Top Ten Tips On How To Pitch The Media

If you’re ready to get serious about press coverage for you or your business, these are ten time-tested tips to follow.

1. Offer Information of Value – Does your product or service offer something that’s unique and of value to your target audience? If so, it might be of interest to the media. It’s not about you or your business, it’s about what you or your business can do for others. What can you offer the public? Four questions to ask yourself before you approach a media person are:

• What makes my business special and unique?
• Why am I different from my competitors?
• Why are my clients purchasing my product or service?
• How does my business tie into a current trend?

If you can answer these questions easily, in a clear, concise way, then you are well on your way to being able to pitch a journalist.

2. Do your research beforehand – Make sure that you are familiar with the media outlet and that you are pitching the correct person. Addressing the right person signals that you are familiar with the subject area that a particular journalist covers. Read their work before you contact them so that you know how you would best fit.

3. Be professional and establish credibility – Approach the journalist in a friendly way, but don’t be overly casual or familiar. Let them know who you and why you are contacting them in a clear, concise manner. Be respectful of their time and know that they get hundreds of phone calls and emails each day. Introduce yourself, get to the point quickly and then ask if they would like you to follow-up with additional information.

4. Use their preferred method of communication – Always ask a journalist how they prefer to be contacted. If they ask you to email information, don’t badger them with phone calls. Once you have taken the time to develop a relationship with a journalist, it will be easier to pick up the phone to call them at a moment’s notice and get a response.

5. Tie your news into a trend or community issue – If you have a product or service that ties into current news of a change taking place in our society or an evolving trend that is being covered, you will have a much better chance of getting a journalist’s attention.

6. Be subtle – Media people are in the business of producing news, not producing sales for your business. Your communications with the media should not be an obvious bid for free advertising. Focus on how your product or service can help their readers/viewers, not it’s features.

7. Don’t be sloppy – Check your news releases for typos and grammatical errors. Make sure you spell the journalist’s name and their outlet correctly.

8. Make it easy for reporters to cover you – Before approaching a journalist with a pitch, make sure you are ready to provide them with all of the information they need if they ask for it. A complete press kit (profile, bio, fact sheet, press releases, images etc.) and/or a robust online media room are a great place to start.

9. Follow-up, but don’t be pushy – You want reporters to see you as the solution to their problems – not as a problem. If you have sent information, but haven’t heard anything back, one follow-up call and email is fine, calling five times a day is not. You will have ample opportunity to pitch them again. Courtesy and respect go a long way here – you want to be in the relationship for the long haul, which leads me to our final tip.

10. View the relationship as long-term, not as a one hit wonder – Keep the information flowing between you. Don’t just send an occasional press release – pick up the phone to call the reporter if they wrote a feature you particularly liked and let them know it. Keep sending in good ideas for stories every few weeks – not just about your business, but about your field or industry. Over time, make it your goal to become a valuable source of information and a trusted, well-liked and respected business person.

©Liz Dennery Sanders 2009

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How To Piss A Reporter Off

My apologies to Peter Shankman, who’s great resource “Help A Reporter Out” (HARO) has been helping public relations professionals connect with the media for years. I have come up with my own version called “Piss A Reporter Off” (PARO) as I have heard so many nightmarish tales from journalist friends over the years.

Without further ado, here are the top 13 ways to piss a reporter off:

1. Pitch them on a topic that they do not cover.
2. Call them five times a day.
3. Try to sell them on how fabulous your product or service is.
4. Address them in an overly friendly and casual manner – especially if you’ve never met or worked with them before.
5. Send an attachment with your email pitch. Even better, send a 21 megabyte attachment.
6. Pitch them, plus two other people at the same media outlet without letting them know.
7. Don’t do your homework beforehand and read/watch the media outlet to understand what they cover.
8. Call to yell at them when they don’t feature you or your business in a story.
9. Call them a week after a story has run and ask them when the story is going to run.
10. Take up their time on the phone by telling them (without stopping to take a breath) your entire history.
11. Continue to pitch them on a topic/story they have already declined.
12. When pitching the NY Times, for instance, make sure your refer to them as the LA Times (or better yet, USWeekly).
13. Lie.

©Liz Dennery Sanders 2009

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Make Space For Success

If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that you’re not going to connect with your brand brilliance consistently if you’re working 24/7. In order to keep your energy level high, work productively and get great intuitive hits, you’ve got to step away from the keyboard.

Hey, I never said it was easy. I’m the first one to admit that this has been a problem for me. I love my work and tend to get really excited about new projects and clients. Marketing and social media books, workshops and blogs are definitely my type of porn. But enough is enough people. When you find yourself consumed by one area of your life or you feel like your to-do list is three miles long, it’s time for an intervention.

Burnout isn’t pretty. Stress from your work life will seep into your personal life if it’s not managed. In order to thrive at work you’ve got to give your brain some time to unplug and recharge. I find that when I spend some time away from work doing non-work things that I love, not only do I get some great business ideas, but I get back to work feeling refreshed and ready to take on anything.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Get In The Flow: We all have non-work related activities that help us get into the “flow.” Think back to when you were a child. What could you lose yourself in for hours undisturbed? What do you absolutely love to do now as an adult that makes you forget time and space? For me, it’s things like yoga and pilates, horseback riding, art projects, walking on the beach, massage, dinner with girlfriends and reading a great book that help me to “unravel” my brain and leave my cares behind.
• Exercise: There are thousands of statistics about the benefits of exercise. Move your body more and you will have more energy and less stress. Guaranteed. If you don’t like the gym, then get outside. Take a walk around your neighborhood, bike through the park or go rollerblading on the beach. Take 30 minutes after work to walk your dog or just roll out your yoga mat and go through an asana series. Even better to do it outside if the weather is nice.
  
• Do the Brain Dump: Once a day (I usually like to do this either right before I leave my office or right before I go to bed at night), make a list of all the things you need to do the next day – and even for the next week. No item is too big or too small to add to the list, just get it out of your head. Once you have your list, then put an A next to the top five highest priority items and a B next to the next five. These are your most important items to address the following day. Do not start on a B item until you have finished the A’s.
  
• Set A Timer: Your kitchen timer is your friend at the office too! Armed with your to-do list that you created the night before, set your timer for 60 minutes and focus on getting your A priority items completed – one at a time. Close your email, do not take phone calls and focus only on one item at a time, crossing them off as you go. I call this my “Power Hour.” If done correctly (no distractions allowed), you will be absolutely amazed at how much you are able to accomplish in a mere hour. In our multi-tasking, attention deficit society, we are pulled in so many different directions and don’t realize that our attention is constantly being diluted.

If you aren’t taking care of yourself first, then you aren’t going to be much good to those around you. Life Coach Cheryl Richardson calls this “extreme self-care.” If your head and environment are filled with clutter and “to-do’s” and you aren’t allowing yourself time away from work for “fun and flow”, you are probably experiencing a pretty high level of stress and anxiety.

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