How to (not) get mentioned on a blog

I am more than happy to mention new products and services if I think they're interesting. I'm human, so I can only read so many blogs, sites, newspapers, emails, RSS feeds etc., in a day, so telling me about something directly isn't a bad idea. However there are ways to pitch an idea and there are ways to pitch an idea. Sending me an email with a word document attached and very little else in it is not a good way of attracting positive attention from me. Yes I got it. Did I read it? Probably not. Why not? I didn't have any reason to and your "inspiring" email did not motivate me enough to take the time to read it. The email I got yesterday afternoon was a wonderful example of how NOT to get my attention. While the subject line was pretty catchy the content wasn't:

Please find attached press conference

If you ignore the obvious mistake (I'd love to see someone send me a press conference in a Word document!) what are you left with? Is there a call to action? No. Is there anything in there to catch my attention even on a really really slow day? No. Maybe someone who only gets 3 or 4 emails a day will take the time to read this kind of email, but I certainly won't. (On an average day I probably get between 600 and 1500 emails. I don't read a lot of them (obviously) as they don't require my attention immediately, but I still need to have them when something goes wrong and I need to reconstruct a chain of events.) If I contrast that with the email I got from Lar Veale regarding IQContent they are worlds apart. Lar sent me a short succint email asking me politely if I wouldn't mind mentioning their vacancies on here. The request was simple and to the point. I didn't have to open extra attachments or work harder to access the information I needed, as it was all contained within a succint email. Damien posted an article about contacting journalists a while back. There's no reason why people shouldn't treat bloggers any differently. (On a sidenote the press release that they sent me in the attachment had spelling mistakes and was totally uninspired even though it was supposedly prepared by a professional!)