Bonehead mistake #6: no subject line
We delete all messages without subjects. Period. If your press release has no subject, we're never even going to see it. And it shows you're sloppy about promoting your clients' products.

Bonehead mistake #7: subject line says "press release" and nothing else
We get press releases on everything from toasters to tacos, and only when a press release is related to the areas we cover will we pay attention. Want to see some great press release subjects? Here are a few:

• Press Release: O&O Defrag V8.5: Restores Maximum System Performance During Break Time
• No Starch Press releases "The Art of RAW Conversion"
• Verizon Wireless and Palm Announce Treo 700p Smartphone Now Available
• ACCESS Releases Trial Version of NetFront v3.3 for Pocket PC
• [Pitch] Are You One Mouse-Click Away From PC Danger?

Once again, we won't bother to read the release if we don't know what it's about. Especially since most of you who do this also include your release solely as a Word attachment. D'oh!

Bonehead mistake #8: laziness
Many of you don't bother to check over what you send out. I know. You're busy, too. But you're the front-line representative of your company. Typically, a team of engineers worked 18 hour days for a year or more to create a product. You can seriously ruin the chances of that product being successful by being sloppy for two minutes. If you're a PR rep that's been hired by a company, then you should find yourself another career. You're not serving your clients and you're wasting our time. Let's look at a few examples, starting with Figure B.

FIGURE B


This PR rep didn't bother to check to see if the special characters were going to show up. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Here's a hint: stylized quote marks don't show up properly in all email clients. Avoid them. If you're using Word (and, of course you are), use AutoFormat to turn off "straight quotes with smart quotes". While we're looking at Figure B, let's also realize that this particular company is purposely treading on the trademark for the BlackBerry device. That press release is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Figure C shows a classically bad release. First, of course, it about financial success and was sent to us. We only cover technology topics. Sadly though, as you can see, the winner who sent out this release didn't bother checking to see if the text color changed in the middle of the message. Let's not even discuss how incredibly over-hyped the wording is, the release just looks terrible.

FIGURE C


Check to see how your release looks. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Ah, but the height of sloppiness is visible in Figure D. We get these from time to time. Someone forwards an email to a PR person and the PR person can't be bothered to remove the forwarding brackets from the email. Nothing says you don't care about your announcement more than this.

FIGURE D


If you don't care about your announcement, why should we? Roll over picture for a larger image.

Although there's a never ending supply of PR laziness examples, I'll end with another classic: including every single member of the press on the To or Cc line, as shown in Figure E.