PETER SHANKMAN
| POSTED ON April 6th, 2010 | 31 COMMENTS | + ADD YOUR COMMENT |
You know, we get thousands of emails from people using HARO on a regular basis. Tons of them are “Hey, we got published!” or “Hey, our ad on your site rocked!” which is awesome.
But then, every once in a while, we get the emails from people pissed off that our free service doesn’t completely do everything they want, including being a personal publicist, making them a sandwich, and helping them drop 30 pounds from their butt.
I was talking about this with my good friend Adam the other day, and he came up with a spectacular analogy that I’d like to share below.
What HARO IS. And what it isn’t.
We’ve got a reporter who needs to connect with expert sources for a story on X by day after tomorrow at 5pm.
They’re on deadline and have 48 hours to find at least one, but preferably three experts for on-air interviews.
At the same time, there’s a hotel with 150,000 rooms in it.
In each room, is one person, who is an expert on SOMETHING. Room 132,434 has an expert on Space Shuttle ignition systems. In room 94,546 is a woman who has cheated on countless men, and will talk about it since she’s reformed. In room 32,462 is a man who raises llamas.
Problem is, it’s going to take three weeks of 8-hour days for the reporter to physically visit each room of the 150,000 room hotel and speak to each expert to determine which ones are
A) Relevant to what his story is about
B) Qualified
C) Available on short notice.It’s simply not practical.
The reporter has a way to email them and a way to call them, but again, without knowing exactly which ones are relevant, qualified and available, he’d have to email or call all of them individually, which would take days.
ENTER HARO.
WHAT THE MASTER HARO (the list you get 3x per day, with all the queries) is:
The reporter recognizes all of the above, so in the interest of time, he has the hotel announce that there will be a gathering in the hotel conference room at 8am. At this gathering, the reporter will be announcing the story he’s working on and will ask those present who feel that they are qualified to act as an expert source to RAISE THEIR HAND. The reporter will then make contact with those folks directly and the others are free to leave the room.
200 people out of 150,000 raise their hand and step forward – a far more manageable number than the 150,000 that came to the gathering.
The reporter narrows the pool by speaking with them directly and gets what he needs, on time.
The others who showed up but did not raise their hand leave and wait for the next meeting. Or maybe there will ultimately be a meeting where 20-30 reporters attend, providing more opportunity for the sources to get coverage.
Or MAYBE, someone will get smart and the reporters will find a way to print a list of the topics they need experts on and the hotel staff will deliver this list and slide it under the doors at 5am of each of 150,000 rooms. It’s there when they wake up. It’s NOT unsolicited. It’s NOT spam, because each of the 150,000 occupants had to indicate on checkin that they wanted to receive it. At their option, when they finally do get their ass out of bed, they can either read it and send a short email to the reporter, or they can toss it, or they can call the front desk and tell them that they’re not interested in being notified of reporters who are looking for experts anymore.
That’s what the Master HARO is.
WHAT THE INDUSTRY HARO IS:
After several weeks, the guests are VERY happy that they no longer have to get up at 5am and 8am and show up at the expo conference room to hear what stories the reporters are working on. Now they can literally stay in their hotel room and respond from there if interested.
Life is great, but one expert in room #102,009 is upset.
He is LIVID that he has to get out of bed every morning just to scan all the topic headlines of a document that is slid under his room door by the hotel. He’s an expert on bacteriological combustion and 99% of the stories reporters are working on are NOT his area of expertise. Surely SOMEBODY must want to talk to him?
So he calls the hotel desk and suggests that he only be notified or bothered when a reporter is writing a story on Bacteriological combustion.
The desk clerk tells him that, with 150,000 guests, this is simply an unreasonable request from a staffing standpoint, to notify each occupant individually.
The scientist is again LIVID.
“This hotel SUCKS!” he said to the clerk on the phone.
“But Sir,” the clerk replies, “Your room is free. You’ve been staying here for weeks at the hotel’s expense. YOU ARE OUR GUEST, and as a GUEST you are free to leave the hotel any time.”
The desk clerk though, being a nice sort, proposes another option.
“Sir, we can’t notify you ONLY when we have a reporter doing a story on Bacteriological combustion. You’re not paying us to stay here. You’re not paying for the service and from both a time and a business standpoint, it would not work.”
“But we could divide the reporters’ needs into topic areas and allow you to only receive the topic areas you want to, slid under your door at 5am. From a logistics standpoint, we can accommodate around TEN categories that we’d have to fit all the types of stories under. But we can list yours under Technology.”
The scientist thinks for a minute and then says, “Yeah but I’m a scientist, so what does that have to do with Technology?”
“I’m not sure, Sir, but I can promise you that if we get a Science need, we will put it on that list.”
“But can you tell me how often a need for my area of expertise will be on the list?”
“No sir,” the clerk replies. “I’m not a mind reader. Only the reporters know what they are writing on and only their editors control the assignments.”
“I’m STILL pissed off!” the scientist says. “I should be able to lay in bed and only be woken up by your staff when a reporter wants to talk to ME. Not ‘Technology’, but ME. And it should continue to be free!”
“I’m sorry, Sir. You’re confusing our Hotel’s service. What you’re looking for is a PUBLICIST. This is something you will have to PAY for.”
“But… I shouldn’t have to PAY just to get called by reporters on my area of expertise!” the scientist says.
“I’m sorry, Sir. Again, you’re making an incorrect assumption. You’re assuming that your need to get press coverage for yourself is more important than a reporter’s need to find expert sources quickly. That’s a fundamental misunderstanding on your part.”
“I see,” says the scientist. “I guess it’s not so bad. And as you say, I’d have to pay for a publicist and I don’t pay for the room now or the bulletins I get.”
“Exactly, sir.’ says the clerk.
So again – as we said since the day I launched this site on Facebook – Welcome to HARO. Use it as you like – and we hope it’s helpful.
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For the past few weeks, I have received HARO queries in my mailbox. It’s amazing to see what reporters are working on and need a “source” for further information. I can’t even express in words how I feel when a query is found where I can contribute. Thank you to HARO for allowing me to participate as a “source” and a HUGE thank you to the reporters and bloggers who have contacted me and will be publishing my “contribution”. Huge thanks to Peter Shankman for allowing me this wonderful opportunity. |
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Genius post! And as someone who works in the hospitality industry, I definitely appreciate the analogy even more :-) However, I do have questions/comments/suggestions that maybe you can clarify, and it’s more on the IT side of HARO: 1. Do you think there is a way to allow users to create their own personalized “Master HARO” where only the topics we select are included in the HARO email? Currently we are given the option to opt-in/opt-out of the different categories but get a separate email for each of the categories… so if I sign up for 6 of the 10, I get 6 separate emails as opposed to one main email with just the 6 categories I am interested in. and… 2. I’m sure there is some technologically savvy way to create an individual, personalized version of HARO where users can set up keywords in their account and any posts with those keywords will be compiled into one main HARO email. This would require some more programming, but this would be a great service. In fact, I’m sure that there would be plenty of people interested in signing up for something like this as a “premium” version of HARO… (cue “ka-ching” sound…). Just my $0.02… Oh, and anyone following Peter on Twitter (@skydiver) can easily drop 30 pounds from their butt by living vicariously through him as he does his Ironman training. :-) -Eli |
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Perhaps a good publicist or two could advertise on HARO to reach the “mad” scientists like the one described above. On the other hand, who needs more clients from hell? |
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As a journalist, I love HARO for the convenience and quick turn-around time. But I also enjoy reading what other writers are doing. What an invaluable service, Peter! HARO should be HURRAH – Help Unlimited Reporters Rapidly and Handily |
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Thanks to HARO I was featured in Forbes. Thank you Peter for building something unique. Tyler |
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I’m so disappointed to hear that the “Jersey Shore” mentality (a.k.a. clients from hell who want to world handed to them on a silver platter for free) is affecting HARO too. By the way – LOVE the ads! Even if I don’t have time to read it all – I make sure to read the ads! You’re doing a GREAT job of picking advertisers. Keep up the GREAT work!!! |
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Thanks to Peter, I was inspired to run my businesses and life differently which has resulted in some amazing opportunities. I’m still amazed. Debbie Q. |
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Great analogy that explains it very well! I love HARO and having been a paying customer of other services that essentially work the same way, I am so grateful for the free room. Proud to say I was one of the original 1,000 members of the Facebook group. |
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Thank you Peter for developing a GREAT resource for reporters and sources alike. Like anything successful, you get a certain percentage of people who just can’t be pleased. Forget them. You’re offering a great service; for free, and shouldn’t have to waste time on those who expect the world to revolve around them. |
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Thanks HARO! You allowed me to get my client on a talk-radio show. Thanks for building and maintaining this service. |
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Hi Peter, First, I really enjoy HARO and understand the current rules and am a willing participant with the status quo. BUT, come on, in this day and age, it doesn’t seem like an overwhelming software challenge to add the ability for HARO users to pre-select keywords for notification. Personally, that’s how I read HARO anyway, I use the search feature in my email client and manually search for the 3 keywords that would pop up for my industry. It’s not ideal but faster than skim-reading every query – yes, I’ve signed up for the seperate topic emails but like your scientist, my expertise area is not a good fit with current categories. If my goal was free advertising then I WOULD hire a publicist, but I like the idea of helping and participating in a community. I just have nothing to say for 99.9% of the queries. I am very intersted in participating in queries that are relevent and don’t want to miss that .1% opportuntiy and the current system makes that difficult to do efficiently. FYI. I do read the ad and your comments at the top of each email because you are interesting and fun. I woudn’t want to lose those. To go back to your analogy. Most hotels are perfectly capble of offering automated services as per a guest’s custom preferences. Example: automated wake up calls. I request a custom wake up call just for my room and voila the phone rings to wake me up without involving any hotel employee. I’m thinking that even your hotel would soon forgo hand delivery of queries to automated systems. HARO has already evolved significantly in a very short period of time, and I’ve no doubt that in another couple of years, it will be even more useful, relevant, and easier to use. I’m not too worried about when that will happen, I am confident that you are the type of person who will always strive for improvement. I’m enjoying the HARO experience. Thank you. |
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I agree-not a one of us wants more clients from there. LOL. Thanks, Adam for your creativity and to Peter for posting. |
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Peter: Thank you for creating a wonderful opportunity for us all. I have received numerous opportunities as a result of your idea and always look forward to reading your e-mails. Keep up the great work. Neil. |
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I learn more about current trends by reading HARO cover to cover than by any other source. |
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But let’s not kid ourselves here: there IS money being made at the hotel in form of advertising being sold three times a day. So, while what HARO provides can be invaluable, it is NOT an completely altruistic endeavor. That having been said, I think one of the biggest frustrations as a small business owner is the unrealistic turnaround sometimes from the reporters AND the fact that now with the new HARO system we get locked out if we are even one minute past the (often same-day) deadline. Being a West Coast inhabitant who works all day and comes home to scan through the listings, it can be demoralizing to find a good fit for a pitch and then have it bounce back because the closing time was 7 pm Eastern. I think HARO could do a big service to both reporters and pitchers if they automatically extended the deadline to midnight of that day. It would also be a big help on both sides if they helped educate the reporters that they would get better matches if the deadline were extended to include Pacific time zone folks. Nothing is more frustrating than seeing a perfect query, but being locked out due to time zone differences! And from the reporter’s side, they could well be missing out on a better source, but because the cut off time is too early for West Coast folks, then end up just an “adequate” source. |
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Peter, thanks Peter, You rock Phil P.S. Oh and your wrong, social media can make your ass smaller. We’ve already proven it |
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Peter – There are always a couple of people who have to remind us that no good deed goes unpunished.. They will be just trying your patience, but your resilience is amazing — As a seasoned PR pro for 30 years, and a mentor to many young entrepreneurs, I also support many charities, and share your enthusiasm for helping others and giving back all the time. As my dad would say, don’t waste your energy on the small stuff — you have all positive energy and we all appreciate it, keep that focus. NJ President |
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Peter – your meeting planner buddy with MANY a meeting in hotels says THANK YOU for the analogy that I could so get! Sweet! Note – you really weren’t all that far off as to how actual guests can behave. |
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Great story- very clear, with just the right touch of sarcasm. I haven’t found my perfect story yet-but I’m still hanging out in my free room- having free room service, free beer and looking for the reporter who will tell my story to the world. |
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Peter, We’re newbies in HARO, so here is our initial feedback. As a newbie to your service, (just 2 weeks in, and submitted 5 pitches), I feel that my pitches are not being heard, or at the least I have no idea if they have reached the reporter etc… For a newbie, some sort of update in the status section would let me know that it’s in someone’s inbox. I’m sure that the issue is on my end, (not presenting a captivating pitch that deserves a response), but being new, it’s hard to get an idea of what is a good pitch, vs. a bad pitch. Any pointers for getting a better pitch across that will satisfy the reporters needs would be helpful. (BTW I’ve seen the article from Blue Volcano Media) Perhaps an example pitch posted somewhere on the site? Just feedback from a newbie. We’ll keep plugging away as I’m sure we’re just in the learning curve right now and some of these will be answered with time. Thanks again for the service and I hope to soon realize the full potential of HARO. Best Regards, |
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First — I like HARO. I like the concept. I understand the rules. Second — I want to emphasize two things that are mentioned above as improvements. There is also a responsibility on the reporter’s part to state the deadline accurately. In one instance, I responded to a request before the deadline only to find out that the reporter had already published the story hours earlier. That was a bit annoying since the response was not on my behalf, but to point the reporter to someone who is an expert. Imagine if I got a note saying to be in the lobby at 8am, got there on time, and then found out the meeting had been moved to 7am without notice. The hotel room is free, but how many more times am I going to hustle down for that 8am meeting call? I understand that reporters are sometimes forced by editors to get the story out earlier… but then you owe it to everyone who responded “late” (but still on your stated deadline) to send a “Thank you and sorry I had to push this earlier” note. In other instances, I am sure reporters shorten the deadline so that they have time to complete the story before their editor-imposed deadline. That’s fair enough, as long as doing so respects the timing of the mechanics of HARO. 2) Keyword searches. I do like to scan the Master HARO — frankly, you never know where something will show up or when you’ll see something where you know someone. BUT — I don’t always have time to do this. If there were a way to subscribe to a “Your Keywords” HARO, I’d then get both that and Master HARO. When I have time, I’ll scan the latter, point reporters to friends, etc. When I don’t have time, I’ll read the former. (Note also that you could do some useful analytics if we all defined keywords of interest.) Perhaps this is not practical — generating 150,000 SQL searches 3 times/day is a good amount of processing and disk power — but someone above may have provided a hint to the answer: if the Master HARO has jump links to my keywords (similar to “Back to Category Index”), there might be a lot less processing needed on your side, but still a keyword function. Again, this may not be practical, but please do keep it in mind. Once upon a time, broadband in a hotel room was unknown… but demand continued and technology advanced… and now you assume you’ll have it. :) |
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@Eli Gorin, CMP: You asked about the possibility of creating an individualized, user-directed Master HARO that had only what you wanted in it. This is certainly on our radar, Eli; but there are two things we consider when we evaluate suggestions like this: 1. We know such a feature “may” benefit “some” subscribers, but how would changing the format affect sponsor opportunities? 2. What would the development cost look like to do this? Like it or not, #1 (sponsor revenue / ad sales) is the sole reason why you do not have to pay a fee for a HARO subscription. From Day 1 it was critical to us to keep HARO free. The service, and our overhead, are subsidized by sponsors. The more custom options we provide, the more fragmented our publication is seen by sponsors. It’s valuable for one sponsor to reach 150,000 people in one fell swoop. We have fixed, sellable spots since we know that every issue is published 3 times a day to all subscribers. (For the Master HARO at least) If you and 10,000 others personalized it so you only received an issue if certain keywords were in it, that immediately and effectively reduces the size of the audience that sponsors reach – and in turn, the revenue we generate. I’m not saying personalized editions won’t be a feature we look closely at in the next site upgrade. What I am saying is simply that in order to keep HARO free, we must maintain a delicate balance between user features and keeping our sponsors happy. Would you be willing to pay a monthly or annual fee for a personalized-level service? My sense is probably not. As such we need to ensure that any new features added don’t cause attrition to ad sales or disinterest among sponsors. Adam Boettiger |
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@Lee wrote: “To go back to your analogy. Most hotels are perfectly capble of offering automated services as per a guest’s custom preferences. Example: automated wake up calls. I request a custom wake up call just for my room and voila the phone rings to wake me up without involving any hotel employee. I’m thinking that even your hotel would soon forgo hand delivery of queries to automated systems.” Yes! Anything is possible if you have and want to part with the budget to develop it. Definitely agree. We will definitely consider a Wake-Up Call service with the next site upgrade. :-) Adam |
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@Jennifer wrote: “But let’s not kid ourselves here: there IS money being made at the hotel in form of advertising being sold three times a day. So, while what HARO provides can be invaluable, it is NOT an completely altruistic endeavor.” Free to the end user does not mean that there are no overhead costs in running the Hotel, Jennifer. :-) “That having been said, I think one of the biggest frustrations as a small business owner is the unrealistic turnaround sometimes from the reporters AND the fact that now with the new HARO system we get locked out if we are even one minute past the (often same-day) deadline. Being a West Coast inhabitant who works all day and comes home to scan through the listings, it can be demoralizing to find a good fit for a pitch and then have it bounce back because the closing time was 7 pm Eastern.” Yep. We hear you loud and clear. We’re addressing the unrealistic deadline issue with reporters in our literature, but the reality is that we don’t set the deadlines, the reporters do. If they need it yesterday for a guest that has cancelled on FOX or CNN or Larry King, then they need it yesterday. If you’re reading queries later than an hour after they’re published, is it frustrating to see short deadlines? Absolutely. But that doesn’t change that reporter’s need for sources. We recently even extended the window past the deadline to allow for some buffer. “I think HARO could do a big service to both reporters and pitchers if they automatically extended the deadline to midnight of that day. It would also be a big help on both sides if they helped educate the reporters that they would get better matches if the deadline were extended to include Pacific time zone folks.” That’s an interesting idea that we’ll take under consideration. We do have plans to educate both sources and reporters on a deeper level. Thanks! @AdamBoettiger |
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@HighPoint wrote: “As a newbie to your service, (just 2 weeks in, and submitted 5 pitches), I feel that my pitches are not being heard, or at the least I have no idea if they have reached the reporter etc… For a newbie, some sort of update in the status section would let me know that it’s in someone’s inbox. I’m sure that the issue is on my end, (not presenting a captivating pitch that deserves a response), but being new, it’s hard to get an idea of what is a good pitch, vs. a bad pitch. Any pointers for getting a better pitch across that will satisfy the reporters needs would be helpful.” This is great input. We’ll try to provide some examples of good, bad and ugly if possible. Stay tuned! @AdamBoettiger |
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Hi Adam, My suggestions actually offer a way to continue pleasing the current sponsors and users, but making HARO more customizable. It’s not a matter of just what “may benefit some”… it’s redesigning the way your current division of HARO sub-sections goes out. I understand that sending multiple emails provides multiple opportunities, but it also becomes cumbersome on the users. I unsubscribed from individual section emails because I was getting 3 emails a day from each of the sections. So for example, if someone signed up for 5 sections then they will potentially get 15 emails from HARO in one day… 5 days a week…. that’s a potential of 75 emails in one week from HARO… great opportunity for advertisers, at the expense of the reader. My suggestion was to customize the MASTER HARO by allowing people to go into their profiles as they can now and select just the sections that they would like to see in the Master HARO email. One way of doing this (and I don’t know the coding, maybe it is or isnt possible) is providing a check-box asking if people would prefer to receive their preferred sections in one MASTER HARO or if they would prefer they come in as individual emails. That way, I can customize my Master HARO to include all the media requests for the sections I am interested in reading from. This isn’t a keyword customization, this is just doing the same thing being offered now but instead of sending out separate section emails, offer people the option to have those sections consolidated into one…. their own personalized Master HARO which includes the main advertising opportunity to your main sponsor. In terms of the keyword email development, I am sure that if properly planned out, you can charge enough of a premium to those 10,000 people that they will be willing to pay a nice fee to receive just the emails that they want. Think about it, as HARO grows, and the number of media requests grow, there will be a lot more requests that people have to skim through which takes more time out of their days (not talking hours, but as we know any time is money). One great media exposure will easily offset any premium fee. To give you a rough numbers example, consider this: There’s plenty of opportunity to make good money, but I just think it’s important to find that right balance between appeasing your advertisers AND your consumers, because in the end they both need each other. -Eli |
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@Eli: Great points. While I tend to agree with you in theory, I evaluated a large number of ESPs – Email Service Providers – and to my knowledge none of them could do what you’re speaking of. Totally understand the balance issue. We’ll take your suggestion under consideration for the next major upgrade to HARO. @AdamBoettiger |
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