Trust me when I tell you that a media list chock full of juicy personal details about a journalist or blogger can be your ticket to publicity.
BL Ochman agrees. She’s a social media expert and a prolific blogger who writes about online promotions.
On Friday, she wrote about a pitch she received from Rob Toledo of Distilled Creative, calling her attention to a social media campaign roadmap. BL, who has seen her share of lame pitches, was bowled over by the personal details about her that Rob, whom she doesn’t know, included in his pitch. Impressed, she wrote a post titled Dear PR Peeps: please read this *really great* PR pitch! (And what he was pitching).
BL analyzed Rob’s pitch to show you exactly what made her pay attention. The screenshot she used at her blog is a little difficult to read, and she gave me permission to reproduce it here:
Her post illustrates my point perfectly.
Spend just 10 minutes or so researching a blogger or journalist BEFORE you pitch, let them know you are familiar with their work, and you’ll be miles ahead of all the other people who are too lazy to bother.
BL’s high-traffic blog is the perfect place for an item about Rob’s social media page. I subscribe to BL’s email updates, and when she alerted me to her post, I knew immediately that it was a perfect item for THIS blog. I write about great pitches in my ezine, too, and I’ll be including a mention about this post in “The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week” on Tuesday. So Rob is getting THREE hits for the price of one.
See? I told you it pays to research.
I receive pitches like the one BL received so seldom, that when I do, they really command attention. What have you done recently to bowl over a blogger or journalist with your knowledge of who they are, what they cover and what their readers might like?
If you want to start building your own media database of contacts and know what to include in it that the big, expensive directories don’t, be sure to read 3 critical elements to include in your email database. You an also access the video replay of the webinar I hosted on Feb. 16 on How to Create Your Own Database of Valuable Media Contacts.
Update: Other Blog Posts That Will Help You:
How to research reporters and other media contacts
Want publicity in magazines? Research, then pitch
Find the name of a blogger’s dog, cat or kid in 60 seconds
Thank you Joan! I am so glad you are telling your readers about this great pitch. You are so right that it would only take 10 minutes to read my blog and personalize a pitch. He would have gotten even farther if he knew my dog’s name :>)
The real problem PR people have is that they pitch 100 bloggers instead of figuring out who the top 3 are who might really be interested and who would help the pitch gain traction.
Keep telling ’em Joan! You provide great information!
How in the world can any PR person pitch 100 bloggers and achieve what the end result should be? That is, enticing the blogger to read the pitch and say, “This is PERFECT for my audience!”
Audiences are so fragmented these days that you can barely send the same pitch to a half dozen bloggers and achieve that goal.
Thanks for stopping by, BL. I’ve learned so much from your blog. So have many of my Publicity Hounds.
Well, well Joan, challenge accepted — now I’m on the hunt for your dog’s name 😉
Might take you a little longer to find this one.
Rob – my dog has better Google juice than 90% of most corporations.
:>)
BL, I’ve read this before at your blog and I crack up every time I see it.
BL and Rob, I have a handy, dandy way of finding out the name of almost any blogger’s dog. It takes about 10 seconds and I’m guessing that you already know what it is. I tried it with BL’s dog and it worked! I got the name of her dog within 10 seconds. I also tried it for my own dog, and it worked, too. I’m going to blog about this. But first I want to see how good Rob is at this little detective game. Rob, any luck getting the names of BL’s dog or my dog? It’s so drop-dead simple you’ll (almost) drop dead when you see it.
Ok I found BL’s dog’s name =)
Joan — no luck on yours, now I’m dying to know this tip!!!
You two crack me up
Rob, I am writing a blog post on this and hope to publish it later today. Stay tuned!
*BL’s dogs name that is… =)
Yes, Rob, it’s BL’s dog’s name. It won’t take you long to find it. Promise.
How’s BB doin’ today?
I assume you are referring to BL’s dog, right?
Nice pictures of you and Bogie, Joan.
Good for you, Filio. You know my dog’s name. (Bogie says hi.)