How to Avoid Pitching the Wrong Campaigns to Journalists

At Embryo, we’ve taken the time to understand the media landscape and what journalists want from PR’s. We’ve listened and noted what pitches they would like for their publications and what emails would end up in the bin. As you know, a generic pitch is a red flag to any writer or journalist and will most likely turn them off before they’ve had a chance to finish the first sentence. So, to help you prevent making some massive mistakes in your pitching. The digital PR team has shared some helpful tips to help you build good relationships with journalists. 

1. Be concise and to the point-  Your press release and pitch email should be clear and contain relevant information, lifting your release and an easy option for the journalist. Along with providing a good news story, it is essential to ensure you have credited your sources and make sure that your data insights are up to date as reporters will check these.

2. Know your contact – Before hitting send on any pitches, make sure you’ve researched the writer and understand what they write about on a daily or weekly basis. Quite often, journalists will not respond to emails if your pitch or campaign doesn’t fit their audience, so make sure you research and take the time to personalise your story.

3. Use social media to build relationships –Social media is a great way to learn about a journalists interests and content. Interacting and sharing their posts can get your name into their head. Also, keeping tabs on Twitter and trending media hashtags will allow you to find some reactive PR and newsjacking. 

4. Adapt your pitch – Quite often, PR’s make the mistake of not changing their pitches to fit the day’s news. So don’t be afraid to adapt your press releases to help secure further media coverage. 

Don’t attach images of videos in an email- Most emails will fail to send due to the size of attachments. So you’re best to uploading your high-res image and video to a third party tool like Dropbox as it will allow a journalist to access the high-res photos and video content without any download issues. 

5. Be authentic – Show journalists that you’re confident with your campaign and give an exclusive story that will benefit their readers. Being satisfied with your creative idea or reactive PR opportunity will show reporters that you understand their job role and you’re helping them find a unique story for their publication. 

6. Be Patient with following up – When it comes to following up with journalists, you’ve learned that journalists may be working on tight deadlines and won’t have time to respond. As a Digital PR expert, it’s important to understand that journalists who write stories have to switch up their work schedule and do not want to be chased. Instead, use your time more effectively and contact them when they’re not overwhelmed by emails and only follow up with them if you believe the campaign you are pitching is worth writing a story on.