Having been in the PR industry for over 25 years, I like to think that I know my stuff but I am still amazed at some of the things that I see other PRs doing.

I don’t know whether it is because they don’t know, or don’t care.

For example, I have worked with lots of people who are simply not interested in where they end up generating coverage for their clients. It is as though they are desperate to show their clients coverage to justify the fee.

I don’t get it. Clients pay for time and that time should be used as diligently and as smartly as possible.

I see Travel Dog as an extension of the clients’ sales teams and take a very close interest in how I can help them through strategically placed coverage be it on line, in print or via social media.

Do travel companies advertise in any old thing, willy nilly? Of course they don’t.

They have limited resources and target publications that they know are read by the type of people that buy their holidays. It really isn’t rocket science and PR should be just as targeted.

Just this week I saw a double page spread for a company that sells expensive, upmarket Caribbean holidays in a mass market (and very down market) women’s weekly magazine.

Whilst you can never be 100% certain who the reader might be (for example, you never know who might pick up a magazine from a dentist waiting room table) you can be 99% sure that the vast majority of people that BUY that publication would not spend that kind of money on – or probably afford – that type of holiday.

So a PR company somewhere has persuaded their client to spend whatever it cost to get a journalist (and possibly a partner too) out for a nice, expensive Caribbean holiday, and to what benefit?

I see it like the odds in a horse race; who is more likely to win? The 100/1 shot or the 7/4 favourite? I always go for the shortest odds, i.e. the publications that are most likely to get the phone ringing or create a spike on the web hits.

I ignore press requests from a lot of publications if I think that they simply won’t work for my clients; but when one comes in that I know will work, I will spend as much time as it takes, to make as good a representation of a client’s product that I can, and which best fits the brief, to guarantee the best possible chance of obtaining coverage (and don’t get me started on PRs that bend briefs!).

Work smart people …