Last week I had a very interesting chat with a start-up founder on the various pros and cons of PR and the role comms plays (or indeed, perhaps doesn't play) in a start-up business. One comment particularly stuck, being that he had received around 15 unsolicited approaches from PR agencies in the last year, none of which were either personal or considered, and would fall quite happily under the 'spam' bracket.

Now the PR industry has collectively been blindly throwing ideas at journalists and bloggers without first checking if the idea is relevant, timely, or even vaguely of interest, for decades. For an industry so symbiotic with that of the media, we do a great job of winding them up.

However, it seems this same approach is still inherent in many approaches to potential clients as well - why is something so crucial as new business being approached so haphazardly?

Is it because the guy I talked to was a start-up? Is there an assumption that he doesn't know better? The day after we met, he sent me a typical example and it beggared belief. I won't reprint it here, nor name the agency, but it basically said:

"Chris,

Want an [insert improbable statistic] return on your PR investment?"

It then linked to a youtube video, and finished. No email sign off, just the signature. One sentence (poorly phrased), and that was it. It didn't even say 'hello'.

No context, no understanding, no consideration. Now, why on God's clean earth would a business owner think 'wow, these guys should handle my communications strategy' if you can't be bothered to communicate properly in the first place?

The founder had told me the day before that the PR industry is not valued among his peers - indeed, we're well below lawyers for value for money, and mostly seen as mercenary and full of guff.

Statements such as the "guaranteed 300% return on investment" included in the World's Shortest Pitch don't exactly add credibility to the industry - and I'm not certain, but I'd bet this waffle statistic is based on the archaic AVE, which is a rant waiting to happen…

It's massively frustrating when you hear journalist on a weekly, (if not daily), basis venting spleen on twitter about impersonal pitches ('Dear Insert Wrong Name Here'); and blatant email mail merges ('Dear Editor', 'Dear XXXX' et al.) proving just how much the PR cares about who they're emailing.

When you see it done as a new business pitch the day after hearing that the founder of a very exciting business sees PR as uncaring and just after money, it makes you slightly angry.

Seriously, we're the communications industry - can we not 'communicate'?

Chris @wonky_donky