Public Relations Tips — Tip No. 3:

If you work in public relations and do NOT include some form of around-the-clock contact information on every PR document you distribute to journalists, you are a fool.

What am I talking about? Just about anything, such as:

• Press releases.
• News briefs.
• Media alerts.
• Fact sheets.
• FAQs.
• Q&As.
• White Papers.
• Industry Overviews.
• Biographies.
• Photos.
• Graphic Images.
• Business Cards.
• News Releases.
• Websites.
• Etc., etc., etc.

If a journalist is on deadline and he or she cannot reach you to get that one bit of information they need for their story, you’re screwed. Chances are that journalist will delete your client’s or company’s info from their copy, curse your name, and move on to someone else.

Me? My cell number goes on every PR document we publish with my name on it. EVERY ONE.

I have a nearly limitless supply of both cellular minutes and text message usage each month, and I ALWAYS want to make sure a reporter can contact me on their schedule, not mine.

For the record, my cell number is 556-8184 within the 801 area code. (And I only wrote it that way so automated software bots wouldn’t copy it off this page.)