My inbox and my patience had reached capacity. A plethora of irrelevant unsolicited press releases sent by publicists were landing in my primary folder. I would have believed that anyone would have recognized this practice as spam if it weren’t for the regular frequency I received these communications.
So I asked “Does it bother anyone else when someone collects your emails off of this group and sends an unsolicited press release?” to a closed Facebook group of PR, marketing and advertising professionals. I expected the response to be a resounding yes – as in my mind, scraping an email off of the web, adding it to an untargeted list and blindly blasting a release undermines a publicist’s primary objective: to build and maintain the integrity of relationships with the media and public.
Furthermore, if we look at sending unsolicited press releases from a digital culture perspective. Then the act of mailing an irrelevant email to an indiscriminate list of people, becomes, by definition, spam.
The latter notwithstanding, a debate waged on Facebook. While some argued that PR lists are a myth and relationship building is too time consuming so scraping emails and generically blasting the web is the only way to go. Others believed that sending unsolicited press releases would ultimately undermine the client and their message – a philosophy I’m most inclined to agree with. Yet, as opinions flew, I started to notice that where they lived influenced whether they were more likely to support indiscriminately sending press releases or not. It came down to whether they lived in a country with opt-in spam laws or opt-out spam laws.
Canada’s anti-spam law (CASL) states that whether you use email, SMS, social media or instant messaging to send commercial or promotional information about your organization, customers, prospects and other important audiences you must first have the consent of the recipient (either express or implied), or “opt-ins”.
United State’s anti-spam law (the “CAN-SPAM” Act) promotes an opt-out model. The main difference between the US anti-spam law and Canada’s lies in that business in the US can send promotional email messages unless the recipient informs the sender that they no longer wish to receive such emails, or “opt-outs”.
What most American publicists may not know is that they could be breaking Canadian law when sending unsolicited press releases to emails that are accessed by persons in Canada. According to MacMillan LLP:
“section 12(1) of CASL, a person contravenes section 6 (pertaining to the sending of promotional messages), if a computer system located in Canada is used to send or access the electronic message.
Therefore emails sent to persons in Canada have to comply with CASL.”Not observing these cultural and legal differences in regards to sending unsolicited press releases could have a serious and negative impact not only for a public relations firm but for their clients – especially clients looking to do business across the border.
It is a publicist’s responsibility to their client to represent them to the best of their ability and to ensure that their professional recommendations do not conflict with the public interest or put their clients at risk.
Here’s 5 steps to help you avoid getting clocked for spam:
- Know the spam laws of the people you’re soliciting. If it’s illegal, it’s potentially problematic for you and for your client. Just say “no” to violating the laws of the countries you’re hoping to get press in.
- Make sure the people you’re emailing are relevant to the information your sharing. Don’t send a pet food announcement to a fashion blogger unless you know for a fact they are into pet things!
- If you have any questions about a writer’s niche, email them! A simple, “Hey Super Blogger, Hope you’re well! I saw your blog and I would love to work with you on something in the future! Could you give me the heads up of what you love to cover and definitely let me know what’s on your ultimate wishlist for blog content. If I can hook it up, I will! Hope to talk to you soon, Your New PR Bestie.”
- If you want to do a blast, consider using a wire service. They don’t often result in journalists reaching out to cover the story, but it does ensure your press release is published on news paper websites around the world.
- If you get caught spamming, apologize! When I reached out (as a journalist) to a publicist to say “Sorry this isn’t relevant to me, please remove me from your list, I did not opt-in and this violates CASL – here’s the info for you.” the publicist replied with “I’m American, your laws do not apply to me so don’t tell me I have to follow them!” Don’t do that. Ever. Apologize first, follow up with gratitude for the information they shared and then ask what topics the journalist is interested in. Your job is to make relationships not enraged the journalist to want to report you for sending spam in the first place!
In the end, it doesn’t matter what side of the border you sit on, unsolicited press releases are not a good strategy for acquiring meaningful attention for your client. Spending that extra time to create targeted lists and cultivating relationships with media will always been your best course of action. While it may take time to build those relationships – over the course of your career the benefits will pay off much more reliably then spamming your client’s message to anyone and everyone with the hope that someone might bite.
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Photo: Viktor Hanacek, PicJumbo