifeboats instead of lumber and saws.

So remember, plan and plan some more, put yourself in their shoes, and be proactive. Mariano Rivera Bobblehead Night could have been a great promotion. Instead, it just left people shaking their heads.

Welcome to the Bungle

Like a suckerfish attaching itself to a larger swimmer, PR practitioners sometimes affix their brand to current news stories, thereby gaining added momentum with minimal expenditure. Dr. Pepper recently attempted this by promising consumers a free bottle of their soft drink if the band Guns N’ Roses managed to release their long-awaited CD Chinese Democracy in 2008.

Now connect the dots for the fun part: Album gets released, huge demand for free soda, Web site crashes, consumers disappointed, Guns N’ Roses sues the Doctor.

Read the story here.

From a purely public relations perspective, at least GM is trying to defend its public opinion during the auto mess. One of the hallmarks of PR is that if you don’t define yourself, others will do it for you.

GM introduced a page on their corporate Web site explaining their side of the auto industry meltdown. The site includes bullet points explaining how the demise of the auto industry will affect us all, a section on mobilizing efforts, and a futuristic video set to hypnotic music. Maybe this is what they listened to when they developed the “More SUVs” mantra.

Putting the "Arrr" in PR

The Jolly Roger…bottles of rum…buried treasure. These are the things that come to mind when one hears the word “pirate.” Now it looks like we need to add “spokesperson” to that list.

It seems that pirates pillaging off the coast of Somalia have an actual spokesman to deal with media inquiries. One such flack recently explained the pirate’s mission to a reporter from the NY Times.

To read PR Week’s account, click here.
To learn to talk like a pirate, click here.

"Craig's" List of Communication Trends

Craig Newmark, the man who put the “Craig” in Craigslist, recently opened up to PRWeek and waxed poetic on a number of topics, including communications, public relations, media and politics.

When asked about the habits of Millennials, Newmark stressed that communications professionals need to focus on peer-to-peer communications, such as Twittering, blogging, and Facebook.

“Trust doesn't come from the top down anymore,” Newmark said. “That was true in [Mad Men's] Don Draper's days, but not now. Truth now comes on a peer-to-peer basis, from the bottom up.”

If you’d like to know Newmark’s suggestions on how communicators can go about engaging these peer-to-peer networks (as well as his thoughts on many other issues), read the interview.

Upside-Down Fruitcake

In his insightful book “The Image,” Daniel Boorstin defines a pseudo-event as a happening that:

1. Is not spontaneous,
2. Is planted primarily for the immediate purpose of being reported,
3. Is ambiguous,
4. Is intended to be a self-fulfilling prophecy

In other words, if magician David Blaine packages his hanging upside down for 60 hours as “news” then guess what? It’s news. He may be right. A quick Google search for “David Blaine Upside Down” returned 4,810 results. I think I’ll still file this latest feat of "magic" under Pseudo-(from the Greek word meaning “false”) Event.