Tips To Prepare Your Pitch to the Media
Pitching to the media makes people nervous. There’s a lot on the line, right? You want to make a good impression. You also, almost desperately, want them to pick up your story and cover it. (A media pitch is simply a brief email that you send to a reporter to get them interested in doing a story on your company). A lot can go into a pitch. You can spend a significant amount of time, energy, and money. The following tips will help you prepare your pitch to the media and get the results you want.
#1 It’s About Relationships
As you write your pitch, remember that you’re speaking to another professional who you’ve never met before. That means you want to be professional and respectful. It’s also good to remember that it’s okay if you don’t connect with a media representative the first time. Relationships can take time to build. Have the right attitude going into it.
#2 Respect Their Time
It’s important to get right to the point in your pitch. Of course you want to address who you are and why you’re reaching out to them. Then you want to get to the meat of your pitch, and that is your story. Long-winded pitches often aren’t read. Keep it short and simple.
#3 Next Steps
Provide the media representative with a way to get in touch with you and include a call to action. For example, “I appreciate your time and consideration. If you’re interested in learning more, please email Your Name at email@address.com or call me at 123-456-7890.”
#4 Give Them More
Give the media an opportunity to learn more. You can accomplish this by including a link to your media page or to a private page where you provide access to videos, case studies and other supplemental information. Here’s an example of what that might look like. “Please visit LINK for more information and I would be happy to send you a sample so you can experience this great product for yourself.”
#5 Follow Up
Let your media representative know that you’re going to follow up with them, and then actually follow through. When you’re preparing your media pitch, make sure that you check your calendar before you commit. If you tell them that you’re going to call on Friday, then call on Friday.
#6 Leverage Your Press
Do you already have some press and publicity? Have you won awards or endorsements? Use those elements in your press release. It’ll capture the media rep’s attention, and may get you the connection you need.
Finally, as you create your pitch to the media be sure to customize it for each representative you want to reach out to. Don’t send the same pitch to everyone. Make sure that you do your research and know who you’re talking to.
