Great PR, in the blogosphere as in the real world, is about relationships.

Done well, PR isn’t spam. But done poorly…

I got this email last week. I’ve never met Mr. Abraham. Nothing against him or Firebrand, but this flavor of canned PR rubs me the wrong way.

Hey there Alan,

I have been bursting to tell you about Firebrand but I have been under embargo until the big press conference in New York this morning. Well, since the embargo has been lifted, both you and I are free to talk or write about Firebrand until we’re blue in the face, so here’s what Firebrand is …
Firebrand is a new, opt-in entertainment and marketing destination that gives consumers interactive access to their favorite brands, products and promotions. Firebrand programs the “coolest” TV commercials the way MTV used to program music videos and its multi-platform network, slated to launch on October 22, is the first to go “live” simultaneously on TV, the web and mobile. Firebrand even has CJ’s (commercial jockeys), the same way MTV had VJ’s, who will contextualize the commercials as art and entertainment, and guide consumers through playlists, contests and promotions.

We’ve created an online social media release especially for bloggers. Click over to http://press.firebrandtv.com/smpr for all the key facts, plus easy access to lots of multimedia assets including logos and screenshots, promo videos, our Facebook group and more.
If you’re as excited about Firebrand as I am and think it will appeal to the rkgblog community, I hope you’ll take a few minutes to let your audience know all about it.
Either way, we’re also letting bloggers into our private preview in a few weeks, so that you can have a sneak peek right before Firebrand opens to the public – but you’ll need to reserve your spot.
So let me know if you’d like to be added to our private preview list, and feel free to ping me if you have any questions.

Cheers,

Chris

I’m sure glad I am now free to “talk or write about Firebrand” until I am “blue in the face.” Ugh.

For contrast, here’s a PR email with a friendly positive tone. Neil is also a stranger to me.

Hi Alan,

As a frequent writer on email marketing, we would like to offer you a trial of MailChimp’s Inbox Inspector at no cost. Just drop me an email and I will set up an account for you and credit it with free reports.

The Inbox Inspector produces a report for each campaign showing how an email will render in the 16 most popular email readers as well as providing feedback on how the top spam filters react to the content. You can take a look at the reports online here and a video demo here.

This past week we began offering the Inbox Inspector as a stand alone application. Now you can sign up just for Inbox Inspector without creating or sending any campaigns through MailChimp.

Regards,

Neil

Polite, short, no hype, and relevant.