Having a media pitching tracking system in place is super important for your success. Knowing who you pitched, when, and what the response was will help you in the future in learning what types of pitches resonate with the media.
If you pitched a seasonal story this year that was picked up by a media outlet, you might want to tweak it and update it and pitch it to another outlet next year. On the same note, if something wasn’t picked up, but you really feel it is something valuable to an audience, tweak that and retry it as well.
Journalists move around a lot as well so it’s important to keep track of them. You used to be able to easily do this in LinkedIn with tagging but they removed that feature. I use a Google doc for tracking pitches and also keeping track of my top journalists.
Remember, you really only need a handful of journalists who cover your industry to be effective with pitching the media. Connect with them, build a relationship on social media, and start providing value. Keep track of everything you send to journalists in your Google doc, whether it’s a pitch or a note or sending them information about another expert or a different story idea.
This type of “drip” campaign will keep you front of mind with a journalist and if they need an expert in your space and they keep seeing you, they will likely use you.
CASE STUDY: I was on my local FOX station for my medical boot fashions (www.CastMedicDesigns.com). I stayed in touch with the anchor and learned that she loves women entrepreneurial stories. Because of all of my connections with women and networking groups, I was able to send her many story ideas – most of which she used. When someone on the morning show at FOX broke her ankle and was in a boot, my anchor friend had them reach out to me and had me on the show to decorate her boot. A year later, when she was slated to host a 30-minute syndicated program about taking an idea from napkin to store shelves, guess who the inventor was that she used on the show… me! I remained front of mind and was an easy choice for her to use me, versus trying to find someone new.
This was all from staying connected and providing value. Start your tracking sheet today to take advantage of all of your pitching. Watch the video above or read the transcript below for your Free Publicity Friday PR Tip.
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TRANSCRIPT
Hi everybody. It’s Christina Daves with this week’s Free Publicity Friday PR Tip. This week I want to talk about a tracking system. Are you keeping track of your media pitches and are you keeping track of your journalists? They move around a lot. It’s really important to start a Google doc that just talks about the date, who you pitched, what you pitched and what the response was, because you can follow up on this. If you’re having seasonal type pitches, how can you tweak it next year, if you got a response, to pitch a competitor, or if you didn’t get a response, how can you tweak it to make it work for you this time?
So I strongly encourage you to start that Google doc with date, journalist’s name, contact information and then do the quarterly Google search to see where those journalists are, make sure they’re still where you think they are. So that is this week’s PR Tip.
If you like this tip and you’d like to learn more, please join our no-cost PR challenge at your YourPRChallenge.com. I’ll take you through 10 days of activities and things to do that will only make you better, will make you stand out more as an expert. It’ll help with your branding and then it will help you pitch the media. So I look forward to seeing you in our Challenge and then I can’t wait to hear about your success for landing media coverage.
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