Are Your Pitches to Journalists and Bloggers Failing Because You're Asking The Wrong Questions?
It can be frustrating and downright demoralising - you send out email after email pitching your expertise to journalists and bloggers but get rejected. Or, even worse, just plain ignored.
I've spoken to a number of people who have experienced just that and it saps your confidence and makes you doubt what you offer and the value of your expertise.
If you've approached a journalist or a blogger once with an idea and been ignored then should you try again, and then again, and then again? If you don't know why that pitch didn't make it through, get noticed and get accepted then how do you know what to change?
While journalists and bloggers want different things from your pitch the questions you need to ask yourself before you even consider approaching them are the same. Rather than starting with "what can I give them?" you have to take a step back. Your starting place has to be to ask:
- What am I seeking to achieve?
- Who do I want to influence?
- What do I want to say?
Clarify the answers to those questions and then focus on the research. Yes, it's as simple as that. You need to immerse yourself in research to answer one simple question:
- What do my target journalists and bloggers, and their respective audiences, want, like and need so that I can laser target my pitch in a way that gives them just that?
There are other questions, of course, you need to answer, but this one is fundamental. Get that cracked and you are well on your way to seeing your pitch success rate sky rocket because it enables you to send personalised and targeted email pitches that are relevant. That's much more than the majority of your competitors are doing.
It's not complicated but it does take time and effort. If you don't have the time then pay someone to do the research because that will save you time and hassle in the long run and get you the profile you want. Otherwise, you'll just waste time sending off pitches to journalists and bloggers that won't get anywhere - what's the point of that?
What are your tips for pitching journalists and bloggers and what successes have you had?
Want more success with getting noticed by journalists, then check out: 7 quick and easy wasy to get media visibility