We all have pitched journalists on the email and on the phone. We can also remember those times when we chatted up with journalists while on a media round and threw in a pitch. Now all these are the regular ways. I am wondering if any of us have pitched in a unique manner and have been successful at that.
Talking about this, I googled the topic a while back and found this article from Read Write Web - Five Wrong Ways to Pitch RWW and One Great Way, which seems to suggest a lot of ways of how not to pitch. The only way it thinks is okay is bundling up all your client’s information in an RSS feed and sending it to the journalist. Now while this might be working for RWW, for others, this seems as unpractical as coming up out of a geek to the normal person. I mean while a few techie PR professionals might send this to another techie journalist, the rest of the PR professionals and journalists in this country won’t be able to figure it out. Besides it doesn’t seem to serve many other purposes than keeping a journalist updated on developments.
There are no best ways to pitch a journalist. A lot of bloggers seems to love taking out their ‘how to pitch me’ sermons for PR professionals, each with his/her own individual preferences. However basic rules stand. Like spelling the journalists’/bloggers’ names right on your email salutations, researching well what he/she writes on, understanding that every journalist/ blogger is different, not giving a unsolicited phone call out of the blue, not flooding journalists’/bloggers’ inboxes with irrelevant stuff and press releases.
To take this conversation a bit further, we have written about the five key things to keep in mind while pitch a journalist, which includes the quality of the story peg, relationship with the journalist, knowing what the journalist writes on, industry knowledge, and media list. We have also written that perhaps the first half of the day is the best time of the day to pitch a journalist, because that’s the time when a journalist is mostly free. Calling in the morning has the advantage of also helping the reporter plan the day. Nothing will cheer him or her up more than an exclusive landing in the lap in the early hours itself.
Now coming back to the topic, consider the pitch methods below. What do you think? Have you done any of them succesfully? Are there more?
1. Post interaction pitch: Remember those times when a journalist is through with an interview of your client and you are generally chatting up some niceties before saying bye. Or remember those times when you and the journalist are waiting for the spokesperson, or when you are on way to the meeting the journalist. I mean all those times when the journalist is keen to know what other clients you handle and what are the new things going on. I have pitched stories at such occassions successfuly for many clients, and these are priceless moments that I never get on the phone, when you can explain evrything in detail.
2. Gtalk pitch: I notice some of our young PR colleagues today have many journalists on their Gtalk. Not so much when I was doing the client servicing actively. They chat away with these journalists like they were good friends and say they have pitched many stories succesfully from GTalk. Wonder how they did it. It’s understandable when you know a journalist personally but what I am talking about is people using GTalk as a social networking platform or as a common internet chat forum where you get to invite new people, accept invites, and then start chatting about anything in the world including pitches.
3. Twitter and Linkedin pitch: Almost same as Gtalk pitch, but out here you direct message a journalist or the blogger on Twitter or on Linkedin. I think this method depends a lot on how well you know the journalist. Note that many have written that they consider direct messaging quite intrusive and would prefer a public message update instead. You can consider the Twitpitch.
4. Blog comment pitch: When a blogger writes on a particular topic, you can leave a nice and valid input on his/her post and maybe on your service, that he/she takes notice and perhaps checks out your service. That could be a good way to start a conversation.
5. Online pitch tools and platforms: We have platforms for journalists and PR professionals like PitchWire that help both parties to manage pitches. How successful are these, I have no idea. anybody any luck?
Don’t forget to check out our top media relations tips.
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