A campaign against the level of irrelevant material circulated by PRs has been launched under the heading ‘An Inconvenient PR Truth‘. And the associated findings do not make pretty reading for the industry.
Release distribution service RealWire (who are leading this latest campaign) launched a survey late last year to look at just how widespread the problem of press release spam really is.
Respondents were people who receive news releases on a daily basis, including journalists, editors, bloggers and publishers.
Levels of irrelevance
The report estimates that 1.7 billion irrelevant news release emails are received by UK and US journalists every year. The survey suggests that more than three quarters (78%) of news releases issued are not relevant to the recipient, and over half (55%) of respondents stated that they have blocked some distributors due to high levels of irrelevance.
The average number of news releases received per respondent per day was 54, but 18% of respondents receive over 100 releases a day. Most worryingly, 57% of respondents stated that 80% of the releases that they receive are irrelevant, whilst 23% said that a ludicrous 96% of releases received are irrelevant.
Acceptable levels of irrelevance
When it came to opinions on what constitutes acceptable levels of irrelevance, the results varied greatly. Whilst 37% stated that they would consider it acceptable if no more than half the releases they received were irrelevant, 27% considered it acceptable if less than 2 in 10 releases proved relevant.
Welcome topics
The survey also asked about what kind of news releases are popular, and which are unpopular. Whilst the most popular subjects include product and market-related releases, the unpopular topics cited included office openings, job appointments, awards, financial results, and client and/or customer wins.
The personal touch
Respondents were asked about their feelings when it came to how news releases are addressed – do they mind receiving something that has clearly been mass-mailed provided that it is relevant, or do they prefer emails that are addressed to them?
The survey’s results show that 25% of respondents prefer releases to be addressed to them and furthermore, that 33% prefer emails that come from a named individual.
Taking action
These findings won’t come as a surprise to many in the industry. Since the advent of technology that allows huge mailing lists to be created at the click of a button, online PR spam has been a serious issue.
Back in June, I blogged about a survey revealing the extent of PR spam:
Of course, it’s now relatively easy to set oneself up as a PR professional, buy access to a media database and start churning out releases in all directions. Spam exists in every industry – why should PR be any different? They say spam accounts for some 90-95% of all emails sent, so it’s not really surprising that journalists are being targeted.
There’s little doubt that spam is rife, and that it is eroding the PR industry’s ability to communicate effectively, so what does An Inconvenient PR Truth propose to do about it?
The Bill of Rights
In a bid to improve PR practice with regards to relevance, An Inconvenient PR Truth has released a ‘Bill of Rights’, arguing that the industry should address the research findings by respecting the rights of recipients, which include:
- ‘Permission required’ – only send releases to those who have given permission directly or publicly.
- ‘Timely unsubscribe’ – stop sending releases when asked.
- ‘Don’t rely on media lists exclusively’ – research independently to target accurately.
- ‘Read publication first’ – know what a person writes about and how before you approach them.
- ‘Categorise interests in detail’ – don’t target broad categories such as ‘finance’ or ‘technology’
The campaign calls on all those in the industry to sign up to the bill, in the hope of improving irrelevance levels and reducing ‘pollution’ in the PR industry.
Will it work?
After chatting with @AdamVincenzini, @AdParker and @KerryMG about this on Twitter this morning, my feeling is that many people know they spam and don’t care. For that group, I doubt they’ll be moved from their old ways.
But for the young and/or naive who don’t know any better, this could help change perception, and with the backing of some leaders in the PR world, could improve the industry as a whole. Let’s hope so anyway.
To find out more about the campaign, visit An Inconvenient PR Truth.
Addition: There is an interesting post on how journalists could tackle the issue of PR spam over on Max Tatton-Brown’s blog.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Emily – good post. I think you’re in the ‘good PR’ category.
As someone who works as both PR and journalist I get some h-o-r-r-e-n-d-o-u-s pitches – mostly because inexperienced, junior staffers have been charged with pitching and often armed without the training.
But then even with the plethora of media training out there – often from journalists – nothing seems to be changing. We had this debate 10 years ago, 5 years ago, yesterday. We’ll have it tomorrow, 5 years time and 10 years time…
I blogged about it recently here http://bit.ly/b7kGA3
At the end of the day, crap PR is good for good PR agencies, as they can stand out and build trust, and the crap PR firms will (hopefully) wither and die. PR won’t, however, as journalists rely on PR for most of their leads, copy and access, even though many will never admit that.
Great post Emily,
Having been a journalist and seen the press release spam, I have never relied on media lists and we always seek out personal contacts for our clients.
And sorry, if it isn’t news then we will not produce the press release. We’ve even lost clients on this stance – I’d tell you what happened to them, but never get to read about them! If you ensure it is relevant and newsworthy it will always get a good reception.
Sometimes you have to explain to clients the perils of ending up with an email rule determining everything from a certain address will be deleted. After all, journalists know how to use Outlook too. Keep sending PR spam that is what will happen – and then it doesn’t matter how good your story is!
Just as with marketing to prospects, if you gain permission to send press releases they will be much better received and better still, far more likely to be used.
Of course, this is just the start of a beautiful relationship, one that played right will see the journalists calling the client when they have space or need a specific quote.
Would happily sign up to a bill of rights that we are already pretty much following.
Excellent post Emily, thanks for getting involved in the debate and for being so thorough with your analysis of the research in particular – I spent a lot of time putting the document together (didn’t have budget to outsource!) so great to see it get used
On the many people spam and don’t care point and Chris’s good/bad pr issue, one of the key reasons why we have structured the campaign in what a few people seem to consider a provocative, or even over the top way, was to try and get the attention of enough people to hopefully bring the debate into a broader arena. To date (particularly in the UK) it has been limited to the odd post by a journalist/blogger that gets a bit of attention but no real constructive discussion, and more importantly action, occurs. Our hope with this campaign is that enough people will get behind it to mean that we can at least establish what the majority on all sides – PRs, journalists, bloggers, service providers – think is acceptable when it comes to press release activity. Then those who *do* want to be sufficiently relevant can understand what they need to do – which obviously includes us by the way, already primed for the “you’re not perfect” shots across the bows
Perhaps this is all rather naive of us. Only time will tell….
Thanks again.
Adam