Before the Pitch

On a normal, boring Wednesday (yesterday) morning I opened an email that contained a press release about caramel color. Not the candy or the flavor, no this email was about a company that’s come out with a new darker caramel color. A COLOR.

“What the heck?” I thought to myself, wondering why some PR person thought that I would be the ideal recipient for their spam. Yes, spam. That’s what a person in public relations contacts me (a blogger) about a product that I don’t have a reason on earth to care about. I write about frozen food and snacks and drinks. And while Diet Coke contains caramel color that’s something we all try to ignore.

I wrote back to her, requesting that I stop receiving irrelevant press releases and the next day she wrote back to say that she was sorry:

I just looked up your website and now have a better understanding of what you do. What a great idea! I bet your job is fun but can also be scary at times. Anyway, I will remove you from our press release list as wished. Good luck with your site!

A lot of people think that bloggers should be content to just delete email they don’t want. I think otherwise. I want public relations folks to think before the pitch. I want them to send me information that matters.

But how do I make sure that the people representing frozen food manufacturers are getting through to me? And how do I get them to understand that I run a review blog, not a recipe website or a food manufacturing plant? How do I make sure that they find me and know just what I want?

All over the Internet are other writers who are tired of getting an inbox full of crap.

But we do want to tell our readers about cool, new, relevant stuff. Personally, it is important for me to know when a manufacturer is coming out with a new brand of pizza. But that information isn’t relevant to someone who writes about dieting or natural foods. That’s why I created Before the Pitch. It is a place where bloggers can tell the world what they write about, what they want to hear about and how they should be contacted. Or if you should just leave them the hell alone because they don’t want to hear from you. They’re both good things to know.

Questions? Please check out the FAQ, Abuse Policy or Contact Me.