PR done wrong is worse than no PR at all. A botched pitch poisons your relationship with a journalist permanently. A crisis mishandled becomes a permanent SEO liability. A poorly prepared spokesperson can undo months of earned coverage in a single interview.
Here are the seven most common PR mistakes we see and how to fix each one.
Mistake 1: Treating PR Like Advertising
Advertising is paid. You control the message, the placement, the headline. PR is earned. You don't control what a journalist writes you can only give them the best possible story to work with.
Brands that treat PR like advertising write press releases full of superlatives ("world-class," "revolutionary," "game-changing"), demand editorial approval on articles, and get frustrated when coverage isn't glowing. Journalists see this coming a mile away and ignore it entirely.
Mistake 2: Blasting Generic Press Releases to Everyone
The spray-and-pray approach to PR sending the same release to a list of 500 journalists does more damage than good. Open rates tank. Your domain gets flagged as spam. Relationships that could have been valuable get poisoned before they start.
One well-targeted pitch to 10 relevant journalists will outperform a mass blast to 500 every single time. Quality over volume is not a cliché it's the entire game in earned media.
Mistake 3: Having No Crisis Plan Before You Need One
Every brand will face a PR crisis eventually. A product recall, a viral social media incident, an executive controversy, a data breach it's not if, it's when. And when it happens, you have approximately 60 minutes to get your initial response right before the narrative runs away from you.
Brands with no crisis plan on file spend those first 60 minutes in a panic, going through legal approval loops and trying to agree on messaging from scratch. Brands with a plan spend those 60 minutes executing it.
300+ outlets. One agency.
From Forbes and Bloomberg to niche trade press across the US, UK, UAE and beyond browse our full catalogue and see exactly where your story can land.
Browse the full catalogue →Mistake 4: Ignoring Trade and Vertical Media
Everyone wants Forbes. Meanwhile, the publication actually read by your target buyers the industry trade with 40,000 highly engaged subscribers goes unpitched. Trade media often drives higher conversion rates than consumer press, because the audience is exactly the person who buys your product.
A feature in a relevant B2B trade can send more qualified inbound leads in a week than a Forbes mention. Don't neglect it.
Mistake 5: Sending Unprepared Spokespeople Into Interviews
Media training is not optional. One off-message quote, one poorly handled hostile question, one spokesperson who goes off script and you've handed a journalist a much better story than the one they came in to write.
Preparation means: knowing the three key messages you will deliver, knowing how to bridge back to those messages from difficult questions, and having practised the three toughest questions you're likely to face until the answers are instinctive.
Mistake 6: Measuring Vanity Metrics
Impressions and clip counts are easy to generate and nearly impossible to connect to business outcomes. If the only thing you can report to your CEO is "we got 47 mentions this quarter," you're measuring the wrong things.
Better metrics: share of voice in your category, sentiment trends over time, inbound leads attributed to specific coverage, journalist relationship depth (are they proactively coming to you for comment?). These are metrics that tell a real business story.
Quorum Media handles crisis communications and reputation management for companies when it matters most. Talk to us.
Mistake 7: Disappearing Between Campaign Cycles
PR is a relationship business. Journalists who only hear from you when you have something to announce very quickly learn to tune you out. The brands that get consistent, quality coverage are the ones building relationships when they have nothing to sell.
Send journalists relevant data they might not have seen. Offer them a quick expert quote for a story they're working on even if it's not about you. Congratulate them on a great piece. These micro-interactions compound into the kind of relationship where they come to you first.
None of these mistakes are fatal on their own. But they tend to cluster brands that make one usually make several. The good news is that each one is entirely fixable with the right approach.
If you want an honest assessment of where your current PR approach stands, talk to our team.
Common Questions About PR Mistakes
What is the most common PR mistake companies make?
Treating every company announcement as newsworthy to a journalist. Most internal milestones -- a new hire, a product update, a rebranded website -- do not constitute news outside the company itself. Pitching these as major stories exhausts journalists' patience and trains them to ignore future outreach. The discipline of identifying which developments have genuine external news value, and withholding pitches for everything else, is the foundation of a working media relationship.
Can bad PR be fixed after it has already spread?
Reputational damage from poor communications can be addressed over time, but the timeline is longer than most organisations expect. A well-executed response that acknowledges the issue clearly and demonstrates accountability can arrest the spread of negative coverage and begin shifting the narrative. What does not work is silence, deflection, or a response that appears to prioritise legal protection over honest engagement. Rebuilding credibility after a visible misstep typically requires twelve months or more of consistent, quality communications work before the effects become measurable.
Is silence ever the right PR strategy?
In narrow circumstances -- typically where any statement would create a larger story than the absence of one, or where legal proceedings make public comment genuinely inadvisable -- silence is defensible for a limited period. A brief holding statement acknowledging awareness of the situation is usually preferable to complete silence, as it signals engagement without committing to positions that may shift. Extended silence on a matter of public concern almost always amplifies the story rather than containing it.
How does a poorly written press release hurt a brand?
A press release that is long, jargon-heavy, or built around claims rather than facts wastes a journalist's time and signals that the company does not understand media. Journalists form judgments about a brand's communications competence quickly, and a poor press release can make them less likely to engage with future outreach regardless of the underlying story quality. The release also functions as a public document: vague language, superlatives, and unsubstantiated claims undermine credibility with anyone who reads it.
What is the difference between a PR mistake and a crisis?
A PR mistake is a communications misstep: a poorly timed announcement, an ill-judged social media post, a pitch that misreads the room. These are correctable with a considered response and generally do not threaten the business. A crisis involves an underlying event -- product failure, legal action, leadership misconduct, data breach -- where communications is one dimension of a multi-stakeholder response. The distinction matters because the tools are different: a PR mistake needs better communications, while a crisis requires genuine accountability and often operational change alongside communications work.