Your PR Architect

Public relations is often about building relationships. Some smart PR people get this. Others don't. For example: "I know you're the special kind of person who wants to help other people." I'm not sure if Steve Harrison really knows that. Or knows much about public relations, beyond providing all sorts of advice on how to get the attention of TV segment booking producers. That's what he sells on his website. What I do know about Steve Harrison: he hasn't Clue One about respecting his potential customers. The five come-on emails he sent me over a two-hour period told me all I need to know about Steve's mastery of public relations. (I signed up for a webinar, recommended by a colleague. Not spam that rivals the barrage I got from FTD around Mother's Day.) In a five-day span: 10 emails from Steve. Each as relentless and self-promoting as the last. A TV studio control room. By Wing1990hk (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Com...

There's just one so-called killer app. It's email. It's pervasive, cheap, and often relentless. And, in late April and early May, it becomes utterly tone deaf.  I began receiving email* promotions from marketers for Mother's Day deals a few weeks ago. They've steadily increased in frequency. And in stupidity, as in: "Mom really wants a digital SLR outfit." (Words never uttered in any household in my family. Ever.) (Note: this isn't about the new Garry Marshall ensemble comedy, Mother's Day.  I'm talking the real Mother's Day, May 8. Which is right around the corner. So get cracking.) By Frank Mayne from London, UK (Clara's Card) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons While there are women for whom I'd buy Mother's Day cards, gifts or flowers, my mother is not among them. She died in 2013. (The woman in the stock photo is not her.) And every email pitch with ...

One of PR's first rules: know your audience. Or, don't pitch a story about Manolo Blahnik shoes to Sports Illustrated. The NFL recently sent emails from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and ex-coach and current TV pitchman Bill Cowher, telling me all they're doing to address the issue of head injury and trauma among young and pro football players. Here's a link . People who play football experience head injury. No dispute there. There's a reason high schools with football teams hire a physician to attend the games. And TV news magazines have devoted airtime to stories of suicide among former NFL players whose behavior may have ties to head-to-head collisions on the field. Another of my basic PR rules: ask a reader to take one action. And here's where the NFL's e-newsletter strategy misses the uprights. First, I don't have kids, nephews or neighbors whose kids play league football. I've never coached a team. I'm not the right demograp...