There have been some interesting articles about how bloggers are frustrated with clumsy story pitches that they receive via email (typically blast spam email).  A discussion was instigated by blogger-icon Robert Scoble in an interview in the Hobson & Holtz report.  Scoble rants:

“The way pr is practiced is just lame. Why anyone pitches you on email is stupid, chances of listening are one percent.”

His comments have bothered some bloggers and lead to some indigestion about both the ethics and the effectiveness of various PR pitches.

As we’ve pointed out in the past, effective PR requires a meaningful pitch that is relevant to the blogger or reporter in question.  Can you do that by email?  Sure.  The challenge is that, in the absence of some sort of relationship or trust, even good messaging is really just spam.  Spam should be ignored and it usually is.

You need to find a way to stand out and get noticed.  Scoble suggests that buying him dinner is not a bad place to start.  Better yet, engage in the conversation with people that you’re hoping to get coverage from.  Bloggers appreciate linklove from other blogs, but like it more when others add something to the conversation.  Reporters can be a more complex lot to work with, but the same basic tenets apply.

Yes, this takes a lot more work than just blasting your press release out to the list, but the effort will yield far better results.