A five-step strategy to ensure your PR pitch goes the extra mile

If you’re new to the free publicity game, it can certainly be daunting to devise your first publicity plan and then put together your first media release. It’s no wonder then that some small business owners decide it all just seems like a lot of effort for little reward!

Where it gets fun though — and far more rewarding from an ROI point of view — is when you realise hitting one media outlet needn’t mean you’ll only end up with only one piece of coverage.

Here are my top tips for getting the most mileage out of your very first media pitch.

Five steps

1. Pick a target

   The very first step when you’re putting together a media pitch is writing your media release. Put simply, that’s a one page document (yes, one page!) that clearly outlines what it is you’re pitching; it’s not a product description, it’s not a history of your business, it’s not your bio.

   A media release is, in simple terms, a compelling story idea about what your business or product can do to help a “regular person”, being the people who are viewing, reading or listening to your chosen media outlet.

   But, before you start writing your first media release, I always suggest you think about targeting one specific media outlet —  i.e. choose which newspaper, magazine, radio show or TV show you’d like this particular story to end up on. Not only will that help you define who the “regular person” is that you’re targeting with the subject matter of your media release, but, when you’re new to this game, a tailored, personal approach when getting in touch with a media outlet is always much more likely to pay dividends. It is also far easier to manage on your end when you’re starting out!

   Put simply, it pays to visualise your story on the TV show, in the newspaper or on the radio program that you’re targeting before you put pen to paper on your first media release. 

2. Do your research

   We live in an incredibly content-hungry world and, not surprisingly, media outlets are constantly trying to quench our insatiable appetite. 

   So before sending your first email to a media outlet — or contacting a particular journo — it’s worth researching who the best person is that regularly writes or produces the type of store you’re pitching.

   Secondly, consider what other tentacles your target media outlet has, in addition to its main game. At the very least, every television show has an accompanying website, every radio station has a social media presence and, increasingly, a heap of newspaper journos have podcasts.

   Before you pick up the phone, ask yourself, could your pitch be complemented with additional pieces across the media outlet’s other tentacles?

3. It’s all about the add ons

   Step three: it’s time to send your media release out to your targeted outlet.

   If all goes according to plan, you’ll receive a response from a journo or producer wanting to know a bit more and, hopefully, offer you a spot in their publication or on their show. Now comes the time to dazzle them — and turbocharge your pitch using all that background knowledge you gained doing your aforementioned research.

   For example, you might consider offering to write a first-person article for the radio/TV show’s website, which gives interested audience members more information or ‘added value’ material. You could also suggest hosting a Facebook or Instagram Live video session with the audience, giving participants a chance to ask you specific questions.

   Alternatively, if you’re launching a new product or service, you could consider giving the media outlet a few freebies to share with their audience as giveaways. The more cherries you can dangle as a means to engage the media — and their audience — the better.

4. Help do the journo’s work for them

   If the journalist or producer takes the bait and likes the idea of making your pitch (and their story) go the extra mile, then it’s important not to drop the ball! You can continue to dazzle the journo by offering to help as much as possible in getting all the coverage you’ve managed to land to actually see the light of day.

   That might be as simple as offering to take some high-quality photographs or videos to compliment your pitch, or you might offer to write up a bunch of suggested questions to help guide an on-air conversation.

   If you’re really smart, you might suggest you liaise directly with the journo’s colleagues (at the “other tentacles”) in helping them get their own coverage sorted.

   Always remember, the story you manage to land with a particular journo or producer is probably just one of a number of content-demands on their time that day. So if you can help them tick off a few of their daily tasks, you could end up getting yourself a bit more coverage in the process. 

5. Don’t leave it until the last minute

   If all of this sounds sensible to you (and I hope it does) my final piece of advice would be to remember to think about all of this upfront when devising your first publicity plan — that way you won’t get too caught up in the process and excitement when you do get a ‘bite’.

   By thinking about how you can make your first pitch go the extra mile, you might also end up making a new media mate in the process… and, in my experience, journos and producers love helping their mates get repeat coverage.