How to Improve Your Media Pitches to Get More PR Features
Do you want to get consistent, recurring retainer revenue as a PR professional? Creating stellar media pitches is how you can get results that your clients will love.
If you can craft amazing media pitches and provide your clients with great results, they won’t need to work with anyone else. This will help you build a solid foundation that will attract more clients.
How to Craft Stellar Media Pitches
It can be frustrating to send out a great media pitch and never hear back. You feel like the power is out of your hands. You’ve done what you know how to do and then you just have to wait to hear back from them. But what if nobody responds?
The way to fix that problem is to focus on quality instead of quantity. Some PR pros get a media list and use uninspired pitches to mass pitch everyone. But that technique doesn’t work!
Instead, you have to spend time and effort developing a high-quality pitch. Focus on the right editors at the right time.
That's the formula to use: pitching the right story at the right time to the right person.
Related: How to Use a Media Pitch Template (and Why You Need One)
Reasons to Avoid Mass Pitching
If you craft a pitch and send it out to all the outlets on your list, it won’t be relevant to every single one.
Two things will happen.
The first thing that happens is that you won’t be able to build any relationships with editors. They know when someone sends them a mass pitch. They realize it’s a lazy strategy and they won’t write about your clients.
The second problem is that you’re going for the lowest common denominator with that type of strategy. You’re hoping that, out of 200 contacts, you’ll get a 2% return. But are they high-quality relevant features your clients would be most interested in? Will they move the needle?
No, that’s not how it works.
So instead of trying to pitch 200 contacts on your list, you have to laser in on the most relevant ones for your clients. Only reach out to the ones that have the attention of your client’s target customers. You have to hone your pitches to be more strategic, targeted, timely, and relevant.
Do The Research
The strategy that actually works is to have the right content, the right idea, and the right angle for the right editor at the right time.
That means you have to take the time and do the research.
Who are you sending the pitch to? What is the value that it's going to bring for their audience?
Focus on a few key places and look at the details. What is going to make a connection with them? Contact that one writer that could make the decision to interview your client or feature their product launch.
That’s what converts and what keeps your clients happy (which keeps you on a retainer with them for a long time!).
How Research Affects Your Media Pitches
You don’t want to come back to your client and say that you’ve pitched a hundred outlets and they all said they’ll keep it in mind. That really means “no”!
Instead, you want to go back to your client and tell them you have an editor who bought into your idea. The editor felt the excitement and spark in the pitch and they know it’s a good match.
You can then tell your client that you lasered in on their top 20 contacts that are most relevant to them and where they’ll connect with their target customer and 10 are interested. And 3 of them have follow-up questions. This is way better than telling them you pitched 200 media outlets and didn’t hear anything back.
Because you’ve spent a little bit of extra time on your pitch, you’re happy to tell your client that you have a couple of features in the works.
You won’t feel stressed out anymore because you can’t figure out why your media pitches aren’t working. Successful PR pros know the secret is doing the extra work to craft targeted pitches using a proven strategy and a winning pitch formula that gets results.
How to Strategize Good Pitch Angles
The timely and relevant aspect of media pitches is to strategize good pitch angles. There’s a lot that goes into this. We focus on this in The Pitch Lab.
For example, there’s a lot of holiday-centric pitches to make. And you need to know when to make them. When you’re focusing on something for the holidays, it doesn’t mean that every single publication is going to get the same holiday pitch.
You can share your client’s expertise for the holidays depending on the publication you’re talking to or depending on the product you may want to pitch.
Some are luxury publications and, with some media outlets, you’ll have to use the gift guide pitches that are for all levels. You’ll need to research and see what each publication did in the past.
One size does not fit all. That is what we focus on and teach in The Pitch Lab. We teach a customized way to come up with incredible pitch angles.
When you think about sending media pitches, put in the work and go for quality over quantity. Maybe you’ve heard that before, but you’re not practicing it. That is the key difference.
You want to make a connection with the other person at the end of the pitch. They want to be appreciated for the work they’re doing. They want to feel like they’re having conversations with people, not just getting shouted at with irrelevant content that is clogging up their inbox. Don’t be that person!
I know you don’t want to be. If you want some help, join our amazing community on Facebook for free. It’s called Profitable PR Pros. Everyone there is so helpful. We’ll teach you strategies so you can crush it and stop pitching to crickets!
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