Proven Steps To Pitch Your Story To The Media
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Having featured pieces on reputable news sites helps you build your brand and establish yourself (and, by extension, your business) as a reputable authority in your industry. There's a recipe for success when pitching your story to the media, and we're sharing it with you today.
Build a Media List of Contacts
Your list of media contacts isn't a numbers game but rather a small, carefully curated list of relevant contacts. But where do you start when you're starting from scratch?
Visit the online media outlets that fit your industry or ones you wish to be featured in, then find journalists who cover topics pertaining to your business. You can connect on LinkedIn and obtain their email address or contact them directly through their platform.
The Importance of Your Subject Line
A few carefully worded emails to select journalists who are likely to have an interest in your ideas is a lot more valuable than shooting off dozens of emails to anyone whose contact information you can get. Getting these select few to open and read your email begins with a strong subject line.
Although the subject line is your first impression — your foot in the door — it should be the last part of the email you write.
Why? Because the subject line needs to be an engaging teaser for the email's body, you can't tease what you haven't written yet. The subject should be between seven and nine words, be visible on mobile devices (test this before you send) and be compelling and unique enough for journalists to open the email.
Compelling subject lines may incorporate a relevant current event, use a startling statistic, or indicate a solution to a common concern. Be concise, be intriguing, and be something that hints at a topic a lot of people will want to read about.
Create a Strong Introduction
Your introduction should be compelling, professional, and, most of all, not overly friendly. You likely haven't met these people before. They know you haven't met them, so by making your introduction overly friendly or effusive is disingenuous. Instead, begin your email warmly but come to the point fairly quickly.
You may wish to familiarize yourself with their work, reading articles that relate to the story you're pitching. Then, you can include a quick compliment about one of those articles in your introduction and segue into your pitch. You only have a couple of lines to hook your reader, so it's important that you make them count.
Craft the Body of Your Pitch
If your journalist is still reading, they're interested in what you have to say but will want details to help them decide if your story is marketable. Identify the problem you're solving, with specifics on how it impacts the reading audience. Unless you're pitching to a trade journal, try to avoid industry jargon. Keep your verbiage simple and clear, using bullet points, stats, and quantifiable data.
Conclude by introducing yourself and provide a brief (about two sentences) summation of your expertise, keeping it relevant to the topic you're pitching. Finally, close with a call to action – call or email you if this sounds like a story they'd like to cover. Make it short and sweet.
Bottom Line
Pitching a story to the media builds your brand and establishes your authority with potential clients. Learning how to properly pitch a story can help your thought leadership pieces get published more often.