PRSD

“We tried PR once. It didn’t work for us.”

I hear some version of it on almost every first call. Then there’s a little pause… and the story comes out.

PRSD, or what we so lovingly call PR Stress Disorder, is Notably’s name for what a brand has after an agency blasted 400 reporters and got nothing back. There was usually a big promise at the kickoff. Then came months of retainer invoices and a weekly report full of “emails sent,” with very little to show for any of it.

Yes, the name is a pun. The flinch is real, though!

How to spot it

A company with PRSD tends to show a few of these:

• The first question on our call is “can you guarantee coverage?”
• Someone still has the spreadsheet of every outlet the last agency “reached out to”
• Leadership has quietly decided PR just doesn’t work for companies like theirs

None of this means the company did anything wrong. It means someone sold them a version of a PR agency that we don’t run (pinky promise).

What causes it

Most PRSD comes from one habit -- treating reporters like a lead list.

The math is easy to sell. Send a pitch to 400 reporters and surely a few will bite? So the agency writes one generic email, mail-merges it and calls it outreach.

I went back through six years of my own sent pitch emails to see how that plays out. When I pitched one reporter on their own, 19.2% wrote back interested. That’s about 1 in 5. When a pitch went to eight or more reporters at once, 3.9% did. That’s about 1 in 25.

And it isn’t only because I know the people I pitch one at a time. Looking only at reporters I’d never worked with before, one-to-one pitches still drew 14.7% interested replies. Blasts drew 3.3%.

So the blast doesn’t just underperform. It burns the reporters who might have cared, because now they’ve seen your company’s name on something that wasn’t written for them.

The other cause is the promise. Nobody can promise coverage, because reporters decide what they write. That’s the whole point of earned media! When an agency promises a placement anyway, the brand pays for the distance between the promise and what actually happens. That distance is where PRSD lives.

Why we love working with companies that have it

This might sound strange, but companies with PRSD are some of my favorite clients.

They’ve already learned the hard way what doesn’t work, so nobody asks us to blast. They know a report of emails sent doesn’t mean anything. They want fewer, better stories and an honest read on what’s actually news.

That’s exactly how we like to work. Both of Notably’s co-founders have owned and sold businesses, so we look at every client’s PR budget and ask what we’d want done if it were our own money. A burned client is asking the same question. That makes for a very good first conversation.

How we cure it

1. We tell you what isn’t news. Most announcements start out in their Inside Voice -- fascinating to the company, a lot less so to everyone else. We’d rather say that on day one than after three quiet months.
2. We find the story a reporter would actually write. There’s almost always a story in there. It’s usually about a person, a problem or a change in the world, and the company is the proof.
3. We pitch one reporter at a time. Every pitch is written for a specific person. We read what they’ve covered recently before we write a word.
4. We stay one story ahead. We bring reporters the next story before it’s obvious, and we come half-built, with the data, the expert and the angle ready to go.
5. We never promise coverage. We’ll tell you which stories we think have a real shot and why. When one doesn’t land, you’ll hear the reason.

None of this is complicated. It just takes more care than a mail merge.

If your team has a case of PRSD, we’d love to talk. Book a call with us, and feel free to bring the old agency’s spreadsheet. We’ll tell you exactly what we’d do differently.

Curing every brand’s PRSD, one campaign at a time.

FAQ

What is PRSD in PR?

PRSD, or PR Stress Disorder, is Notably’s name for what a brand has after an agency blasted 400 reporters and got nothing back. It shows up as distrust of PR, requests for coverage guarantees, and a belief that PR doesn’t work for companies like theirs.

Why do mass media pitches fail?

Reporters can tell when a pitch wasn’t written for them. In six years of Carly Martinetti’s sent pitch emails, pitches to one reporter drew interested replies 19.2% of the time, and pitches sent to eight or more reporters at once drew 3.9%.

Can a PR agency guarantee coverage?

No. Reporters and editors decide what they publish. An agency can commit to the work, like story development, research and targeted pitching, but it can’t promise the outcome. Be wary of any agency that promises specific placements.

How do you choose a PR agency after a bad experience?

Ask how they decide who to pitch, and how many reporters get each pitch. Ask what they would tell you isn’t news. Ask how they report results, and whether the report counts emails sent or stories that ran.