Celebrity publicist and CEO of Tribe Builder Media, an award-winning hybrid digital PR agency based in Los Angeles and NYC.
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Most outsiders’ images of how the media business works today have basically no relationship to reality. In our imaginations (and in old movies), hardworking reporters dedicated to the truth use labor-intensive gumshoe tactics and sheer grit to hunt down the stories they feel are most in the public’s interest.
Reporters today are still hardworking and dedicated to the truth, but they must produce more work than they did in the past — often with fewer resources. And at many outlets, they’re incentivized to choose their stories with an eye toward factors like social media appeal and virality as well as importance and impact.
A recent report (download required) from Cision shows that nearly a third of journalists now complete 10 or more assignments per week. At the same time, 59% said that “the availability of detailed audience metrics has changed the way they evaluate stories.”
Understanding these realities isn’t just of interest to media insiders and would-be journalists. It also affects any early-stage startup hoping to win media coverage of their company or products. Your seed funding announcement may be news, but unless you consider the time and engagement constraints reporters are up against, it’s highly likely that it will end up ignored.
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Startups coming out of stealth mode need to think like modern reporters when introducing their companies, pitching their products and sharing company news.
Make Reporters’ Lives Easy
First and foremost, if you want reporters to cover your company, you want to make their lives as easy as possible. The first way to do that is by being mindful of their overflowing inboxes. Most reporters are bombarded with huge numbers of low-quality, off-topic pitches. Writing a focused, thoughtful pitch explaining why your news is relevant to someone’s beat will help you stand out. Take the time to understand exactly what sort of stories particular reporters cover and tailor your pitches accordingly.
Timing is also important. If you’re hoping to get coverage for a funding announcement or new product launch, don’t expect reporters to receive your announcement on Tuesday and write it up by Friday. Plan your announcements such that you give reporters at least two to three weeks’ notice to write a story.
Finally, knowing just how busy reporters’ inboxes are might tempt you to follow up on your pitch to make sure it wasn’t buried in the flood. This is a sensible impulse, but only in moderation. Check in after a few days just to surface your old email and make sure it wasn’t accidentally missed, but don’t be a stalker.
Know How To Tempt Them
Basic email etiquette is necessary for attracting coverage for your startup, but it’s not sufficient. On top of sending the right pitch to the right person at the right time, you’re going to have to provide what reporters really want — a great story to interest their readers. Most reporters need to think about not just what’s theoretically “newsworthy,” but also what will cause people to click and read.
Startups often approach their announcements as if they’re all about them — this is what I want to say, or this is what I want the world to know about us. But the harsh truth is that reporters don’t care about you and what you’re interested in. They care about their readers.
What sort of story makes readers’ — and therefore reporters’ — ears perk up? That depends on your particular niche, but there are several approaches that tend to work in a broad spectrum of situations. The first is a news hook. Can you link your announcement to an ongoing conversation in the news? Whether it’s a much-chattered-about trend, an upcoming holiday or a recent headline, if you can find a way to piggyback off of a trending topic, your pitch stands a better chance of getting noticed.
Also, consider what could make your news go viral because the reporter you’re pitching to almost certainly will. When it comes to clicking on headlines, people tend to be lured by things like impressive benefits, emotional human stories, counterintuitive findings, and famous and important people. Stay truthful and authentic to your brand, but if you can link your news to a big name in your field or produce new and noteworthy data, reporters are likely to be more interested.
Reporters can also gain attention by breaking news (i.e., being the first to a story). That’s why offering them exclusives (the chance to be the first to write about something) can be another particularly powerful way to get their attention.
Play The Long Game
All of the techniques above can help your cold pitch stand out, but a warm introduction often beats even the best cold pitch. Like every other industry, the media runs on trust and personal relationships, so if you can get someone in your network to connect you with a reporter, you stand a much better chance of breaking through the noise.
Don’t have any media connections? Then think about starting to build them. This is a long game, so you’ll do better if you’re patient and deliberate. It’s often easier to gain coverage in more niche publications and on smaller podcasts or blogs. By offering your expertise and commentary to smaller players, you can build a track record as a thought leader that can attract the interest of bigger publications.
Even if you don’t get any inbound queries from reporters from these efforts, at a minimum you’ll create compelling content for when a reporter googles you in response to a pitch later. And reporters will google you. So make sure they find a professional, polished online presence. If what comes up is nothing but an out-of-date LinkedIn profile and your old wedding registry, why would a reporter trust you to deliver useful insights to their audience?
The brutal truth is that securing coverage for your business is always hard. But if you think of yourself as a resource working to make reporters’ lives easier rather than a petitioner pestering them for attention, you’ll likely do a lot better.
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Author: Danielle Sabrina, Forbes Councils Member
