Death of the PR Follow-up

Every blogger, writer, influencer & journalist dreads it: the follow-up to the pitch. No matter how politely phrased, how short & concise the email, it somehow always comes out sounding condescending, ill thought-out and impersonal: they “just wanted to make sure you received the news,” or “wanted to follow-up to see if you were still interested,” or, even better, “didn’t want you to miss out on the story.”

Emails like these force journalists to do that which makes them the most uncomfortable: engage with PR when they don’t want to. It’s the digital equivalent of getting pitched while you’re in the restroom - yes, it happens… cheers for the anecdote, Mike! - and it doesn’t feel good. You can’t not respond to the follow-up email/phone call/text/tweet/comment, and there’s no way not sound like you couldn’t care less: “Yes, I got your announcement. No, I’m not interested.” It’s brusque, it’s straightforward; you’d think the story would end there, right? Nope.

The follow-up to the follow-up: the thing nightmares are made of. At this point, you can feel the client breathing down their PR firm’s neck: “have you seen our previous news, or maybe you’d like to interview our CEO, or maybe you can tell me what you like so I can provide you something more relevant..?” It’s all good-natured, but it only reinforces the problem at hand: journalists don’t want to be forced to engage. Opening up a dialogue is, for journalists, like putting your hand into the lion’s cage: you just expect to get bit. Or worse.

This isn’t how the journalist-source relationship should be. Despite what journalists might like to tell you, they rely on their sources — employees, founders, heads of communication and PR firms — to send them the latest fundraising, acquisition, product launch, market expansion of milestone announcement.

The issue is that journalists can’t possibly tell every new source that they meet, “here’s what interests me, here’s what doesn’t” - it’s a Sisyphean endeavor. This is why we baked Preferences right into Disclose. Each Journalist can set up preferences constraining or opening up communication based on:

• Frequency: how often a user can send you information
• Relation: restricting pitches to people who you know or who know you (i.e: followers ayeand people you follow on Twitter)

We’re building out the ability of journalists to subscribe to Wires, which are rule-based groups that people can pitch to - assuming they meet the conditions. For example, the ProductHunt wire could be restricted to one-time only (per product) pitches, and only allowed for products featured on ProductHunt’s home page; the Wire might require product photos, description, and information about the founders and the company. This allows journalists to receive a steady flow of new products, instead of an unmoderated free-for-all.

In addition, when journalists archive or pass on pitches they receive on Disclose, the sender is notified that their pitch has been seen, and that the journalist is not interested; if you’ve declined the pitch, the action even prevents the sender from following up.

We’re doing our part to improve journalist-source relations by creating an environment where both parties can exchange information, create mutual value and discover (news, people, publications, companies, etc.); a platform that people feel comfortable engaging with because they are safe in the knowledge that they’re in control of managing who reaches them, with what information and how. And, lest we forget, eliminating the need for follow-ups.

Liam Boogar