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Ever-so-chirpy tree-hugger Hillary Chan revealed my 10-second blogger pitch most recently for blogathon 2009. Although it wasn’t word for word, I admit my pitch wasn’t exactly a Burger King Whopper burger. Frankly, my pitch was more like biscotti – crisp, easily digestible, and often accompanied with coffee.

I must say the pitch was executed in that manner, only because I took things into context. Firstly, I’d imagine she would’ve heard about the upcoming event from her boyfriend whom I’ve already pitched to. Secondly, the informality was embraced as we’ve already met online, and briefly, in person. Most importantly, I knew she was out of town. The thought of having a massive mobile phone bill caused by a longwinded PR practitioner would piss even Mother Theresa off. Well, that is, if she had a mobile phone.

While I salute their courage – assuming they know who my employer is, the blogger pitches I receive from a good number of competitive agencies have been disappointing if not appalling (note to that idiot marketing laptops: I am a Ms, not Mr.). I don’t shame them publicly on my blog for a number of reasons, which I will reserve for another day.

An invitation from Jerrick Lim of Waggener Edstrom a week ago came as a pleasant surprise. Not only was his pitch free from the usual fluff prone to unsure PR practitioners mistaking quantity for quality, he was polite and sharp. And to think he is only an intern. Shame on you overpaid fluffers and your lazy multi-colored, multi-typefaces emails that you mass email. Blogger backlash? I kinda think you deserve it.

Here are 7 things you should do when you pitch to avoid being killed by a blogger on his or her blog.

1. Search for the brand you’re pitching for within his or her blog
Knowledge is wealth. Know what the blogger feels for your brand before you make your pitch. Pitching a product not realizing the blogger has already give you coverage makes you look like a dumbass.

2. Understand the context
Do you already know this blogger on a friendly basis? If so, give the blogger a call before following up with an email. There are many things in our lives that are already automated, sadly enough. Don’t let your pitch be one of them. Yes, that explains my wham-bam-thank-you-m’am call to Hillary.

3. Personalise your email
Your email doesn’t cost $2.00 per piece to produce. You’re not sending to 1,000 people in your database. Don’t be lazy. Have some decency and personalize your email. Bloggers have names too.

4. Be clear and concise
There are occasions when nitty-gritties cannot be finalised in time before pitching to bloggers because life simply isn’t that fair. That doesn’t excuse you from the need to be clear and concise. Do not write an email that goes “So well, we may start off the night with this, and then maybe go on to that, and maybe we will end of like this,”. What good do you think it would be to the blogger? Save your breath, and the blogger’s time, and promise to get back as soon as details are finalized.

5. Write as you would, to a friend, with the same respect you would give a journalist
Your pitch should be free of grammatical errors and misspellings. Your pitch should not be more than 300 words (why? Because not everyone gives a flying fuck about your client’s wonderful television commercial to want to read a fucking novel about it). You shouldn’t have more than one typeface or colour used in your email. Most importantly, your pitch should not come 48 hours before your event. If unfortunately, that happens, and it wasn’t due to your bad time management skills, apologise anyway from the start of your pitch. That is the least you can do.

6. YOUSENDIT to me, ISENDIT back
Until a blogger has agreed to participate in your blogger outreach programme, you don’t quite need to send 500MB worth of hi-res images. A bit presumptuous, don’t you think?

7. Be transparent and honest
Do not misrepresent information for the sake of getting the buy-in from a blogger. If you’ve promised something, you live up to it. If you have information that should be shared, you share it. If you weren’t transparent and honest, backlash will come biting you in the ass eventually.

Anyone has anymore to add?

Front page image courtesy of Doug Savage.