I’ve never heard of the company Invent-Tech, but I’m betting it’s one of those companies that charges amateur inventors a gazillion dollars\u00a0to help them license and market their inventions.<\/p>\n
The company sent me a news release and cover letter last week\u00a0about Freddy Mella from Union City, New Jersey, who invented a product that extinguishes fires. The release and letter\u00a0violated at last a half-dozen rules of working with the media:<\/p>\n
—First, the cover letter would have been\u00a0unnecessary had they included all the details at the bottom of the release.<\/p>\n
—The\u00a0cover letter addressed me as “Dear\u00a0Sir or Madam.” They might not have the time to learn who I am, but that’s OK. I have the time to expose them as\u00a0lousy publicists.<\/p>\n
—The lead sentence says, “Enclosed, please find a Press Release to announce the development of an exciting new invention by one of our clients.” Never, ever tell the media that what you’re selling\u00a0is exciting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
—The cover letter says “There will be no product photos, prototypes or graphic illustrations of the design made available to the media until a licensing agreement and\/or Patent protection has been secured.” Then they have the gall to give a telephone number where the inventor can be interviewed. Most journalists I know would say “Buy an ad.”<\/p>\n
—No one’s name was at the bottom of the letter. It simply said\u00a0“Publicity\/Public Relations Dept. Ext. 2285.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
—The bottom of the letter says: “We would respectfully request\u00a0that we receive a tear sheet or reprint if you elect to publish this Press Release or any related\u00a0stories.” Never, ever ask the media for reprints. Call the circulation department and order as many copies as you need.<\/p>\n
In this case, I don’t think the company will have to worry about asking for reprints because I’m hard-pressed to think of a newspaper that would publish this.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve never heard of the company Invent-Tech, but I’m betting it’s one of those companies that charges amateur inventors a gazillion dollars\u00a0to help them license and market their inventions. The company sent me a news release and cover letter last week\u00a0about Freddy Mella from Union City, New Jersey, who invented a product that extinguishes fires.\u2026 Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","iawp_total_views":5,"wds_primary_category":606,"footnotes":""},"categories":[606],"tags":[55,610],"class_list":{"0":"post-646","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-public-relations","7":"tag-free-publicity","8":"tag-publicist","9":"entry"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Joan Stewart","author_link":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/author\/jstewart\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40925,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646\/revisions\/40925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}