Top ten most common mistakes PR agencies do when sending us press releases.

Sometimes I wonder, how do some PR agencies get paid for being so... Well, lets face it, bad. No no, I'm not saying that all of you PRgrunts are terrible, we have some good connections with some of you and look forward to your mails. But some others are really lost. Here's a list of the most common mistakes - perhaps some PR newbies might learn from this. If you wish to send things to us, don't make these mistakes.

#1 - The irrelevant release. We don't care for the MEHARRY MEDICAL COLLEGE SCIENTIFIC DIRECTOR LEADS RESEARCH TEAM TO DEVELOP A GENE REPLACEMENT THERAPY FOR PREMATURE OVARIAN FAILURE (todays example) and get really cranky when our inbox is filled with things that are totally irrelevant to us. Don't buy email lists, sit down and make your own contact list by nurturing contacts that you have, after all that is what you get paid for!
#2 - The mass-mailed release. If the "TO" line in the email does not say our email address it goes straight to the spam box with all the other spam. Don't just shot off a release to a list of hundreds of people pretending it's personal. Send a personal release by creating one email for the intended recipient. Seriously! With all the spam these days, everyone is protecting their inbox and you do not want that release sent straight to /dev/null. We also find releases in the root mailbox which were sent to a totally different domain. Get the address straight please. TO: hostmaster AT adland.tv is the way it needs to be
#3 - Your ad embdedded somewhere else links. What the hell people? We ask you so politely to knock that off yet every day we waste time on follow-ups that are simply us asking you for the ad you want us to publish in the first place. Save us all some time and just send us the ad, willya? Perhaps we can then use the time for some real follow-ups like interviewing you about the ad instead. Don't think you're being clever by sending us metacafé links instead. We want the commercial - not a link*.
* download link is ok, obviously
#4 - Giving us a little info and asking us if we're interested in more info - we reply yes - and then you send us a wide open website page link with no downloadable extra content specifically for us. Bonus points if said page is marked with "digg this" and other blog-link type dealios. Why do you pretend to give us something special if it's already out there in a big web posting already? Just send us that link in the first place then, don't be so cryptic.
#5 - Attaching the entire release in a word document. Just stop it. Email was designed to carry text and all you did was format it in