Pitching with Buckshot

Peter Shankman, author of "Can We Do That?! Outrageous PR Stunts That Work," recently said that rather than spraying buckshot, PR people should research beats and specify a single reporter, "Don't want to do that?" then "Get the hell out of my industry." Ouch.

He's right though, spraying with buckshot will give you a wide pattern, like the one in the photo. Your shot is spread out across your target, or should I say, target markets in the case of PR, and often results in inconsistent performance. In the past few weeks we've seen a couple of influential bloggers start to call out PR people, by email address, for pitching them using buckshot. It's like firing with your eyes closed hoping you get one or two hits.

At the end of last month Wired Editor and author Chris Anderson posted the email addresses of over 300 PR people that he had permanently blocked from sending him any more spam/pitches. Now, not only are these people blocked, but they're also going to get a taste of their own medicine because their email addresses, being posted on the site, will be picked up by spam bots that will in turn spam them with unwanted mail.

Here's the post that started it all: http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2007/10/sorry-pr-people.html

Here are some other bloggers that decided they had had enough as well:
http://www.webinknow.com/2007/10/most-pr-people-.html
http://technosailor.com/2007/10/30/how-to-get-an-angry-email-from-me/

I love this blog posting - if you have time to read it you should. Marshall Kirkpatrick posts a few PR pitches that he received that day and instead of ripping them to shreds he points out the good the bad and the ugly and offers a few tips for getting it right the next time.
http://marshallk.com/5-pr-pitches-the-good-and-bad

Is your name/email address on any of these lists?