The press roundup email: borrowed credibility, spent properly

The masthead proves distribution, the sentence proves judgement

As seen in, then five logos. All that tells a reader is that somebody sent a press release. Everybody has one, and none of it says a word about the product itself.

The sentence a journalist wrote after using the thing is a different animal. It's specific, it came from somebody with nothing to gain, and it usually carries a criticism somewhere in it. That criticism is what makes the praise believable.

Pick coverage that answers a doubt, not coverage that flatters

• A test or a comparison, especially one where you didn't come first in every category
• A specialist title your customers actually read. It beats a national nobody in your category trusts
• A named reviewer who works in the field, because their judgement carries more than the title above it
• Anything that names the objection your support inbox keeps hearing week after week

One strong review, quoted at length, beats eight mentions listed together. The roundup format pushes you towards volume and volume is what turns it into a scrapbook.

Quote fairly, link out, and never edit the meaning

Take a short quote, attribute it to the publication and the writer, and link to the original so anybody can read the whole thing. Lifting a full paragraph is a copyright problem. Trimming a quote to lose the qualification is worse, because somebody will follow the link.

Leave the publication's own name and typography out of it unless you've got permission. A quote with a plain attribution line is safer than a reproduced masthead, and it reads as more confident: you aren't borrowing somebody else's design to make your point for you.

Send it when the coverage is useful, not when it's new

Let's face it: coverage gets treated as news and sent the day it lands, which is usually the day it matters least. The email isn't reporting anything. It's using the coverage to answer a doubt, and that doubt keeps its own timing.

Coverage keeps. A review from last spring, sent at the moment somebody is wavering, does more than the same review pushed out to the whole list on publication day.

One quote, used everywhere, forever

The campaign is the least valuable thing you'll ever do with the coverage. The same quote belongs on the product page, in the abandonment sequence, on the pack if the publication allows it, and in whatever paid advertising you run.

If you're paying for digital public relations, the email programme is where most of the return gets collected. In most accounts it's the part nobody has wired up.

Find the coverage you never used

Search your inbox for two years of coverage, then count how much of it appears anywhere a customer would see. Usually it's a logo bar and nothing else. The words are sitting there doing nothing at all.

Pick the one review that names a flaw and still recommends the product. That's the strongest asset you own and it has probably never been sent. The accounts we run put a quote like that in front of people who are still deciding, because they're the only audience it was ever any use to.