Are you breaking the cardinal rule of PR pitching?
PR pros know to make pitches relevant so it doesn’t end up in the trash, but many ignore this principle. Learn how to implement it again.
Recently, a writer at Newsweek published a story recounting his weeklong experiment to read and reply to every PR pitch he received within 36 hours.
Given the volume of pitches that landed in his inbox, it was a noble effort. Some of the experiences he relayed made me chuckle, but a lot of his story also made me cringe as he enumerated the pitches that were completely irrelevant.
Every PR pro worth their salt knows that one of the basic tenets of PR is to appropriately target and personalize your pitch. Nothing will land your pitch in a journalist’s deleted mail folder faster than a pitch that is off base and irrelevant to their beat.
Yet why do PR pros continue to break this cardinal rule?
Most PR practitioners are exceptional professionals who strive to deliver outstanding results for the organizations they represent as efficiently and expediently as possible. However, it would not be too far-fetched to say that more than once in his/her career, a PR pro has sent a pitch that was off target.
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