3 Non-Obvious Reasons Your PR Outreach Isn’t Working
Just for a second, let’s slip on the media’s shoes and have a look around. What do you see?
Their inbox is constantly full
They have a ton of approaching deadlines
There is a lot of pressure to publish something that will get views
Now ask yourself, have you been crafting your pitches with these things in mind?
If you haven’t put yourself in the media’s shoes before sending your pitch, that might be the reason you’re not getting results.
But the good news is that you can easily turn this around with a little perspective. Let’s look at three not-so-obvious reasons your pitches may be off point and how you can change course with a little more awareness of your target.
1. You’re only talking about yourself, for yourself
At the end of the day, the media’s goal is not to give you publicity. Everything they do is centered on providing interesting stories to their audience.
So, if your pitch is more about you and less about their audience, you won’t get very far.
It is crucial that in your pitches you are asking yourself: What is important to the audience and the media contact?
Let me give you an example:
A story about how great your business is – not important to their audience.
Interesting and relevant information only your expertise can provide – very important to their audience.
Repeat after me, “Self-promotion is lame, helping is cool.”
There are a lot of creative ways you can engage their audience and as long as you’re pitching something useful, you’re going to be on the right track.
2. You’re not timely
The media is all about covering what is happening right now. If your pitch is evergreen or the moment has already passed, it won’t be worth the reporter’s time to work you in their story.
This can be tricky though. Depending on the type of publication, they will have different lead times that you need to take into account. This is why I start pitching holiday gifts in the middle of summer and all the way through the new year.
But this brings me to my next point: you can anticipate what kind of stories the media is working on, and pitch specifically for that.
This is one of the smartest ways to get your brand in the media. You just need to know what the publication’s lead time is and pitch stories that are relevant to the seasonal trends that far ahead. Don’t wait until you feel the summer heat to talk about sunscreen. Get ahead of it.
Another thing timely pitches will do is create urgency. An evergreen story can sit around indefinitely. But if you have a story with an optimal time to publish, the media contact will work a lot harder to make the deadline.
3. You’re writing too much
Who loves reading long emails? No one!
I know it’s tempting to write every cool detail about your story idea and how you can help the media contact, but believe me: they don’t want to read it.
Remember when we stepped in the media contact’s shoes and noticed their inbox was full? They are constantly triaging unread emails.
Emails from the boss – read
Emails from the reliable information source – skim
1000-word emails from the random person – IGNORE!
One of my best tips is to cut back. You can start with as many words as you like, but then go through and trim the fat. Your email should be so skinny, the contact can read and understand it in a minute.
I have a ton of other tips like this that can help you turn your “PR woes” into “PR Whoas!” so be sure to sign up for my newsletter for quick access to the latest.
(and I promise to keep it short 😉)