Journalists get 400 pitches a day. Make yours the one they click.
If you want a placement that makes an impact on diverse audiences, you can hardly do better than securing quality media coverage. But journalists are flooded with pitches every day. Success is not going to come from hitting every reporter, editor, and producer with a diversity quota or treating pitching as a numbers game.
Instead, it requires niching down to each media gatekeeper — a massive challenge when there are a half-dozen ways to reach someone, and journalists are moving at the speed of 24/7 news.
That was the common thread running through two recent episodes of Cracking the Comms Code.
The first brought together three senior communications professionals to discuss strategies to reach diverse audiences instead of sticking to one broad (but inefficient and ineffective) cohort:
- Robert Kuykendall, Director of Accounts at Proven Media Solutions;
- Ryan Cohn, Chief Strategy Officer & Partner at Sachs Media; and
- KayAnn P. Schoeneman, President & Co-Owner of Curley Company.
The second flipped the perspective, bringing in three reporters to shed light on how communicators can get reporters to care about your pitch in the first place:
- Anastassia Gliadkovskaya, Senior Reporter at Fierce Healthcare;
- Jeremy Lott, Reporter at The Epoch Times; and
- Scott Carlson, Reporter at The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The comms pros and the reporters came from opposite ends of the process to (more or less) agree: Good communication is about making what you say matter to the person hearing it.
Name the Audience
Ask your client or your boss, “Who’s your audience?” If he answers “Everybody!,” run for cover.
One of the biggest mistakes executives can make is to treat an audience like a giant bucket. But a modest budget spread across five audiences — even if they’re all considered one bucket — will likely just get you five mediocre campaigns. Target your audiences carefully, and your resources will go farther.
Whole Foods doesn’t go after most buyers; the new product needs only 5,000 buyers in a country of 340 million people. Political candidates want only 50.5% of voters, and voters make up only a fraction of the constituency.
Whatever the desired transaction, identify the audience with the clearest path to the desired outcome, and then work on hitting only that audience.
“Media” Is Lame. “Journalist” Is Great.
Most pitches fail because they are too general. This means more than just avoiding email blasts. Get more specific about your recipient — down to the particular paper, or better yet, to the particular reporter.
Consider these four easy steps for research and targeting:
- Figure out which outlets reach the target audience.
- Zero in on the guy or girl at those outlets who reach the audience.
- Background-check that journalist. What’s his beat, his niche? What’s he covered lately?
- Identify the reporter’s style. How does she operate? Live interviews? Breaking news? Evergreen stories? What formats do her last five, ten, fifteen most recent articles take?
You don’t want to be like the uncle who asks his nephew, “How’s school going?” every time he sees him. Yes, fine, the kid is in school, but there’s more to him than that.
Journalists are the same. Before sending a pitch, look for patterns. Understand the questions he’s asking and the stories his publication considers important. Then ask whether your idea will find purchase in his head, and thus on his outlet’s pages. That’s how your pitch email gets a click and a read.
Zoom In, Zoom Out
Oftentimes a pitch email gets clicked because of an unconventional, niche subject. However, the pitch itself will work only if the niche that got the click is connected to a wider issue that person is covering.
Maybe you’re pitching a trade publication with a narrow focus, but the journalist is planning a wider-scale project down the line. Some beat and prior coverage research can reveal that, and you can tailor your pitch accordingly. Or your target outlet might have several different media, like print and podcasts, and your pitch fits only so-so into one but really well into another.
Deftly laying out the broader context will help your target journalist map out the best use of your content for her outlet. Zeroing in on the hook or the unconventional angle or the exclusive information establishes that you have something to say.
Find the Eager Recruits
Another flaw with the “broadcasting” mindset is the rigid assumption that communication has to come directly from the organization. But why?
What if you can get people who aren’t officially part of the communications department to do some of the message distribution work? How about employees, partners, customers, franchisees? Industry experts? Other advocates? The world is our oyster!
Think about this from the reporter’s perspective. She doesn’t want a canned statement from the CEO. Give her a dozen testimonials from consumers whose lives were changed by the product, or an outside expert with a report that verifies your narrative, or a low-level employee who found his spouse at work. That’s fodder for a story – just ask the surrogates for presidential candidates.
The stories we’ve gotten into major media like Fox News Digital, USA TODAY, and The Hill are not from the $1,600 suits in the 32nd-floor boardroom. They’re people with personal takes with which audiences can connect.
In short, you don’t necessarily need to reach everyone directly if the people who command attention and respect are willing to carry the message for you. There are a lot of credible voices and trusted networks under the company’s top floor, and even outside the four walls. Use them!
Bye-Bye to Spray-And-Pray
The journalist doesn’t care about making your client look good. He’s cashing a paycheck on his ability to tell a story his employer’s audience cares about.
Those who rely on spray-and-pray blast a message out indiscriminately, hoping someone will pick it up just by virtue of having heard it. Reporters delete that email. Communicators, on the other hand, go to ground. They pick out with precision exactly the kind of journalist — and then the actual, literal, flesh-and-blood journalist — who will make a good partner. Client benefits, outlet benefits, everyone wins.
Watch the most recent episodes of Cracking the Comms Code below:
