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Increase
Your Coverage By Increasing Your Pitches
By Todd
Brabender/President-Spread
The News PR, Inc.
Anyone
who has ever read a book on sales or taken a sales course has
heard it - on average it takes anywhere from 3 to 10 contacts
before a sale is reached. Although sales and publicity are very
different animals, the same rule of thumb applies when pitching
your release/story idea to the media. Because of the Internet
and email, media outlets today are bombarded with hundreds if
not thousands of media pitches each week. So, it's more
important than ever that to make sure your release gets noticed.
This doesn't mean pitching to more media outlets -- it means
your publicist or PR staff should take the time to pitch to your
specific media market multiple times.
Whether
you pitched the release yourself or hired someone to do it for
you -- did the release make contact? Sure it arrived, but is
that the release that editor needs that day, for that article or
for that issue. Hopefully
so, but many times that is not the case. So the release is
either saved for future use (again hopefully) or more than
likely it is set aside, trashed or deleted. The releases/pitches
that get used are the ones that are, in fact, newsworthy,
media-friendly and arrive at opportune times. As you might
imagine a perfect combination of all three translates into your
best chances of media coverage and publicity.
Using
a release distribution service gets your release pitched ONCE.
But the most successful campaigns are those that are
strategically and effectively maintained and/or re-pitched with
calculated frequency. Most media outlets don't or can't respond
to your initial release or pitch. Based on my professional
experience as a PR/Publicity specialist, I would estimate that
media placements occur in the following manner:
-
25%
occur after the 1st - 2nd pitch
-
50%
occur after the 3rd - 5th pitch
-
25%
occur after the 6th - 8th pitch
Sometimes
(in fact most times) a strong placement happens when a release
hits an editor at the right place at the right time. Sure you
may have pitch that media contact three times over the last few
weeks, but perhaps that reporter/editor/producer didn't have the
time or the editorial space to work your release into a
placement. Your opportunity for placements increases with
meticulous, media follow-ups and re-pitches. What many business
owners/entrepreneurs don't realize is the majority of media
outlets fail to respond until after the third or fourth pitch. I
continue to be amazed and amused at the editor/producer who,
upon receiving my pitch for the fourth time, says "I'm so
glad you reminded me of this release!" or "Great
timing! This will fit perfectly in a feature were doing this
week/month!" If the release had just been pitched once and
not followed up, those placements would not have taken place.
So
make sure your PR staff or the company you've hired isn't afraid
to wind up and pitch your campaign multiple times. Just like in
baseball, the more pitches there are - the better chances you
get to make a hit.
Todd
Brabender
Spread
The News Public Relations, Inc.
Generating publicity & media exposure for innovative
products/businesses/websites.
(785) 842-8909
todd@spreadthenewspr.com
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