Here’s a recent example … My firm contacted a trade association for comment over a timely issue that is relevant to one of our corporate clients. Our client wanted a story about the issue for the online news site we manage for them.

What sounded easy turned into a challenge after the association’s small PR agency got involved. The agency wasn’t prepared.

Sure enough the PR agency in Washington, DC, emailed us a statement … the same statement they had blindly blasted out on Vocus,* the press release list service that’s used by many lazy PR people to send client releases into oblivion.

But, when we asked the agency for the association’s logo or a graphic, they melted down. It never occurred to them. They actually suggested that we contact the association, their client, in hopes of getting a logo. Yikes?! How incompetent is that?!!!

It hadn’t crossed their mind that stories today need images and graphics in order to be used, whether by a blogger, the mainstream media or a corporate news site. All this agency did was write statements and press releases, send them out on Vocus’ email lists (that generally end up being caught by spam filters) and bill the client. They were not thinking about what might get more attention for their client in today’s digital era.

PR today needs to be:

• More savvy about what it takes to get a story placed in today’s media.
• Avoid the outdated model of using blast press releases services that rarely accomplish tangible results.
• More focused on the use of relevant images.
• More interested in what will help their clients than sleepwalking between 9 and 5.

Hey, it’s not just me … talk with anyone in today’s media about how irrelevant PR people are making themselves …

* Let me just add this note … the point of this blog post seemingly has been missed on the Vocus people who have written to me in protest. I use Vocus as an example of the proliferation of media list services used by PR people who rarely interface with the media. They are other such services and all enablers.