Yesterday's pitch seminar brought to you by co-mastermind of the Bad Pitch Blog Kevin Dugan and GeekFactory PR stud Peter Shankman touched on the topic of food portions. I have to say that hors d'oeuvres are a lot less filling than entrees, but in the case of pitching a reporter, they are just right.Both Shankman and Dugan quipped about the number of PR professionals who simply don't get the fact that less is much, much more when it comes to phone calls, e-mails or blog responses. Particularly, they are referring to creating that initial contact with the reporter you so vehemently researched and targeted-- to reach your ultimate objective: build a relationship.
If you happened to miss yesterday's one hour help guide, here's the scoop:
- Build a list of your top 10 reporters and learn about them. That means read their bylines, tweet with them on Twitter, penetrate their blogs by comment
- Don't pitch until you damn well know it's interesting and helpful to their routine assignments
- Underpromise and overdeliver. Have the information, the interview sources ready and surprise them with an additional help tool they did not think of
- Those reporters you have targeted on your top 10 list will not necessarily be pitched on behalf of your client; rather, act as a source to tip reporters off to anything newsworthy
- Don't do fake or vague familiarity, such as telling the reporter you see they do a story on such and such... and then lead in with something completely off topic from the introduction. For example, "Hi Barbara, I saw that you recently did a story on how companies are using Twitter to increase hits on a microsite. Good work on that article! Anyway, I'm reaching out to you on behalf of my client that specializes in hair care products..." (Okay, that may be a stretch but you'd be surprised by the many flacks who still use this style).
- Lastly, don't be cutesy in e-mail subject lines. (A question I posed, was answered over the airwaves with a blunt "no").