11 steps to pitch journalists and influencers
How do you get press as an early-stage company? What steps will make you get covered by your favourite journalists and media outlets?
Unfortunately, there's no silver bullet and you need to do some homework and spend time on these tasks. Here's a step-by-step guide you can follow to keep up with influencers, run your media relations and pitch successfully.
Read the full Online PR for Startups guide.
1. Get your story straight
Startups' assets usually considered as news are: company launches, product launches, fundraising events, acquisitions, milestones, data insights, newsjacking.
What is your product? How will it affect others? Who will care? Positioning statements combine these three key factors into two sentences that are used to market the product and pitch it to the media.
RenĂŠe Warren, Co-Founder of OnboardlyÂ
Get clear on what your company stands for.Â
What is your philosophy or unique approach to tackling the problem in your market? Offer the press a fresh perspective. Be consistent and vocal about relevant issues in your space that are open for debate. Draw a line between your past experiences and why youâre in a special position to comment on these problems.
Jennifer Maloney, Co-Founder of Yulu PR
To make it "stick to your ribs", your story has to be:
Relevant. Who is your audience, and is your company solving a problem that they care about? What matters to them about that problem?
Inevitable. You want people to feel that whatever youâre developing is inevitable. This is like having a gust of wind at your companyâs back.
Believable. You can be relevant, and your product may even seem inevitable, but you still may not be believed. Being believable isn't just convincing people you can win, it's convincing them that they want you to win.Â
Simple. People are torn in so many directions these days â somehow you have to break through, and the way to do this is to keep things simple.
Caryn Marooney, Head of Technology Communications for Facebook
Your pressroom is everything you need to back up your custom pitch. Keep your online pressroom up-to-date: it features your press releases, presskit, contacts and company info. When someone gets interested in your story, you want to have all the necessary back-up information just one click away.Â
Moreover, you can add social proof to your pressroom. All the previous articles about you can be added as clippings to your pressroom. You can also start asking your clients for a quote - you donât need celebrities, just experts or people who share your usersâ pain. Be as precise as possible and feature them all in your pressroom.
4. Get in the media radar
Make a habit of reading your favourite reporters to stay on top of the news. Moreover, this will increase your chances of getting a reply.
Figure out whoâs covering your industry â then there will be those few reporters who cover that specific area youâre in. Make sure you read everything they write.
The reporters covering tech want to hear your story. Theyâre actively looking to build relationships with entrepreneurs.
Brooke Hammerling, Founder of Brew Media Relations
Yes, this is going to take time. You can start by defining your goals and audiences. Start following selected journalists, bloggers and influencers on Social Media.Â
You can add their publications to your feed reader and take some time every week to keep up-to-date with their articles. Share the articles, leave comments, ask them questions on Twitter, connect them with other people. You'll find unexpected ways to be helpful.Â
Let them remember your name, so you'll be more likely to get a reply when you pitch them. Get more details about building your presslist on this page.
6. Avoid mass distribution
Traditional wire services allow you to distribute your press releases to a pre-compiled list of selected journalists.Â
This approach is hardly effective anymore, for different reasons. A campaign made of fewer, shorter and very customized emails can go a long way, if you invest time and resources in it.
Dozens of new startups launch each day. Everyone thinks they have a story to tell. Reporters are bombarded with pitches every day.Â
No one wants to write about companies that are here today and gone tomorrow. They want to write about disruptors that have market longevity.
Taryn Langer, Founder of Moxie Communications Group
7. Craft your subject line
In order to increase the chances to get your emails opened, you need to work on your subject line. You also may want to spend about half the time you have in crafting your title: thereâs a rule about that. The Golden Rule? Donât sell whatâs inside, tell whatâs inside.
I think how a journalist would think. And so my subject line is a headline. I write my pitch like a small version of what their story is going to be. It takes practice, it takes writing iterations. Thatâs how I approach PR.
Johnny Brackett, Communications Manager at Square
8. Make sure there is CEO visibility
Often CEO visibility is required to get the best results. This person may need some media training to deliver key messages, to answer common questions in a meaningful way and to avoid dangerous pitfalls. Also, numbers and data to support your claims and back up your story are usually appreciated.
Your CEO or founder is your mouthpiece that plays an instrumental role in shaping your companyâs image, brand and culture. Therefore he or she needs to be accessible and visible to the public.Â
This means they must have a presence on social media, a positive relationship with the press and the ability to share your story flawlessly. Not only will their visibility create credibility and leadership in your industry, but it will also get them in front of the right people to help expand the business.
Shana Starr, Managing Partner at LFPR
Many sources agree about the preferred way to pitch: email. Emails are still one of the most powerful tools and journalists love them. Some may prefer different engagement tools, but when you get to know them you will know. How do you craft emails for the journalists and influencers you want to get in, then?
When writing your emails itâs tempting to just write one message and send it to all your contacts in one go.
What I do instead is write a very short paragraph explaining my announcement, just a couple of sentences long.
I then send every individual a personalized email with a personal salutation and a short explanation why I think this news is relevant for their audience. If they have written about your company before this can be included as well. The short description and link to the press release can be the same for everyone.
Marc KĂśhlbrugge, Founder of Betalist.
10. Time your news to perfection
Timing is often very important for media outlets. Sometimes, they may be interested in your story unless it's just been covered by someone else.
Last year when one of my companies was featured on TechCrunch, I emailed TheNextWeb that day to see if they wanted to write about the announcement. A journalist from the outlet wrote saying that she would have written about the story, but TechCrunch had already covered it and she was no longer interested.Â
To combat an incident such as this occurring, entrepreneurs implement something called an âembargoâ.
Conrad Egusa, Founder of Brownstein & Egusa
In order to improve, you need to measure the right metrics. Quantitative metrics can help you adjust your overall strategy. Open and click rates, for example, are good indicators of the quality of your email campaign.Â
A qualitative feedback can help you understand your strengths and weaknesses. Once you exchange a few emails with someone, itâs ok to ask for their preferences.
Is it true they prefer to be pitched in the morning? Is email the best way? How should you link to additional resources like presskit, press releases, etc?
Read the full Online PR for Startups guide.