Win press coverage: 7 tips for refining your pitch
There’s no excuse for not getting coverage for your client or company—if you’re doing it right.
Here’s an excerpt on how to tailor PR pitches:
As employees, it’s easy to get distracted by the people we report to. Your CEO or team leader isn’t always the best person to determine the quality of news. To them, more often than not, everything is newsworthy and a good fit for The New York Times.
Remember the stuff you learned about journalism in school? What makes a good news story? Your topic should be timely and relevant for the audience of the outlet you’re pitching. Even if your story is timely and relevant to the outlet you’re pitching, it might not be a fit for the reporter you think writes about that stuff.
Sometimes newsworthiness is merely a factor of how you package the news in your pitch. You have to adapt the pitch to each journalist and outlet. Does this take more time? Yes. Is it worth the effort? Yes.
If you don’t have the time to do this with every outlet, use the 80/20 principle to focus your time where it will make the greatest impact. (Which 20 percent of outlets will produce 80 percent of the results you’re looking for?) This could be a 90/10 or even 99/1 split, but you get the idea. To help you adapt your pitch to the right journalist or outlet, here are some tips for refining your pitches:
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