How it Works: Pitching to Journalists
At Squirrels&Bears we believe in simplicity, and we like to provide clear answers to your questions. In our #howitworks series we focus on simple explanations of various aspects of marketing, highlighting the basic facts, what works and what doesn’t work. And we hope to make your life a little easier.
The Basics:
The most important part of pitching is having an extensive and up to date PR list. You want to ensure you have a wide variety of publications that cover a range of topics.
The saying goes quality over quantity but realistically the more journalists you send your pitch to the more likely it is going be picked up.
When building your PR list, get direct contacts rather than ‘general’ emails. This is a great way to ensure your pitch is in front of the right person from the off, if sent to a generic inbox it might never be seen. Doing this also opens opportunities for building relationships with writers or editors for specific publications.
Do:
Keep it short and sweet. You don’t need to overload them with information about experience or past achievements. Share what is relevant to the content of your article.
Do let them to know you are qualified to speak on the topic and include links to your LinkedIn profile or website in case they want to do further research into your career or history.
Focus on the key themes of the article to give a brief taster and leave them wanting to read the full piece. That is sure to grab their attention.
Personalise your pitches. This can be time consuming but combat this by having a template style pitch and personalise it as best you can by mentioning a certain section of the publication you think it would best fit.
Don’t:
Send your email without triple checking it first. Look for things like typos, grammatical errors, ensuring you have the correct name, that the name is spelled correctly, make sure your links work and that you’ve actually attached all your attachments!
Worry about being too formal. Especially if you have a contact you’ve emailed in the past. Give a cheery greeting and ask how they are doing, it just might help you stand out.
Ignore feedback! It is rare you will have an editor or journalist respond to tell you the things you are doing wrong, or right for that matter, but if they ever do be sure to make a note of it. This will help you improve your pitches in the future and also remind you not to make that mistake again.
Let your list get behind the times. If your emails give an auto reply that the person no longer works there or you just get a bounce back, then it is time to update the contact you have for that publication. If you are on top of this you won’t miss any opportunities.