Pitching can make or break a public relations professional. Writing with perfect grammar and prose is great, but if you can’t effectively pitch what you’ve written, then all the effort you put into your masterpiece is wasted. Avoid common pitching mistakes many new professionals make and excel at your pitching by taking our advice. If you follow these pitching steps from Krush’s content and community manager/PR guy, Brandon Dedmon of Oklahoma City, OK (OKC), you’ll impress yourself, your boss and clients with your results.
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Preparation
Before you’ve begun to write a pitch, you have to write your piece. Before you write your piece, you have to determine the type of medium you’ll be pushing your message through. Preparation is key in public relations! Will you be writing a news release, guest blog post or a feature story? Is your content meant to help with SEO, brand awareness, selling a certain product, or a combination of those things? Ask the client what types of goals he or she has in mind to help you make public relations suggestions.
Now that you’ve determined the client’s goals and what type of medium to go with, write the piece. Print it out, edit it and edit it again. Have someone else look over it and give you suggestions about grammar, punctuation and stylization. Once it’s perfect, it’s time to pitch, but only after you do your homework.
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Research
You may have thought that when it’s time to pitch, you obviously write the pitch – nope! Step two in the pitching process is when you stalk the journalist, blogger, etc. you want to run with your story. Okay, maybe not stalk in person, but social media creeping is okay for research purposes. Learn about their hobbies, passions and most importantly, their beat. Think of your client’s target audience and goals to help you figure out which publications’ writers you want to go after.
Once you know what kind of content would be beneficial to the journalist and their readers, use that knowledge to help craft your pitch. Engaging on social media with the journalist or meeting them for coffee can only help your chances for a successful pitch. Success in public relations takes time, and networking helps speed up the process.
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Brevity
Step three – you’re more than half way to crafting the perfect pitch. Now you should write the pitch, but remember to keep it brief. Journalists receive hundreds of pitch emails a day. They don’t have time to read through a novel of an email that miserably fails at convincing them to write about your client.
A good rule of thumb is to keep the pitch less than 200 words. Tell the journalist key points about your piece and explain to them how picking it up would work with their beat. It’s a two-way street. A good pitch is convincing someone that you’re able to give them top-notch material for their publication. Make sure your email doesn’t have any grammar or punctuation mistakes and then push send!
You made it. You crafted the perfect pitch, didn’t you? Hardly – pitching is an art. The more practice you get at it, the better you will get. Practice makes perfect! If the journalist hasn’t emailed you back after a pitch, follow up without being annoying. Much like fishing, all you can do now is wait for a bite. Good luck!
Krush Digital, an integrated agency founded in 2013, is the bridge between the past of marketing and its future. The agency specializes in digital marketing, public relations, media planning, social media, SEO, SEM, web design, IT technology, mobile apps, media placement, search, re-targeting, contextual targeting, viral campaigns, content marketing, branding, analytic reporting, creative services and research.
Krush is well versed in current marketing, advertising and public relations tactics, as it helps businesses cut through the clutter, convey relevancy and improve preference score. We are strategic communicators with a digital mindset. Call us today at (405) 603-5355 to chat with us. We look forward to hearing from you!
