by admin | Jul 29, 2020 | Blog
Despite all of the metrics and data at our fingertips these days, public relations is still more art than science when it comes to attaining the ultimate goal: media coverage.
Sure, reports that show impact after the fact are indispensable and all the information at our fingertips has made the task of gathering this analysis much more comprehensive. The number of unique visitors per month (UVM) to news sites, conversion rates, click-throughs, etc. are all important. But what it is measuring and analyzing is the media placement the PR team has earned.
When it comes to media outreach, it is all about the intangible ability of the PR specialist to communicate a story, pull someone in, and generate enough interest that the journalist wants to learn more. There is no algorithm or artificial intelligence that has cracked that code.
In the media relations world, you need to master subtlety, conciseness, creativity, patience, and common sense. Who are the reporters you are contacting?
What is their preferred method of being contacted? What’s their beat? What have they written about recently?
Yes, we have tools that make this research much easier than it used to be. Honestly, I can’t imagine doing this job 40 years ago. The legwork had to have been exhausting. But, when it comes down to it, you are the one making the connection and, hopefully, securing the interview and/or placement.
As any PR vet will tell you, there is one thing serious reporters hate: spin. It’s an easy trap to fall into. The cliché among reporters is that anyone contacting them on behalf of a company, be it for a thought leadership article or an interview, is trying to use them as a mouthpiece for the company, product or executive they represent.
While your job is certainly to raise awareness for your client, you cannot be a part of their sales team. You are telling their story and demonstrating what makes them relevant and interesting. Members of the media will automatically roll their eyes at hyperbole, spin and overt self-promotion.
During my years in PR, I have seen examples of this plenty of times. You work with a client who insists on promoting a product launch to a reporter at a national publication, who inevitably responds (if they respond at all) with one word: “pass.”
The same goes for thought leadership. If you offer an interview by saying, “Ms. XYZ can talk to you about how their widget is revolutionizing the world of widgetry,” any reporter worth their salt will hit delete immediately.
If you say, “The world of widgetry has faced a multitude of issues during the past year due to end users dealing with (for example) data breaches. Ms. XYZ can offer concrete steps these companies can take to become more secure,” now they’re listening. If you can recruit one or two of your client’s customers to attest to the effectiveness of this approach, it drastically increases your chance of garnering interest from the media.
When it comes to byline articles and op-eds, the same rules apply. If Ms. XYZ writes a piece littered with references to how great her company and its solutions are, it’s not going to fly with most publications from trades to large national publications. I have seen self-promotional op-eds turned down many times. I have also seen them rewritten with the self-promotion removed, and that same publication reversing course and running the article.
This is all a balancing act. You have to meet the journalist’s standards and the client’s expectations at the same time. For both, it comes down to clear and honest communication.
You need to be armed with the reasons a reporter should be interested in your pitch, and you need to make sure your client understands that issue-driven not product-driven coverage is what will give them credibility in the industry.
Maybe someday companies will be able to enter information into an AI platform that writes the perfect pitch. Human-to-human media relations will become a profession of the past.
But let’s not dwell on that. I don’t want to give Zuckerberg any ideas and I want to keep my job.
The bottom line is we are storytellers, not spinmeisters. It takes nuance and authenticity. If you can pitch substance over spin, the results will speak for themselves.
by Matt Schlossberg | Sep 5, 2018 | Blog
Nothing fills me with existential dread like sitting down to write a media pitch.
Give me the sweet relief of an 800-word byline ghostwritten under a soul-crushing deadline. Bury me under the gigabyte of bone-dry peer-reviewed research I need to complete an immensely complex white paper. Let me spend eight hours hacking through a labyrinthine approval process just to get sign off on 400-word “new hire” press release.
Anything I do in the PR world is easier than convincing a stressed out and overworked journalist with a trigger finger on the junk file that my story is worth telling and doing it in under 100 very concise and very compelling words.
Below are what I believe to be the essentials of a good pitch, broken out by its main components. Following this advice is not going to guarantee a media hit for your client, but it will dramatically increase your chances.
The Subject Line. It’s true that many maybe even most pitches live or die based on the subject line, but that doesn’t mean you should panic and resort to dumb gimmicks in a bid to win a journalist’s attention. Expending way too many precious words to support a style of writing funny, hyperbolic or scare-quotes clever you can’t pull off wastes everyone’s time.
Think of it this way: The subject line is your pitch reduced to its simplest form. For that reason, I prefer to write my subject lines last. Good pitch writing usually leaves a lot of tasty leftovers that just couldn’t be fit into the final revision an interesting turn of phrase and a good word choice or two that didn’t make the cut can usually be repurposed into an effective Subject Line. If you feel you are really rusty, cut-and-paste your entire pitch, then slowly whittle it to its most essential elements.
The Opening Sentence. When I was a journalist, I was often surprised at the amount of “throat-clearing” in the pitches I received. I’m not a captive audience, dude! Into the trash you go!
If you have done your due diligence carefully researching the outlets and reporters that would be a good fit for your story you can avoid kicking off your story roughly 30 seconds after the newly formed Earth cooled.
Strategies will vary based on the story you are trying to tell, but I have had the most luck just telling the reporter what I want and why they should care: “Hey, [JOURNALIST], I’ve read your coverage on [TOPIC.] This [STORY] for [THESE REASONS] would be useful to your readers.”
If it sounds prosaic, that’s because it is. But by eliminating the throat-clearing, you can simply and honestly convey a.) your knowledge of the reporter; b.) your familiarity with how they have covered their beat; and c.) why your story is relevant to that coverage.
The Body. Most posts filed in the “pitching advice” genre emphasize the importance of brevity. And they’re right! Unfortunately, this can be taken to an extreme. A good pitch will offer a solid framework that the reporter can use to build the rest of the story. Use you pitch to cover the journalistic bases who, what, when, where, why and how. Add relevant links to your pitch to your sources LinkedIn profiles, evidence supporting your pitch idea and/or interesting industry trends, for example. Statistics relevant to a pitch help to ground it in reality. If you’re speaking about an end-user, be sure to provide specific numbers on the improvements they saw from using a solution. The more specifics, the better.
The Closer. A pitch should contain a clear call to action near the end, asking a reporter to specifically consider an interview or byline. A reporter may not be ready for this story right now, but politely ask them to keep you in mind for the future. Second, don’t be afraid to briefly offer to help a reporter with their coverage now and into the future. Many opportunities arise from relationship-building that starts with a single pitch. Lastly, always thank a reporter for their time.
Final Advice
Almost as important as knowing how to write a good pitch is to know when you don’t have anything to pitch. Not everything a client does is a story or warrants legitimate coverage.
This is where client management comes into play. Capturing inbound interview requests the sweet, sweet nectar of media relations is a long and painstaking process of developing a trusted relationship mostly over electronic devices.
Pitching writing is both an art and science which is part of the reason why creating them can be frustrating. Bad pitches are the kudzu of the public relations world, choking out good stories beneath an oppressive monoculture of bad faith and even worse writing. The problem is so pervasive that entire websites and Twitter feeds are dedicated to terrible pitches. However, devoting your energies to the right components of a pitch will ensure a greater level of success.
