FORBES on Follow up: Don’t do it

“Incessant follow up is annoying.” Or, even harsher: “Following up is not a good idea. All of the time, a follow up is not necessary.”

Those points were made repeatedly by several journalists at a FORBES “Inside the Media” event I attended in NYC this month. And even a few weeks later, I’m still having trouble accepting the fact that even one follow-up is a mark against myself and my fellow PR professionals.

Not to say I don’t understand the journalist side of things: Online publishing has only increased the demand for new content, new articles all day long. Staffs are increasingly smaller, and that’s here to stay. I get it; there just isn’t enough time in their day.

And yes, if a journalist was able to read our first email, then certainly a second one is annoying. After all, even the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows PR people outnumber the other side about 4 to 1, which means there are far too many emails in the first place.

But here’s my side: At The Hodges Partnership, we take the time to learn our client’s business. Then we look for newsworthy things: trends, natural ways that they can contribute to a news cycle, an upcoming event or lessons their insights might provide to others in similar situations. Next, we target journalists who would be open to that kind of story pitch based on what they’ve written or produced recently. Yes, that means we’ve taken the time to read some of your work and scan your Twitter feed, gleaning as much as we can about you, even if we haven’t worked with you before. In short, we’re trying our best to make an intelligent pitch. To do otherwise is a waste of our time – and yours, too. Who wants that. There’s no benefit to doing things the wrong way. (And yes, I think I did physically cringe when the FORBES folks mentioned they still were receiving mass emails. Terrible, and for that, I apologize for my profession.)

And so, after our work on the front end, here’s what I’m thinking when I don’t hear back in a few days after a first pitch. Things like:

• They read it on their phone, but it wasn’t a good time to respond
• They were on deadline and skipped an entire batch of emails
• They were surviving solo parenting while their spouse was out of town (Ok, that’s me projecting my own life)
• It was just a bad day; today could be better

Overall, silence doesn’t tell us PR people as much as we’d like. We don’t know if you plain missed it (understandable), hated it (ok, I was wrong, and I’ll move on) or filed for later (ok, I’ll tell the client to be patient).

And thus, this is why I will allow myself to continue with one follow up. If it bans me from a particular journalist from time to time, I guess I’m taking that risk. Because overall, I intend to listen to another key piece of advice from the FORBES event: “Be a good source.” Amen. 

(Photo by Peter.)