Part 2: 6 MORE Golden Rules of Sending Press Packages
Plus: Save the date for our March Top Tier Talk
Happy March and happy Tuesday, TTC subscribers!
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We had a lot of great feedback on our recent post about 5 golden rules of sending press packages (if you missed that one, catch up before you dive into this week’s insights), so we’re jumping in with 6 more to round-out our tips for press packages best practices.
1. Don’t be afraid to follow up, but do give us some time.
We know you’re responsible for getting the most ROI out of a press package as possible (whether that’s relationship development, brand awareness or actual coverage), so you’re probably eager to follow up to see how we liked the product. That’s totally fine and expected … but please give us a little time.
We receive SO many packages on a weekly basis, that sometimes we fall behind even opening our mountain of boxes, let alone checking out the product. Plus, a lot of writers spend significant chunks of time traveling, so we aren’t always home.
And for products that need to be tested or cooked with, those will take us even longer — for instance, we can’t test 18 face serums all at once, or we won’t know which one eliminated wrinkles vs which one gave us a big fat zit. If you sent a simmer sauce, we might need to wait for our next grocery shopping day to get the rest of the ingredients that’ll pair with it. If you sent leggings, we won’t know how we like them until we wear them and wash them to see how they hold up …and it may be another 2 weeks before we get to our laundry again.
Yet, so many times, we get this email the moment the UPS driver drop-kicks the package onto our doorstep, “Hi! I saw that your package was delivered … how do you like it? Will you include it in an article? When? Would you like to talk to the founder today?”
Eeeeeeeek!
Please don’t expect immediate feedback or results when sending a press package. Give us time to play, smell, taste, touch, examine, test and ponder.
But do feel free to send a message a week or so after delivery that says something like, “Hey, I see that the product was delivered to you last Thursday …I’m available to answer any questions you have about it and would love to hear your feedback (good or bad!) and explore any editorial coverage opportunities when you’re ready!”
And writers have every intention of reaching out to a publicist after receiving a package to tell them how we liked it. But sometimes we get busy. There have been many times when we’ve scoured our emails looking for whoever sent us that lotion only to come up empty handed (Gmail just seems to eat emails sometimes or make them highly unsearchable). So following up definitely keep the conversation flowing and helps us to remember who sent what!
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