Marketing - Friday, March 21, 2008 6:36 - 4 Comments

PR for MicroISVs from someone who knows

[Note: I ran into Luke when I as a writer for Web Worker Daily I got his press release for BlogTalkRadio. I was so impressed with how he crafted that PR, I asked him if he’d share some of his expertise here. Be sure to check out Luke’s recommendation at the end of this post - it’s excellent.]

By Luke Armour
PR Coordinator
www.blogtalkradio.com

So you’ve got a killer app. Now what?

I guess the first thing would be to tell someone, right? Right. But shouting out the window or emailing every email address you can find on the Internet are not likely your best options. What are your best options? First I’m going to assume that what you’ve got is worth having. If what you’re shilling isn’t new or newsworthy (to someone other than you), go back to the drawing board. I mean it.

As a Micro ISV your goal is to get your products into the hands – and minds – of those who can best use it, best share it with others, or both. To do that, you must 1) pitch the story of your product to the 2) right people 3) in the proper manner. Your target audience might include a high profile blogger, an online news site, or a tech reporter for a print publication.

Remember, you are competing with hundreds of other people and thousands of other messages. And while a great, attractive product will speak for itself, getting it into the hands of the proper people will really help spread the word. When BlogTalkRadio unveiled Cinch, it was referred to as “the simplest podcast API ever.” Word spread quickly, especially when we released some additional developments and told a handful of relevant people.

You may only get one shot at cutting through the clutter and reaching the eyes of your audience until the next update, product or service – so do it right. Let’s talk about sending a quick pitch email to introduce yourself and your product. Since any good outreach begins with understanding your target audience, let’s start there.

Tailored/Relevant

Great outreach begins with a relationship, but we don’t always have that association to the media or the end users we need to reach. Without that connection, you first need to make sure what you’re offering is of interest. Every new name in the email inbox is a potential groan-and-delete for the media. Save yourself the bridge-burning and email the right people.

Doing a little bit of homework on each outlet or reporter is essential. That reporter who covers the education beat? Probably not your best bet unless you can make the connection. That mommy blogger? Probably not, but that social media marketing guy who loves the newest tools might be a good bet. Be creative and be energetic, but don’t be unrealistic.

Laziness is probably the biggest culprit here. You’ve compiled a list of email addresses; why not just send the note to them all? Because that’s why we don’t open 85% of our postal mail – it’s junk. Only it’s a lot easier to block an email address than to move, so take the time to make sure the outlet is suitable. Draw that connection between them and your offering if you have to.

Concise

As Bob Walsh notes in his book MicroISV Sites that Sell! a big mistake with many sites is “drowning your visitor with words.” That same principle can be said with any pitch letter. Brevity is your friend. Introduce your product and call the reader to action. That’s it.

Do not tell them everything there is to know about your product or service; your goal is to get them to want more information. At that point you can sell it to them in person, by offering more information or by welcoming them to the site for a trial. Mark Twain said “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” Writing succinctly is difficult because it takes time and energy to write short, tight sentences. Strip out the unnecessary and get to the core of your message as quickly as possible.

Keep relevant and concise in mind before you even sit down at the computer.

Now, let’s focus on how to craft your message. A good pitch letter should do two things: indicate your credibility and provide benefits to your audience.

Credibility

“Who are you and what reason do I have to believe anything you say?” This can be done easily with a few relevant facts or statistics. For BlogTalkRadio, I’ve written:

The site was launched in August 2006, redesigned with social-networking components in September 2007, and released from Beta in November 2007. Today, over 66,000 shows have been streamed from the BlogTalkRadio site. January logged 2.4 million listeners across the site, a 40% increase in listeners since the site came out of Beta.

That demonstrates that we’ve been around, that hosts and listeners are using us and that we’re growing. I did all that in three sentences.
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