Pitching 101 Part 3: Writing Your Pitch (KISS)

Media Relations has long been a cornerstone of PR. Though not as all-encompassing for agencies and practitioners as it used to be, it is still an important skill every person who enters the profession needs to have.

The big thing that no one tells you about pitching: there is no secret perfect formula. What works with some journalists* will not work with others. This blog series, Pitching 101, outlines what I’ve found successful, and includes some tips and examples to help you draft better pitches. If you would like to read previous installments in this series, click here for Part 1: Know Your Client, and here for Part 2: Understand Who Would Actually Be Interested in the Story.

Writing Your Pitch (KISS)

So you know your client’s story and you know where you want to send it. From all of this research you’ve also discovered some particulars about how the ‘pitche-ee’ likes to be pitched. Start writing your pitch. Keep it short. Some tips on how to do this:

  • KISS: keep it simple, stupid and remove marketing speak – don’t use three words when one will do
    • Example:

A uniquely innovative new mobile app

VS.

A new mobile app

  • Limit yourself to three features/facts about the thing you are pitching

Get the journalist’s name right. I am going to say this again, GET THE JOURNALIST’S NAME RIGHT. Nothing will make them ignore your pitch faster than addressing it to someone else. Also, make sure everything is spelled right and is grammatically correct. Remember, you are emailing someone who writes as a career.

Pro-tip – Set up a time delay on your email account. In Gmail it’s ‘Undo Send’ in the Labs section. In Outlook it’s called ‘Delay Delivery’ under the Rules and Alerts section. Trust me on this, it will save you at least once a month. This tweet from the app Grammarly sums up the wisdom in doing this perfectly:

In my pitch I also like to make an ask. Instead of just telling them about my client, I give them a clue as to why I am sending them this email.

Example:

Hey Jane Smith Journalist, look at this cool thing my client is doing.

VS.

Hey Jane Smith Journalist, look at this cool thing my client is doing, I thought it may be of interest for you to cover as you write a lot about similar young founders of startups in the XZY space.

Once your pitch is drafted, send it.

The work isn’t done though. You most likely won’t get a response (but if you do, congrats on drafting an awesome pitch!). So follow up in a week or two. Keep the follow up short, and give a bit more info so that you are offering something more than ‘just checking-in to see if you would be interested in covering my client.’

If they do reply with interest, be prompt in getting them the information that they need, but don’t put the cart in front of the horse. If they say they want more info, don’t introduce them to the CEO right away because they may not be committed to writing the story yet, they could just want more information to see if the story is worthwhile. If you push the CEO on them, you will most likely have annoyed a journalist, and wasted the CEO’s time. The time you put into researching and getting to know your client at the beginning of the pitching process will come in handy at this point (see, it wasn’t a waste of time!).

Once you get a story placed, make sure to let them know that you will share it via numerous channels you can when it gets published (your social media, client’s social media, put a link to it in your client’s newsletter, etc.) and thank them for covering your client. These simple follow up steps can go a long way to building a relationship with a journalist, and may help you stand out from the hundreds of email pitches that they get every day.

One final thing: Learn from what didn’t work for you. If the pitch didn’t land, take a look at what you sent and tweak it to work better next time.

What are your tips for pitching? Share them with us on Twitter on @PRTheAgency or in the comments section below!

*Journalists, for the purposes of this post includes all different types of reporters: print media, bloggers, radio, television reporters, etc.

Pitching 101 pt. 3
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