I get a lot of press releases these days. Actually, I’ve always gotten a lot of them, but the last year or so they have increased. Being the editor of The Blog Herald adds to it of course, so there’s a lot of companies and people wanting me to write about their service. So how often do I pick up on a press release? Not very, actually, and that’s because the PR people fails to spark my interest.

Here’s a bit of free advice for you PR reps out there, trying to get me to write about your service.

• Don’t just send me a press release, pitch it to me in a personal message first!
• Don’t attach a lot of files to your e-mail, I won’t open them, and chances are it’ll end up in the spam folder.
• Keep it short, my time is limited.
• Make sure it’s easy for me to contact you for more information, and not just via phone.
• Addresses, contact information, etc., might be good to have in the header when doing print mailing, but this is e-mail and I want to get down to the actual content right away. The rest can be at the bottom, easy to access should I be interested.

Make sure your next press release is composed with the reader in mind, not just cramming stuff in like you always used to. Otherwise you’ll find yourself archived (at best) without me giving it more than a quick glance. If you write press releases for people you’ll be more successful.