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Memo to PR people: Cision sucks

OK, this is a little ranty, so if you're not in PR, you can safely skip this and just join the growing ranks of people who think I need to get out of the house more:

So, just you PR people left in the room now? Good. Let's cut to the chase: You pay tons of money for contact lists from Cision. And if my experience is any judge, you're getting ripped off.

While I am grateful that Cision no longer lists me as a parenting blogger, so I no longer get pelted with press releases about ways of spicing up rainy Sundays with green Heinz ketchup, they now have me listed as a home-decor blogger, so now I get pelted with pitches about "redecorating for summer" and other exciting topics I wouldn't write about if you paid me.

But who am I kidding? It's bad enough that some drone at some database company can't be bothered to spend 15 seconds looking at a site to confirm something basic like what the blog is about. What's worse, dear public-relations professionals, is that you and your account people can't be bothered to spend 15 seconds confirming whether Cision is accurate (which they are not) by looking at the frickin' sites you pitch.

There are PR pitches I appreciate. See if you can figure out what those might be, based on the contents of the home page here Look at the "title bar" on the home page (that's that colored strip at the very top of your browser window). If you're still puzzled, just stop and walk away. Don't waste your time - or mine.


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Comments

I don't see how they are legally in business -- they are selling mailing lists to people who use them for unsolicited bulk email with no opt-out and no unsubscribe method.

I get six or ten PR pitches a day related to a job I left a year ago. Can't unsubscribe.

Basically their customers are a legion of walking CAN-SPAM violations.

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Its the same thing as normal spam, out of every 10,000 emails they send they get 100 opens, 10 reponses and 1 customer.

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Hi Adam,

Jay from Cision here. I just wanted to reach out and say that we communicate and work closely with journalists every day to ensure that their topics of interest are listed correctly and that we're guiding our clients to contact them using their preferred method, whether that's e-mail, mail, phone, online contact forms, Twitter, or something else. We're in constant contact with media professionals, asking about their interests and preferences. I speak with journalists every day who understand the value of being listed with us.

In addition, we work hard to educate the PR community about targeted, relevant outreach through a number of free educational services including our Navigator site, our blog and webinars. As ever, PR professionals who are still using the old "spray-and-pray" approach aren't getting the same results as those who develop personal relationships with the media and bloggers, and that's what we help them do. I will be in contact to ensure that your listing is updated or amended as you'd like.

Jay

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We're in constant contact

And here I thought that was one of your competitors.

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This is the second time I've been in contact with somebody from Cision about this. I believe the last time resulted in me getting switched from parenting to home decor.

To be honest, I don't see any value in being listed in your guide, unless you have a category for "Boston." I'm parochial like that.

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nowhere in his 2 paragraphs of rhetoric did I see the word "sorry". What a tool.

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...could write that response in their sleep.

Did you expect a *genuine* response from a *marketing* company? :)

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UHub: they're sorry.

Sorry, worthless, annoying tools...

also Innocent, etc.

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Kevin Senne is the compliance officer from the company that sends Cision's client emails. If you tell him you are getting unsolicited emails, they may stop it. His email address is
[email protected]

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The problem wasn't that I was getting unsolicted e-mail from Cision, but from the people who pay big bucks for Cision's blogger guide.

I exchanged a couple of e-mail notes with Jay at Cision, who did a couple of things.

He sent me the description they use for me in their guide, and it sounded reasonable, even mentions that I focus on Boston, so the issue seems more to be clueless PR agencies hiring clueless interns/junior-level account execs who apparently don't realize they don't get paid by the number of e-mails they send out (or maybe they do, who knows?).

But, at the same time, he did whatever it was he had to to just take me out of their guide altogether. Since the only Cision-related e-mail I get seems to be about stuff I never write about - and because Boston-area PR people who do want to reach me know how to use the "Contact" link at the top of every UH page - it's the reasonable thing to do.

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