“If I was down to my last dollar, I’d spend it on PR.” - Bill Gates.

WITH THIS IN mind, The INQ is launching the Dollar a Day PR training course.

Whoever coined this the Information Age was only half right. It’s actually the dis-information age. Now that technology has made us all naked, we need spin to cover ourselves up again. Journalists rarely make the news these days, it’s all PR driven,

We all need to learn PR.

But since UK firms charge you £600 a day, just to be serviced by a bloke so fresh out of college he’s still hungover – we’ve gone for a more ‘cost effective’ version. We’ve signed up for the Dollar a Day PR correspondence course.

Each day, we’ll share a dollar’s worth of knowledge.

PR Lesson 1. Writing a press release.
Press releases are really easy. So easy, that your message might be embarrassingly simple. “We’re launching a product, that will save companies money, by cutting out the repetition.”

Problem is, if you make it sound simple, people won’t respect you. They need to be confused, so they feel a little bit inadequate and inferior.

So bulk out your press release with some powerful sounding - but impotent - phrases like “world’s leading” “best in class” and “strategic partnership”.

These are mere padding, and completely harmless. Think, why would anyone enter a partnership, in business, if it wasn’t for strategic reasons? Ever heard of a pointless partnership? See what I mean? Words are mere padding, silicon implants designed to bulk up your message, and make it look more attractive – to shallow insecure people. And there are plenty of them around. Mix your metaphors well, until the message is entirely dissolved, or nebulous at least.

Now, the finishing touches. Put your name down as the press contact at the end of the release.

Then – and this is the important bit – you must set your message systems on auto-respond. And the message to any journalist who tries to contact you is this: “I’m now out the office until January 2009”.

Why don’t you want anyone to contact you? Because you want to force them to get everything from the press release. It’s all about cut and paste journalism these days. Believe us, there are plenty of IT news sites run on this principle.

Sorted! That’ll get you coverage. µ

Tomorrow
How to complain if your key messages isn’t perfectly reproduced by an obedient hack.