Publicity Hounds hoping to connect with journalists who need their expertise now have another free service to use.
PitchRate, created by Drew Gerber of Press Kit 24/7, connects sources with journalists, bloggers and anyone who provides content.
When you visit the Pitchrate website, you can log in as a journalist or as a source. I logged in as both and had to use two separate email addresses.
When journalists are looking for specific types of sources, they send their query to PitchRate. If they’re from major media outlets like USA Today or the New York Times and want to post anonymously, they have that option.
Sources who sign up for the service can see all the queries, and decide whether they’re a good match. If so, they contact the journalist on their own.
Here’s where this service differs from Help a Reporter Out (also free) and the two subscription services, PRLeads and ProfNet. PitchRate actually rates your pitch on a scale of from one to five stars. Ratings are determined on things such as keywords that sources use within their pitch. Because humans don’t actually do the rating, I don’t know whether it’s accurate. Journalists who receive many responses to their queries can sort them according to how they’re rated, thus saving themselves time.
If they contact you for an interview, they can rate your value as a source on your PitchRate profile so other journalists can see quickly whether you’re worth pursuing. This second rating should force sources to be extra careful when responding to queries.
During a teleseminar I conducted recently for Publicity Hounds in my mentor program, I offered tips on how to reply to queries from these services. My tips included:
—Answer only queries that are a perfect match with your expertise.
—If you’re answering by email, make sure your pitch takes up no more than one screen of type.
—Answer concisely. Don’t tell the journalist “the whole story.” Instead, provide just enough information to entice them to pick up the phone and call you for an interview.
—Always offer little extras like tip sheets, photos, graphics or additional sources to round out the story.
—If the journalist is a good fit with your area of expertise, add their name to your list of media contacts. You should then do your research and f id out if they have Facebook and Twitter pages, or blog.
The PitchRate site is still so new that this is a terrific time for Publicity Hounds to get in at the ground level while there’s still little competition among experts.
I joined PitchRate on your recommendation. I’ve now received a few of their daily updates, and hope they make some significant changes.
First, each e-mail includes queries from all categories, not just queries from the categories in which I indicated that I am an expert.
Second, the same queries have been included in each e-mail. I can understand that the site is still new, so they probably don’t have new queries in every category each day. In that case, perhaps they can send out a message saying “Sorry, there are no new queries in the XXXX category today.”
Third, at the bottom of each e-mail, PitchRate invites me to view more queries on their website. Hell-o: I checked the box to receive daily e-mails precisely so I don’t have to visit the site regularly.
The team at PitchRate.com is listening. Lisa, thank you. You’re right. PitchRate.com just launched and we’re growing rapidly. We don’t always have new requests in all categories each day– yet. We are, however, already receiving requests from big media venues like the New York Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Fox News Channel, and many others.
Currently, our Journalist Requests email contains the last 10 requests made. As we grow, you’ll notice the changes. We already have exciting plans for the future. We do, however, want to make sure our Requests List is never overwhelmingly large, so there may always be a need to link to our site to view ALL open requests. One of the cool features of our technology is the ability to search requests based on specific topics using our “Search Requests” tab. By using this tool, experts can quickly find the topics they’re most interested in pitching by searching specific categories and/or keywords.
We strive to ensure that PitchRate.com is a valuable resource for both journalists and experts. Please keep the suggestions coming and please use PitchRate.com often so our journalists get what they need when they need it. And please, pitch exactly what journalists ask for so you can move to the front of the line and get an interview!
Trust me, finding good sources with good content and on deadline can be challenging. Working on some stories, I decided to try out PitchRate.com (I also use Profnet and HARO). What was unique about PitchRate.com compared to other resources is that I can manage my queries at-a-glance without trying to keep up with the surge of responses in my in box. Most importantly, the pitch is actually provided a ranking, allowing me to see which I want to read first. Publicists/experts actually taking the time to pitch on target are noted by PitchRate.com’s star rankings and this is not available with any other source. I always knew that I received off target pitches, but this shows you quickly…and it also rewards those who take the time to read what it is I’m looking for! So, PitchRate.com ROCK ON!