PR Tips aren't always helpful

Not when they are, you know, wrong. I found this article with "tips" on getting your PR campaign started. They are as follows:

Step 1: Identify a Successful Story or Model

Select your top media or publication, and find an article you wish could be about you. Study it carefully. What you are looking for is an article that is just like what you wish would be written about you. Look at and analyze a few articles. Then settle on one.

Evaluate this article’s writing structure, and glean ideas about what the editors want and publish for their audience. Identify and review the number of words in each article. Identify the number of words per paragraph. Identify the number of sentences per paragraph. Identify the number of paragraphs.

Step 2: Imitate the Structure and Content of the Success Model

Study the article and develop real understanding of the structure and purpose of each sentence and paragraph in your chosen success model. Do this, so that your own article will parallel the outline of the successfully published article. Then start at the headline. If they have a five-word headline, you now write a five-word headline. Then go on to the first sentence, then the second, then the third, and so on.

Understand what each sentence is all about and what the editor is writing, and how he or she is communicating with his or her audience. Now you can write each sentence of your news release and know it is as close to what the editors like and want you to produce.

Step 3: Innovate With Your Own Information

Write the sentences in your news release, one at a time. Match the length, tone, and function of the sentences and paragraphs you see in the article you are using as a model. Bring in information about yourself. Bring in your facts and your news and information. Tell your own stories. Add in the color and personal facts and human interest. .

With these techniques, you come close to matching the editorial interest, the readership interest, and the style of the publication you are using as a model whether it is your local newspaper or USA Today, or whatever publication you are aiming at.

You also create an article that the editor knows has been written just for them. They see and realize that you’ve done your homework. They see that it is really close or even absolutely ready for publication. This makes it very easy for an editor to use as is, with very little revision. You make a very good impression when this happens.

Our take: We don't recommend following this process at all. They are basically suggesting that you try write a release about you and your company that the editor will be able to take and put into their editorial content.

Good luck with that. Unless it's a small trade journal, VERY few media outlets accept submitted articles. There are some that do, but the problem is that you write all about you, it looks like an advertisement and most credible outlets (except for some trade outlets) aren't having that.

In order to save time, see if you can get the editor on the phone and if that's not possible, send him/her an email. If you can open a dialogue, they will tell you the most useful information for them and the best way to supply it.

Or, you can spend hours upon hours guessing.