Shona Byrne, Senior Account Manager, lifts the lid on why media pitching isn’t a numbers game
We are all constantly battling a clogged inbox, and I can’t be the only one who has received a blanket email of no relevance – it is the most infuriating thing! Picture the scene: you have a small window to check your inbox, and you see a folder full of emails where your name is misspelled, trying to sell you something completely unrelated to your 9-5 job. You immediately hit delete without a second thought.
The same goes for receiving a call that is completely irrelevant to your role and is clear from the outset is a sales pitch. What do you do? Hang up without hesitation.
If we all know how annoying it is to receive an irrelevant mass mail-out or cold call, why is this approach taken when pitching to journalists? Unfortunately, this practice still occurs in the PR industry more than expected. Journalists are even known to publicly call out PRs for their blanket approach to pitches.
It goes without saying, but we have a quality over quantity focus at LLPR for generating coverage for our clients.
I can’t stress how critical it is to invest time into researching the best fit opportunities for a client, that are genuinely of interest to the journalist and are going to generate the best results. By working in a fast-paced industry where every minute counts, it may be tempting to take the ‘spray and pray’ pitching approach as it may seem that it is the most efficient way of sharing a press release with target media. However, spending 30 minutes or so researching two or three target journos is the most efficient way to generate the best results, and even save more time in the long run.
The proof is in the pudding, and genuinely the best results that deliver ROI and meet objectives are those that are generated through tailored pitching. Red flags should be waving if a press release is being sent out to the masses hoping an email might reach the right person, eventually.
There is no magic PR wand to create the desired results for a client, but there is a winning combination of strategic tactics. Within the PR industry, there is often discussion about how best to get your story in front of a journalist – is it through email, over the phone, via social media? I have found that sometimes all that is needed is to go back to the basic PR principles of simply drafting a compelling pitch. I evidence that I have read the journalist’s past content, I share with them what I liked about their work, and therefore prove why my story is relevant to them. This can be shared over the phone or in an email, there is no one size fits all in terms of the best way to communicate with a journalist.
Although we live in a world where we’re all more connected than ever before, in some ways it has never been harder to actually reach the right person effectively. This is where a little bit of thinking outside the box comes into play. While journalist’s social media profiles are strictly off limits, if they are choosing to keep their security setting on public view, there is no harm in having a little snoop.
There is a lot that can be learned this way that simply can’t be found out through any other desktop research. For example, I was recently looking to attract the right journalist for a family-friendly press trip. Through social media, I could see if they had taken similar trips as a family in the past, managed to work out the rough ages of their children, and discover their hobbies and interests as a family. All of this is valuable gold dust intel that helps strengthen a pitch and ensures it’s really going to land.
Similarly, I generated my first international piece of online coverage for The New York Times last year. The pitch was for Jane Austen’s 250th anniversary celebrations in Winchester. I invested the time needed to research the journalist and their interests, I ensured that my press release had a strong news hook with all the facts, and I sent it across. No magic wand necessary.
Would I have achieved the same results if I’d sent the release to the entire news team at The Times without a personalised pitch included? Probably not. I strongly feel that this coverage landed because I sent it at the right time to the right journalist with a compelling headline and an explanation as to why the story was the right fit for them.
Landing great coverage is a marathon, not a sprint. In my experience, it’s far better to spend 10 minutes crafting a genuine, personalised pitch to a journalist than blast out a press release to anyone and everyone. Connecting with media in this way shows journalists they’ve been understood, and that we genuinely have something to help them craft a great article. That’s what PRs are for here for, after all.
