Ask IH: What PR related questions do you have?

Hey @jb21 happy to help! :)

I would need to know a little more about your services company and the startups you are working with to give a solid answer.

But in short, you need to focus on your strengths, accomplishments and anything around data. Data that is interesting, useful and visualized tends to get good interest and coverage.

Just remember to know why you want this coverage - promote your offers, business, accomplishments, branding.....

All of those above require different approaches to PR which without additional knowledge it would be difficult to try to give you some ideas on what to do.

Sorry for the slow response Vlad! But thank you for the great questions!

1. When you have a dedicated CRM or a really sweet setup with a spreadsheet the time taken to compose a pitch does drastically go down. I would say that 10 minutes is a good amount of time to spend - you can double check your facts and focus on pointing out the relevancy.

2. Honestly, with the content I was sharing with the media it did not make sense to have an embargo. Because of previous experience of running a specific campaign, I knew that all major newspapers would pick up the story and there was never any clear benefit of promoting an embargo.

Here is an example of coverage in The Daily Mail that I got > https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4598118/Three-British-airports-ranked-worst-world.html

I would say that an embargo would be ideal for someone looking to score a big media publisher. This makes it more of a sweeter deal for them and you get to show off the publishers name when pitching others. But there's a chance most of the others would be a little pissed off with you reaching out after.

3. London PR companies are incredibly expensive. It's probably one of, if not the, PR capitals of Europe. I interviewed 4 other PR agencies and their prices ranged from 3000 - 6000GBP/month.

There were additional fee's other than upsells for media training etc (I did have media training too which was incredibly helpful - but expensive)

4. At the time that I was pitching to the major publishers the startup I worked for had dedicated country managers. I was the UK manager so my only focus and goal were on that market.

Consumer side products I have pitched the US markets but ultimately the buyers were always in the UK or there was a US representative that could facilitate those needs.

5. I used to be horrible with follow-ups. Because of my sales experience, I would not really stop and for media contacts, especially if you want to build relations, is a really crappy tactic.

In reality, you just have to send the pitch, if you have done your homework and understood the journalist and know their editorial calendar etc then you should be already ahead of everyone else pitching.

I used to follow-up around 2-3 times. But I have stopped follow-ups and spend more time on researching and understanding my contacts better (again a sales tactic I would say).

6. There is not a single time that I have been sent a draft publication. There have also been more times when coverage has gone live and I never knew - Google News/Alerts would normally notify me.

Honestly, when pitching journalist do not expect any conversation or replies or notifications of your coverage going live. As soon as they finish that publication they need to move onto the next one. I never asked for a draft, I just supplied raw data files, graphics, quotes and overviews - a journalist rarely makes mistakes unless the mistake is in your own data etc.

Really happy to help Vlad! Let me know if there are any additional questions. I have also written an article on 'pitching the press' > https://www.prezly.com/academy/relationships/media-pitch/a-pitching-the-press-with-email-guide-from-a-sales-turned-pr-guy

Hey @vlad63,

Fantastic questions!

1. So with the consumer app which I was promoting in the UK, all of the publications were without paying anyone, all of the coverage was completely from us providing heaps of data, all of which was used for an interesting ranking of airlines based on a variety of factors.

I would say I managed to get ~100 publications. Interestingly we hired a top PR agency in London to take over my tasks and I was able to achieve more coverage and results than they could.

2. Individually for sure. Whenever you pitch your press release you need to be able to link it's relevance to the journalist. If they wrote about your competitor, you need to mention it and give them a reason why they should take an interest.

Always try to show relevance to current top topics in your industry or relevant news, alongside any other opportunities such as competitor mentions etc. Relevancy, relevancy and more relevancy is what gets you coverage. (Most startups are not doing anything special enough to 'stop the press' as they say).

3. When I had data, collateral, graphics and every piece of material a journalist needed to cover the subject with, it was very high. I was also pitching when WE were ready, not based off of an editorial calendar - so this was remarkable to be part of. I would say for 100 emails sent I would get 30-50 publications. But I would do more 'regional' news for the same product which did not have anywhere near as much 'effort' with collateral then I slipped to 100 emails sent with 5 publications at best. These were very small newspapers as well so they were not big wins by any means.

I would honestly say that PR needs to be reviewed as more of a sales approach. Everyone gets worried about pitching crap to people over a cold call, why is it that we do not think the same of journalists? There needs to be an understanding of how they work, what they like and what gets printed. This can only be done by a phonecall or meeting and when I had a couple with editors from major newspapers in the UK, they provided so much insight that it would be really silly for me to not get published!

Hope this helps :)