Almost any journalist (or editor or producer or blogger or podcaster) will tell you they are inundated with irrelevant pitches from public relations “professionals.”
A global survey by Cision of journalists and other media professionals backs this up, showing that only 1% of them say that at least three-quarters of the pitches they receive are relevant. Forty-nine percent receive more than 50 pitches each week. So what can PR pros do to make their pitches stand out?
Here are a few tips based on the report’s findings.
- Understand your audience
- Provide a press release and spokespeople
- Time pitches strategically
Kinda basic, I know. But you’d be surprised how often the basics aren’t followed. Read the rest at Marketing Charts.
How NOT To Pitch Bloggers Segment Transcript
David Erickson: In our never-ending quest to educate people on how to pitch bloggers, I’ve got an example that I need to run by all you because it’s classic.
I got an email with a subject line of Infographic Suggestion for http://trends.e-strategyblog.com, which of course is one of my blogs. So, I’m interested in infographics; I’m going to take a look. I noticed that the person who sent it, the name of the sender is Sophia Loren. So that’s usually going to be a red flag for me to consider it spam because I know that Sofia Loren is not emailing me. So they email says hi–
Albert Maruggi: It could be her daughter. I’d look into it.
David Erickson: I have to look at it because I’m intrigued from my professional point of view. But–“Hi, my name is Sophia and I work with (and I want to name the name of the company) leading resource for data visualization and creative infographics. We just published an infographic on our site called Mission Mars One. Considering the overlap in subject matter with your blog, I thought perhaps you’d be interested in sharing this with your readers along with your posts.”
So I, of course–then they have the removal legalease at the bottom of the email where it says you’re on a list but we didn’t put you on a list, we realize that you’re not on the list and we won’t send anything to you again. So, if you want to be removed from our list respond thusly. Okay.
So I responded to it and I just said, “What’s the overlap?” Because there was none.
Albert Albert Maruggi: Yeah.
David Erickson: She said, “Thanks for getting in touch. Sorry for our mistake in email template. As there is infographic category in your site and is related to technology I have shared this with you.” I have an infographics category and I talked about technology–doesn’t matter what type of technology–or the fact that I never posted on space, ever; or Mars, ever.
BL Ochman: I have. They could have sent it to me.
David Erickson: So, I’ll forward you this email, then.
BL Ochman: Send it my way, Dave.
David Erickson: So, budding PR people don’t—
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