The joy of receiving voicemail from PR professionals

As most of my friends and colleagues know, I’m an e-mail person. In the time it takes me to listen to one voicemail message, I can delete dozens of e-mails. Maybe hundreds. When you receive as many messages as I do (and as many people in the media do), efficiency is everything.

The most time-wasting messages are those which do nothing more than ask me to verify that I received an e-mailed press release, and inquire if I’d like to follow up on it.

Believe me, if I wanted to follow up on your press release, I would have initiated the follow-through already. I would not be sitting waiting for your phone call.

If I took time to acknowledge every press release, I’d do nothing every day except acknowledge press releases. That is why I routinely delete such follow-up messages without replying.

Many editors, journalists, reporters and analysts experience the same frustration when dealing with over-enthusiastic PR professionals. From time to time, we share our thoughts on that subject with colleagues. One journalists’ list that I follow just had a helpful discussion about how to handle “PR spam.”

Sometimes we also share our thoughts with the general public – you, our readers.

To that end, please read a wonderful essay, “Don’t Call Us,” published this week by The Washington Post’s Gene Weingarten. I couldn’t have written it better.

If you are a PR professional, I urge you to:

1. Don’t call to follow up on press releases.

2. Don’t use media directories to learn about our publications. Learn about our publications by reading them, and by using the online resources we make available for PR professionals.

3. For example, consult our Web-based editorial calendars before calling about a story. You can find them here for SD Times, Software Test & Performance and our forthcoming Systems Management News.

4. For another example, consult our “how to work with the editors” guidelines before pitching. Here they are from SD Times and ST&P. We’ll have one for SMN next year.

5. Don’t call to follow up on press releases.