Top 12 Ways to Annoy This Mommy Blogger
Since more and more brands are finally recognizing blogs as a powerful avenue for publicity; I wanted to mention the easiest way to ensure your client or product will never end up on my website, blog or included in one of the many lifestyle segments I do each week is to annoy me.
In the spirit of the holiday season, I’ve decided to share with you my list of the Top 12 Ways to Annoy This Mommy Blogger. It is safe to say if you manage to not do any of the wrong things on this list, you will find other mommy bloggers (and bloggers or editors in general) more receptive to your pitches.
So read on and then be a shining star in your office instead of someone who wrote the pitch that ended up in the deleted folder, or worse, on the Bad Pitch Blog.
1. You call me by a name other than mine.
It goes without saying, you should always spell someone’s name correctly, but you should also use the right name. My name is not Vicki nor is it Veronica. Simply starting an email with Hi Victoria or Good Morning Victoria is the way to go. The impersonal salutation Dear Editor is not.
2. You brag about the other places you’ve been featured.
If 40 other blogs and three morning shows in the same market have already featured the product or talked about your service, why would I want to tell my producer you should be included in my segment? There’s no need for me to show the same product again when there are thousands of useful products that can be highlighted.
3. You don’t respect my time.
You follow up all the time. Every other email is from you. My office voicemail is full so you start leaving voicemails on my cell phone. And then you email telling me you left the messages. Or you send me a message on Twitter or Facebook including your Off Topic pitch. C’mon, really? I receive a few thousand new emails every day. If I’m interested, I promise I will contact you by email or phone. Cross my heart.
4. You offer me a product on loan.
I travel a lot to television stations in different cities. In between writing, I also host events for companies and speak on panels at marketing conferences. My time to test unsolicited products is limited. If you send me a product on loan with a week time limit, you should know I will not have time to review it. Products in my sample closet get reviewed because they are within reach when segments are assigned to me.
5. You offer me a product but then don’t send it.
Why bother send me a pitch for a national morning show segment when you aren’t going to send me the product after I request it? Or you send it, but you send it ground shipping after I have specifically requested it be sent overnight since the segment is last minute and I want to make sure I get the product in time. I don’t understand the thinking behind saying you will send something and not sending it. So you don’t want your client on a national morning show? OK, then don’t pitch me.
6. You send me photos of an event that happened in the city I live in, don’t invite me to the event but then ask me to post the event photos or video on my website or blog.
If my website/blog is part of your client’s target audience, then send an invite. I get invited to many events every day and I cannot attend even a tenth of them but asking me to post photos or video when I wasn’t invited to the event or even sent a media alert beforehand is just a little too ballsy.
7. You send your product to another address besides the one I have listed on my website and then get upset when I say I have not received your product.
If you follow directions, everyone wins. The mailing address listed on my website is the best address to send your product to me. While we are on topic of mailing me things then please refrain from sending me products at the various stations you my segments air on.
8. You show up unannounced and unexpected to my office or to a station I’m appearing on wanting to demonstrate a product. Or you harass a producer I work with with idiotic questions before a segment airs.
If you’ve done your job and have sent me a one sheet and the product, I am sure I can figure everything out and if not, that’s what instructions and your phone number is for. Nothing I talk about on air comes close to rocket science so there is no need to show up and page a producer. It’s not a nice thing to do and producers always have the last say about what is included in my segment – please remember that.
9. You offer to do a contest and then don’t send the prizes to the winners.
That is just so wrong on so many levels. Whether the product offered is worth $5 or $500, you really should keep your word and not disappoint the winners of the contest or freebie you offered. If I get an email from a contest winner saying they never received their prize, please have a very good reason.
10. You ask me to do your job.
After I show your product/talk about your service on-air, you ask me to get you a tape of the segment. I’m not a clipping service and I don’t work for any. All you have to do is Google “clipping service” and you will find several. If you are not a publicist and want a recommendation of which clipping service to use and you email me, that’s one thing but I’m not clipping segments for anyone. Another favorite is after I show your product on air, you ask which other stations I will be featuring your product on. Not my job. Go pitch to other stations and other segment contributors.
11. You use a dull template for your pitch. Or you unnecessarily use the word mom in your pitch in hopes it will seem like it is relevant to moms.
Yawn. Toilet paper is for everyone. You don’t have to target every single pitch to mothers. And be careful making assumptions about all mothers. My favorite was a pitch on moms never wearing high heels. Never? Well, what about the four inch heels I wear to work every single day.
12. You pretend to read my blog.
I’m a happy camper when someone just uses the right name when they email me. There’s no need to pull a random sentence from my 100 Things About Me list and say it made you laugh so hard and you are big fan of mine. Because more often than not, what follows is a pitch on a topic I would never cover. And that’s hard to imagine considering I cover all women’s lifestyle topics but it happens. ALOT. Just pitch on topic and things will be alright. No need for flattery. Unless you really mean it. 
Happy Holidays.
I invite other mommy bloggers to post below an annoying thing a company has done. You can post anonymously if you wish.
November 30th, 2008 at 7:27 am
I was reading #10 literally as an email came in asking me to please send a copy of the clip when it’s up.
That’s only second to the woman who asked us to take a review and design it into a page for her press kit. After much cajoling (she insisted we somehow “owed it to her” since she sent a whole $9 sample and all) we did it as a favor. Did we get a thank you? Nope. Not after three emails.
Did she ever get another review on Cool Mom Picks, sale or recommendation from us? Nope. Will I dissuade people from using her product? Absolutely.
We like to support nice people. You can be clueless and nice and not understand how to pitch. But you can’t be clueless and douchey.
November 30th, 2008 at 9:36 am
This made me laugh out loud!
I was the beauty and fashion blogger at Bravo TV for two years. I have an entire folder of ridiculous requests and submissions (can’t bear to trash them). I wrote about lip gloss and handbags, yet received pitches for baby items, stationery, music, etc. The best part is, in almost every case, they “tried” to tie it in by saying things like “a bib similar to the one Angelina bought for Shiloh.”
Often, I’d receive angry emails from people because I didn’t respond to their pitch. Crazy!
Your top twelve list should be made viral simply as a PSA.
November 30th, 2008 at 10:03 am
On a MUCH smaller scale, I get some of these annoying emails. Shameless, they are. Absolutely shameless.
Angie (from over at http://www.HalfAssedKitchen.com)
December 1st, 2008 at 9:05 am
I agree with nichole’s comment - your top twelve list should be made viral simply as a PSA - oh, and according to most pitches I receive, I am very, very busy and don’t have a clue what my family and I should be buying…let alone, make clear decisions on what it is I should be blogging about. Not true. That’s what the delete button is for. If your product works and we haven’t managed to break it yet, SOLD!
December 1st, 2008 at 3:45 pm
I suppose I could take heart that you have to put up with the same BS that we small fish do, but it just makes me realize that we’ve all got a long way to go.
December 2nd, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Wow. You nailed it. Every single one.
But, of course you did.
December 3rd, 2008 at 9:47 am
My biggest annoyance is when people are deceitful/outright lie. Recently, a man sent me an email sharing about this great video that he had discovered that he thought my moms would like. For some reason, the email didn’t seem sincere, so I googled the name of the sender….he turned out to be one of the producers of the film short! Why lie? I’ll never promote that film (which was actually quite entertaining) or anything else from that company!
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:23 pm
I think we should all reply to bad pitches with a copy of this post. While I’m a much smaller fish, I’ve had my share of bad pitches, too, many of them suffering from topics you mentioned.
My pet peeves? Invites for events that are on the west coast tomorrow (I’m in Ohio) and people who send me press releases to post. It’s my personal blog, not a news outlet.
Oh, and one more: companies who ask me to review their product, refuse to send a sample, and offer me a “hi-res image” only.
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:54 pm
i’d like to add stalking via google chat (or any other chat service) and being downright mean when you say ‘no thank you’. really? where’s that going to get you???
December 4th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
All excellent points! Your #1 also is the #1 thing that bugs me out, although I suppose it makes my email management easier since I trash those pitches immediately.
Particularly given that my name is at the bottom of every single post, and readily available one click away on the (prominent) about page, misdirected pitches show a complete lack of respect and failure to pay attention to obvious details. One would think *not* doing that is the first thing you learn in PR 101.
December 4th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
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