How To Pitch To The Press: The 8 No-Fail Strategies

In my day job I’m an entrepreneur, as the founder of a leading PR strategy agency, Snapp Conner PR. But I’m also a frequent speaker on communications and business topics, and as a Forbes contributor, a writer and journalist as well.
Last week I moderated a panel for the Money2020 trade show in Las Vegas. Here’s where things turned interesting. In the final month before the show, somehow my name made its way onto the list of press attendees



What an eye opener.
I received hundreds of emails. Scores of calls came to our agency. Some even found their way to my cell. Public relations people throughout the U.S. were all being paid by their employers and clients to tout their news to the press and to score commitments for appointments during the show.
First it was funny. Then it was sad. Lengthy pitches. Friendly pitches. Form pitches. Some of the same individuals pitched me again and again. All of this in spite of the fact I was in and out of Las Vegas in a matter of hours and the subjects I cover as a Forbes contributor have no applicability to the things the majority of these poor souls were promoting.
If I were to estimate the salaries and billable hours of the fervent pitches to me alone the cost would amount to tens of thousands of dollars. Multiplied by the hundreds of other reporters who attended this show, the sum exhibitors paid to ply the press likely amounted to a million dollars or more, largely wasted.
Do you know how many pitches I responded to? One. It was one of the shortest pitches of the hundreds I received, but it got straight to the point. The PR person addressed me by name (and even spelled it correctly!)  Far more importantly, she had tied the idea she was presenting into not one but two of the articles I’d recently written to suggest how the spokesperson and topic would tie into a great future story for me that would build in a meaningful way upon the things I’d already done.
She quickly highlighted the high points of the company’s recent achievements and news. And she suggested a reasonable and convenient way we could follow up together. No pushiness. No form letter. No guile. But it was clear she had done her homework to provide a useful idea that was intended entirely for me.
I wrote back that she had won the jackpot. Out of sheer respect for the time she had taken (probably 20-30 minutes or less) to create a pitch I could actually use, I would find a way to do the interview and create a story. (She responded back that she was so excited she was strongly considering tattooing my message onto her wrist, a la Angelina Jolie.)
What makes the difference between an effective pitch to the press and the hundreds and thousands that find their way into the trash? I am especially interested in this topic since my team is a PR agency ourselves. I also note the words of entrepreneurs like Contributor Jason Nazar, who noted in one of his recent columns that he had originally outsourced his company’s work in social media and PR, with bad outcome, and as a result had taken it back on by himself. And as far as I can tell, he’s met with outstanding success.
Can you pitch the press successfully? Does it always require an agent or an agency? What are the secrets successful entrepreneurs (and successful PR people) know? Pitching the press may be easier than you think. Here are a few golden rules:

1. Choose a target. And make sure the target will actually fit. For example, thousands of companies through the years have attempted to pitch Walt Mossberg on writing about products such as network traffic management tools. Yet he specializes in covering products consumers would use. A good fit? Not at all.
2. Read the writer’s prior articles. Thoroughly. Read them with an eye for their interests, their themes, and the way your idea would help extend their subject matter further. (Not “I see you wrote about XX, so how about you write about it again?”) When you make your pitch, let the writer know how and where your idea might fit. Think through the idea through the reporter’s eyes—how will this piece be of interest and need to the reader? How will it meet the criteria the publication and the writer’s section and assignments must meet?
3. Pitch a story—don’t pitch your company. Believe it or not, your company and product, by themselves, are not an interesting topic. But as part of a broader story or an example of a pervasive need or a message—now they can shine. Think of what that story might be and imagine what it might look like in the hands of the reporter you’ve chosen. From that point of view, prepare your pitch. Make your pitch by email first. Let it gel for at least an afternoon, or preferably for a day. If the idea is a good one, the reporter may respond right away. If you don’t hear back, perhaps the next step is a call. When you call, refer to the earlier message. Regardless of whether the reporter has seen it or not, re-forward as a courtesy as you are talking to allow the individual to scan the high points of the message and preliminarily respond.
4. Be respectful of the reporter’s right to make the decision. As tempting as it is to ply the reporter with a strong armed pitch, you will be more successful by respecting the reporter’s right to say yes or no, while providing them with as many meaningful reasons as possible to have the desire to say yes. Is the story an exclusive? An idea or a slant that hasn’t been offered to anybody else? Will it be of broad need and interest to the reporter’s readers or viewers, and does it give them strong news or an angle on the information that hasn’t been presented before? All of these ideas will help.
5. When you speak to the reporter, get straight to the point. The whole idea of buttering a reporter up to the topic you called for is a bad one. Clearly you phoned because you wanted something. With the first words out of your mouth, let them know what it is, and what your reasons are for thinking it’s a good idea. If it’s yes, follow through quickly with the next steps. If not, why not? For another person or with another approach could it be a better idea? With the business of the call handled, you can then visit with the reporter for a bit and catch up if they have the time and the willingness. And at that point, they’ll know the personal interest is sincere.
6. Be honest and transparent about your desire for the interview or the meeting. For example, I was extremely annoyed to get an urgent message from a vendor needing my next available time to discuss their public relations only to find out their one and only reason for the appointment was to give me a demonstration of a product they were hoping I would cover for Forbes. And it was a product that didn’t fit my area of coverage, at that. The executives wasted an hour and a half of their time and mine. Not only will they not see coverage, but the company they represent will  now find it highly difficult to get a return appointment with me when they genuinely do want to meet to discuss their PR.
7. If you can’t reach the reporter, avoid the temptation to call repeatedly. Listen to the reporter’s voice mail—it will often provide you with clues. For example, the reporter may be on vacation this week—out sick—moved to another beat (or even another publication) or may be so adamantly opposed to voice messages that you should be aware the message will likely never be heard (or may even offend them). If you do leave a message, one message in a day is ample. If the reporter has left a cell number on the message, refrain from using it unless the matter is genuinely urgent. They’ll appreciate the courtesy you use in reaching out in the ways they most like to be contacted.
8. Consider the strengths of Twitter. Twitter can often be a clue as to where the reporter is and what they are doing on that day. For example, if they Tweet they just arrived at the Oracle ORCL +0.82% World trade show, it’s no wonder they didn’t answer the office phone. Now you know. Time your next call for after the event. Also, many reporters will respond to direct messages through Twitter faster than any other mechanism. Use that advantage, when you can take it, with skill.

There is more to effective PR by far than the initial pitch, of course. But for now, bear in mind that in the hundreds of pitches I received from professional PR folks in the space of just a couple of weeks, only one of those pitches met these eight criteria well. When you see me write about mobile payment methods for entrepreneurs within the next several weeks, you will know the reason I chose the topic and story.
So the next time you feel the urge to send a mass PR pitch or to hire an agency to do so, save your money and save your breath. If you follow these principles effectively you may even be able to accomplish some or all of your great public relations yourself. Then, when you have that great pitch and idea prepared, feel free to send me a message or give me a call. I’ll be waiting.

Why Agencies and Brands Need to Embrace True Storytelling

To build on the opportunities that today’s hyperconnected and social consumer as well as new distribution platforms offer, agencies and brands need to move away from thinking about branded content and embrace true storytelling.

The difference? Stories rely on the intended audience to develop their own imagery and detail to complete and, most importantly, to co-create, whereas content does not. Content is primarily created in the internal mind of the content originator, with no heed to the mind or to the context of the audience.

The truly great storytellers have long embraced the fact that the most powerful stories happen in the mind of the audience, making each and every story unique and personal for the individual. They also understand that stories are important because they are inherent to the human experience. Stories are how we pass on our accumulated wisdom, beliefs and values. They are the process through which we describe and explain the world around us, and our role and purpose in it. Audiences have always known this and asked for stories—they’ve never asked for content.

As the German literary scholar Wolfgang Iser noted: “No tale can ever be told in its entirety.” His reader-response theory “recognizes the reader as an active agent who imparts ‘real existence’ to the work and completes its meaning through interpretation.”

It is this acceptance of the concept that we cannot—nor should we try to—tell any story in its entirety, and the subsequent embrace of the mind of the audience in co-creating our story that is the vital step we need to make if we are to truly resonate emotionally with our audience.

But why does it really matter?

There is little hesitation in knowing we operate in a cultural and technological world where consumers know everything about a brand, from who owns it to where and how products are manufactured and sold. As a result of this, companies are now evaluated by much more than their products. We are in a world where a brand’s values and the emotions they evoke are narrative material.

This presents marketers with an amazing opportunity, as the most powerful way to persuade someone of your idea is by uniting the idea with an emotion. It’s indisputable that the best way to do that is by telling a compelling story.

But we need to recognize that it demands insight and skill to present an idea that packs enough emotional power.

A couple of examples—one old and one new—of great storytelling. The legendary Steve Frankfurt, who is credited with creating the tagline “In space no one can hear you scream” for the 1979 movie Alien, clearly understood the role of co-creation in telling stories. This line created a world for the imagination to populate. It allowed the audience to put themselves in the story and co-create its own sense of claustrophobia, fear and isolation. It was simple and comprehensible yet gave clear direction and meaning. It perfectly captured the idea of the brand (or in this case, movie), teasing us as to what the film would deliver and at the same time aligning perfectly with the experience of it. It was a story in its own right.

More recently was Intel’s The Beauty Inside, a “social movie” that centered on a guy named Alex who wakes up every day with a new face and body. While there were many reasons to applaud this work, it was the central notion itself that drove its success. As director Drake Doremus says, “The story was exciting to me. The idea of waking up in somebody else’s skin every day but being the same person on the inside … was some territory I was interested in exploring.” This is equally true of the audience.

When we start to program a brand, we need to understand its full narrative and which parts of the story we need to create, which to co-create with the audience and which to leave to allow the audience to impart and complete their own meaning.

Despite the great work mentioned here, I don’t believe this subtle yet vital shift is one that the majority of people in our business clearly understand. How we embrace this difference between content and stories and then bring true storytellers into our world will be the key to the future success of our industry.

Content is dead. Long live storytelling.

PR Insider: 7 SEO Basics Every PR Pro Should Know

Content marketing is now a $44 billion industry. And with businesses planning to increase their budgets toward search engine optimization (SEO) by up to 44% this year, PR professionals must be savvy in digital communications tactics in order to remain in the game.
 At a minimum, every PR pro should know the following seven SEO basics:
1) Build strong links. When another website links to your own site, Google awards you with “SEO points” for being a place that someone else found interesting, helpful or relevant. The more popular the site that links to you, the better.
So how can you aim to get more link-backs? Look at what you’re probably already doing a lot of: Pitching the media and blogging. News outlets naturally draw high traffic online. If you secure an opportunity for a client in, say, The New York Times, make sure that client’s name is hyperlinked in the story. Help your client launch and maintain a keyword-rich blog, and pitch them as guest contributors for high-traffic sites.
2) Understand meta text. The titles, descriptions and keywords written into each page of a client’s website hugely impact that site’s organic SEO strength. Titles are by far the most important piece of meta text, followed by descriptions. Search engine results often display only the first 150 characters of description text, so help your clients draft succinct, keyword-rich information to describe themselves within the space that Google allows.
3) Avoid common mistakes when measuring search rank. PR is all about measuring the before-and-after of a campaign. As an SEO consultant, record where your clients rank in their respective industries before you start a project, and continue to monitor how they climb in search results for those same keywords as your recommendations are implemented.
One of the most common mistakes people make can be avoided with a few clicks. When searching terms to determine where your client ranks, make sure you’re logged out of your Google account. If you use Gmail for work and must be logged in, search under Google’s “Hide private results” option, which has the graphic of a globe (see below). By default, your setting is on “Private results” (the graphic of a person), which takes into account your personal search history. Assuming you visit your clients’ websites quite often, “Private results” will cloud those sites’ true rankings, giving you biased data.

Google’s “Hide/Show Private Results” button

4) Know what works—and what doesn’t—on social media. Social signals are increasingly important to ranking. But don’t expect social media to work miracles on its own; creating a Facebook page or Twitter handle won’t really affect SEO unless quality content is being shared on those platforms. Likes, retweets, shares, comments and +1s all send Google cues that your content is relevant, and thus should be ranked higher.
5) Use photos to tell your story. Web users love images. It’s no surprise that visual tools like Pinterest, Instagram, Vine and Tumblr have taken off in recent years. In fact, Pinterest now drives more traffic than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined, and last year the site beat out Twitter in referral traffic.
In addition to scanning the text written into websites and press releases, search engines also index images. Make sure the alt tags used to title your clients’ image files (usually .jpg or .png) include the same keywords—both brand name and industry term—that you’d write into a press release or blog entry.
6) Keep the Google bots happy. It’s tempting to include every keyword you (or your client) would ever want to rank for, but Google will punish you for it. “Keyword stuffing”—the overuse or repetition of keywords and phrases—can cause Google to flag your site as spam, resulting in a lower search ranking that’s harder to escape.
To avoid being the PR pro who placed your client on Google’s blacklist, do what you do best: Write like a human, not an SEO machine. Don’t force keywords if they don’t fit naturally in the text. And present information online the way search engines like to read it—broken down by topic into multiple pages. Google bots are professional organizers, so a site formatted like a well-kept filing cabinet is one they’ll award with stronger SEO
7) Let search engines spill their secrets. There are two ways to easily find the top-searched keywords in your client’s industry: Google’s Keyword Planner and Google’s guessing feature, which you’ll see every time you type terms into the search bar. Use these tools to create a “keyword bible” that you reference while copywriting, making sure to incorporate popular terms in PR and social media materials. Using the guessing feature, find the questions your client’s prospects are asking online and look for media opportunities to answer those questions.