I received an invitation a couple of weeks back that I thought I’d share with you all today. It’s a wonderful example of so many things gone wrong that I hardly know where to begin. Sorry if I sound delighted, but I’m always happy when fodder for the screed pops into my inbox.
It begins innocuously enough:
This Friday, Keith, we are doing a last minute gift guide mailing to the top 30 influencers who need products for their short lead holiday gift guides and long lead Valentine’s Day gift guides and we thought Consult Keith, might be a good fit.
Let’s stop there and think for a moment. Does anyone give blogs as gifts? I certainly don’t but maybe I’m behind the times. Had I already done what I’ve repeatedly threatened to do and turn these 2,000 or so posts into a book, I might have something tangible to send along. Still, I’m always up for increasing the readership of this thing so let’s keep reading, shall we?
Next, there is a list of 33 media outlets (yes, 33, not “the top 30”) of various sorts which reach widely divergent targets. Some skew very female, some quite male, some fairly old and some quite young. Now while I get that a gift guide might contain things the target would buy for a different demographic, it strikes me as odd that this is as untargeted as it is. No offer to segment the list either. But what do I get?
- Direct delivery to desk of each influencer
- Inclusion in a PRNewsWire press release
- The list of contacts!
And what do I need to give you?
Nothing like getting included in a group of indeterminate size, right? The invite doesn’t mention any limit on how many products will be placed on the desks of these influencers, and one can only imagine how the 30 pieces of your product will be divided across the 33 names on the recipient list. Of course, given what I know about building security in New York (where many of these outlets are located), there is a very good chance that the “direct delivery” won’t happen, especially since the product is to be shipped to Los Angeles. The cost is only $849. Oh – plus the product cost. And shipping the product to LA. So if you have an item that costs you $35, that’s $1,050 in product cost plus shipping for 30 items (let’s figure $10 each) plus $849. So for just under $2,200, you can be included in a bunch of stuff that gets given to someone at a media outlet for possible review and/or mention. Such a bargain…
I don’t mean to be a total cynic here. PR is important, especially at this peak shopping time of the year. But I back up to the very fact that I received this invitation to send along product in the first place. My product is this blog or maybe even my consulting services. Neither are a fit for this, obviously, but the note calls into question how carefully this PR firm will execute the program since they can’t even screen the recipients of this invitation and the target list is a scattershot approach to messaging. They can’t seem to count to 33 either, and if PR NewsWire is the extent of the marketing they’re doing, I’m underwhelmed. Those are pretty big red flags. Then again, we’d never do anything as off-target as this, would we?
Consult Keith 