PR Pitch Strategies for Getting More Press For Your Clients
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Being an economic development-focused publicist has been an extremely rewarding career choice for me. Over my 20-year career, I've represented large and small locations in countries, states, cities and counties. In each case, I've had the chance to tell incredible stories about people, companies, innovation, economic resilience and overcoming challenges.
My foremost goal as a PR professional is to get stories in front of decision-makers to persuade them to start thinking about our clients as potential investment destinations. Ultimately if they do decide to locate there, in a small way, I played a role in helping people land jobs, grow the local economies of our clients and improve the livelihood of communities.
As an account director at Violet PR, I get press for our clients by implementing these PR pitch strategies:
Each morning over a cup of coffee, I monitor the day's big headlines — national and international — and those coming out of the various locations Violet PR represents. Doing this allows me to flag potential national or trend stories that I can refer to in pitches and identify relevant news or announcements to amplify as part of my pitching efforts.
When building media lists, I think of myself as a private investigator. Identifying the right reporter and their contact details can sometimes be challenging and involves more than just looking up a name in Cision. It sometimes requires performing Google and LinkedIn searches to find bits of information that direct me to the proper outlet or contact. Sometimes it requires real sleuthing! Found the email of a colleague working for the same outlet? Then there's a good chance that the email structure of the person we're trying to connect with is the same — first name.last name@outletname.
When crafting a pitch, I make sure it's simple, to the point, answers the 5Ws (who, what, when, where, and why), and includes researched and fact-based information. I like to share those extra details under my email signatures so reporters can refer to them if they wish to explore the story further. Journalists are bombarded daily by pitches, so a catchy subject line is essential. Most important, the pitch should pass the "So what?" test. Why should readers care about the story? Unfortunately, given the state of the media world today, fewer reporters are being asked to generate more coverage. This ultimately means that they need more time to do deep dives on stories, so anything a PR professional can do to make their lives easier — serving them with a story on a silver platter, metaphorically speaking, increases the odds of having that story picked up.
Once I have a well-written pitch that passes the "So what?" test, it's ready to be sent out. I reach out to between 20-40 outlets for every pick-up a story gets. So if the goal is to generate five pieces of coverage, I reach out to 200-400 reporters and follow up at least three times.
David Margolis, account director at Violet PR
While writing a great pitch is a very important aspect of public relations work, cultivating and maintaining relationships with media professionals is essential for success in the industry. But that great pitch and follow-up will open the door to those critical connections.
David has over 17 years of experience within the economic development and tourism-focused public relations and marketing space. Prior to joining Violet PR, David was principal at Conway Data, Inc., where he managed PR and marketing efforts for clients such as the Kingdom of Thailand, the States of Oklahoma, Louisiana, Georgia, Rhode Island, and Virginia, and the cities of Tampa, FL and Hampton Roads, VA. He has secured top-tier media coverage for clients in news outlets including CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Fast Company as well as industry-focused media outlets like Aviation Week, Automotive News and Site Selection.
Connect with David on LinkedIn.