The Bad Pitch Blog: Puss Pitch Gets the Boot

Hello Kitties! This Autopilot pitch may read harmless. But when it comes to media relations, lazy pitching has paved our industry a highway to hell. Route 666 perhaps?

Kami Huyse of Communication Overtones sends us the latest example of a pitch intended to be media catnip.

Instead it smells like it was sifted out of the litter box. Take a whiff.

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From: Cat Bloggers EMAIL
To: KAMI’S EMAIL
Subject: Invitation to Join Cat Bloggers

Dear blog author: We recently came across your site, overtonecomm.blogspot.com, while searching for bloggers who blog about Cat issues.

A small group of us have started a new site called Cat Bloggers. Our intent is to bring Cat bloggers closer together, and make a positive contribution to the Internet community.

Would you be interested in joining Cat Bloggers? Please take a few minutes to have a look at what we are trying to do, and if you are interested, there is a sign up page to get the ball rolling. We would greatly appreciate your support in this endeavour.

If you do not feel that your blog would be a good fit for Cat Bloggers, but enjoy this subject area, come visit us and one of our member bloggers. You can also check our FAQ Section to learn more about Cat Bloggers.

We look forward to hearing from you and seeing you on Cat Bloggers.

NAME
Cat Bloggers
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Me? Ow!
Kami’s take on why it sucks:

”I am pretty sure I never have blogged about cats, and, not that they could know, I am allergic to cats. At any rate, how could they mistake a PR blog for a Cat blog?

”In the third paragraph, the pitch turns in a sales job to visit and read their site. Whew, sometimes getting these would-be promotional hacks to pay attention is a little like herding cats.”

We’re all for being kind to animals, but we’ll add two notes to Kami’s understandable issues with this pitch (in addition to noting the typo in the middle paragraph).

Repetition Can Work Against You, repetition can work against you, repetition can:
Used properly, repetition helps reinforce important ideas. Media training tells us three times for every one idea. This short pitch goes long on mentioning Cat Bloggers. When you mention cat bloggers in the cat bloggers pitch nearly every cat bloggers sentence, you are hitting us over the head with cat bloggers and incentivizing us to not like cat bloggers.

Half Way is Half-Assed:
It takes quality time to personalize your pitches. Attempts at making a pitch look personal can actually work against you. “Dear Blog Author?” It reminds me of a ding letter I got before graduating from college. It read: “Dear Applicant” and made me glad I didn’t make the cut.

If this person had taken a few minutes to visit each blog he was sending the pitch to, he would not have sent Kami an email and he would not have wound up in this cat fight.