News

Turn a media pitch into a media hit

A PR specialist says the most successful campaigns are those that are strategically and effectively maintained and re-pitched with calculated frequency.

May 2, 2004

Editor's note: Brabender is president of Spread The News Public Relations Inc. His business specializes in generating media exposure and publicity for innovative products, businesses, experts and ventures.

Anyone who has ever read a book on sales or taken a sales course has heard it: on average it takes anywhere from three 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 or story idea to the media.

Because of the Internet and e-mail, media outlets 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 marketÂ…multiple times.

Whether you pitched the release yourself or hired someone to do it for you, you have to ask whether the release made contact. Sure it arrived, but is that a release the editor needs that day, for an article or for a particular 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 publicity specialist, I would estimate that media placements occur in the following manner:

• 25 percent occur after the first or second pitch
  
• 50 percent occur after the third to fifth pitch
  
• 25 percent occur after the sixth to eighth pitch

Most times, a strong placement happens when a release hits an editor at the right place at the right time. Sure you may have pitched 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 a 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 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.