I was listening to the Tony Kornheiser show this morning and they read through a direct mail piece that Tony received from the Washington Kastles Tennis Team.  The letter was a form invitation from the owner of the Kastles to an upcoming event and seemed to be pretty well done for a direct mail piece.  Tony and the crew absolutely ripped the Kastle organization for it though.  The problem – the letter started out “Dear Anthony”.

Boy, if you could take back a direct mail piece!

Most of us understand the methods for gathering names and information for direct mail, and that there are many mistakes in the names, titles or even gender.  Where the Kastles really messed up though is that they didn’t use public relations to address the media audience separate from the direct mailing to the general population.

For those not familiar with the Tony Kornheiser show, it is a daily talk show on a local DC sports radio station.  They talk some sports, but it is more about entertainment and, well, just stuff.  The Kornheiser crew/posse/team (what exactly are they?) loves to latch on to a product or company, for good or bad, and use it as conversation fodder throughout the show.  At the end of the show there is an email pile-on where the audience sends in their take on the day’s topics, usually dominated by the product or company in the spot light.  You can imagine (or you can probably go listen) how much fun they had with a letter from a local sports group to a national sports celebrity and local sports icon that started out “Dear Anthony”.

When you are planning your marketing campaigns, especially for upcoming special events, do some public relations planning first.  How would this have been different if before Tony received this impersonal, promotional invitation he had received a personally signed invitation, or even a phone call, from the owner or a public relations person?  Do you know the ten or twenty media people in your industry who have the power to make or ruin your day because they have an audience?  You should be communicating with these folks through public relations.

Many small business owners mistakenly limit public relations to periodic press releases about their business.  PR is much more than that, and unless you are a company popular enough to be newsworthy, self reporting press releases are useless.  Public relations is about knowing and building relationships with the media and providing information and resources that help them provide more value to their audience.  Of course your hope is that the end result reflects positively on your business.

The Prince William Chamber of Commerce is hosting a Marketing, Advertising and Public Relations Strategies conference in September and the focus this year is on Public Relations.  Wouldn’t it be great if Tony Kornheiser somehow found and read this obscure blog post and offered to come to the September 22nd as the keynote speaker!  “Mr. Anthony”, you can email me at jlgorman@sigmabizlearning.com if you’re interested.  It’s more likely that they read this post and publically humiliate me for my poor grammar and shameless use of their name to promote my blog and MAPS event!