I'm Loving You Like a Two-Dollar Whore*

The PR blogs have been full of debate in the last week or two: are PR agencies responsible businesses with proper grown-up information governance policies, or are they just spam factories who just spit out information day after day?

Hmm. I mailed a PR exec called Tom today asking for an interview and he replied saying, “Sure, do we call you on XXX XXXX?” Great, except the phone number he cited was for my old office in Brighton, vacated a year ago. The source of the problem quickly becomes clear – he’s relying on a media database service that’s seriously out of date.

I - along with thousands of other hacks - am being touted to PR agencies by  numerous press release distribution and media databases I know fine well I’ve never signed up for. I suspect they got my name by scraping other databases that I have signed up for, perhaps five or even ten years ago. So the inaccuracies go from site to site.

The challenge for hacks is that while these companies are keen to sell on journalist contact details or their name on a distribution list, they’re less keen to provide us with a simple opportunity to opt-in, opt-out or even just amend those databases.

Trying to keep up with the misinformation is a Sisyphean task. No sooner do you unsubscribe from releases about Client A from an agency, than you start getting releases about Client B. Even if the agency is able to remove you entirely from their lists, you get added back on the next time they update their distribution list from the media database they subscribe to. And that’s just one agency.

So, in answer to Andrew, I don’t think PR agencies act like third-rate direct marketers. But I do think the database companies act like low-rent pimps. They pick up my details and sell me on, regardless of my own preferences or actions.

(*and the headline’s a quote from my all-time favourite TV show. Prize for the first one to guess it without Googling.)

Comments

[Louise Bolotin]

Grrr! I so agree. I am still receiving press releases at an old email address that is more or less defunct but not quite dead yet. That one is clearly still being recycled on lists on a regular basis. Some agencies are sending me email to my main work addy, despite me putting a notice on my website saying that all releases sent to that address will be treated as spam (and they are, if you're wondering - they go on my blocked list). My site also asks PRs to contact me to ask if I'd like to receive releases - this is not just to stop me getting releases on topics I have no interest in but it establishes human contact. Well, it would if any PRs bothered to make contact. But they don't - they just use the addy that'll get them blocked, when they could just call and get the addy I use just for press releases! And one PR somehow managed last week to get hold of my private work addy, which only goes to colleagues and a few trusted clients. How they got that I'll never know but I think I can probably now expect a torrent of spam PR at that addy too.

[Ben Matthews]

Alas, it is the office junior who often gets lumbered with the task of updating the journalist contact database, and given its laborious, repetitive and unrewarding nature there's no surprise that contact details on the database are often wrong.

But a poor database still shouldn't be an excuse for bombarding the wrong journalists with press releases!

As for the quote:

Frasier?
Brass Eye?

[Sally Whittle]

Ben - not even close on the telly.

You're right about juniors but I do wonder sometimes when PR agencies appear to have information one, two or even three years out of date!

[sophie]

I'm a freelance PR and can't afford to buy those contact database service thingies, but compiling and maintaining press contact lists is the bane of my professional life! If only there was a (free) online current listing...
Tv quote - surely it's Dallas?

[Sally Whittle]

Sophie

You're in the right country on the telly, but think more Connecticut than Texas...

I guess the challenge for any database company is maintaining current and accurate data while also turning a profit - as you've said, it's long and painstaking work, getting it right.

A free online database? It's interesting because I think Sourcewire ran one but since revamping has implemented a charge for PRs.

We're considing how to add a free directory to Getting Ink, but it's early days still. Otherwise you can always use the free directories at Journobiz, Journalism.co.uk and the NUJ Freelance Directory.

[Serena]

Ha! Gilmore Girls. What do I win??

[Sally]

Erm, eternal kudos. With a sparkly bow round it, obviously.