The Art of the PR Release, aka, Try a Strap ... on.

This is an advertising public service, trust me. After saying yes to Steve that I'd help out, it became clear right away that the big difference between my blog and Adrants is the amount of email submissions he and Angela get. Holy 10-Page Wiki Entry Batman. Hardest part? Reading it all to find the good stuff. Easiest part? The keepers, rare as they are, because they just stand out. I'm sure Steve looks for the same things in a PR release that I do too: Short and sweet, addressed to me by name, and a full url of creative that has actually run or just launched. Stories about future partnerships? Means nothing. Show me the money. The absolute killer though is mass emailings starting with FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE or HELLO or that say "If you wish to know more, please contact us" without including, uh, anything. DELETE.

Cutting through the clutter is important-short and sweet and cool is what I got today.

I knew immediately I was running this thing. PR freaks, check it out. It will save a whole lot of cutting and pasting and greatly increase your chances of getting things run. Keep it simple like the one below. Why?

Because bloggers find their our own way into a story if they like it. Why should we have to scan 12 pages to find four sentences? I hope Andy Justin from Heavybag won't mind me running it here either but it's nice example of what I mean. (I made some slight adjustments to the amount of copy that I thought felt right, so take no offense Andy.)

Hi Angela,

(Andy)

DONE. I'm already interested.

Then I watched the clip.

Okay, when it comes to musical accessories and cases, I never heard of Reunion Blues, let alone that they made straps and stuff. I'll be honest, Gibson? Les Paul? Fender? Those are the names I know. I can tell you now though that this spot just cemented Reunion Blues in my head.

Simple. Funky. Clever. Direct.

I even want to see more in this series. Furthermore, I happened to poke around and discovered that Zack can also handle Hendrix pretty damn good. (Good enough that he toured with Steve Vai last year.)

But I wouldn't have known any of this and neither would readers here if that initial release was just like all the rest.