By Andie Levine
Since 2008, newsroom employment in the United States has dropped by 26%. Public relations has always been competitive, but as newsrooms shrink, PR pros need to use every tool in their tool belt to secure articles. One of those crucial tools is freelance journalists.
Working with freelancers takes a different set of skills compared to working with staff reporters. Still, they are a valuable relationship to maintain because they are often more flexible, have a wider network, and can take on all kinds of projects.
Who Are Freelance Journalists?
Freelance reporters typically write for a variety of publications on various topics. Historically, freelancers focused on one or two subject matters, but a recent shift in the industry has required them to be a “jack of all trades.” What you might not know about freelancers is that in addition to writing stories and meeting deadlines, they also spend time pitching stories to editors, sourcing stories and experts, fielding edits and feedback from editors, and promoting their content on social media.
Where Do Their Stories Come From?
Freelance stories can come from PR pitches but are also developed by the freelancer or given to them by an editor. Once a story is assigned or approved by the outlet that wants to publish it, a freelancer’s first job is to search for appropriate sources. They may turn to resources like HARO or ProfNet and request experts to weigh in on the topic at hand. Some count on social media platforms like Twitter to identify thought leaders. For freelancers who focus on a specific field or industry, their existing relationships can be helpful, or they may search their inboxes for related pitches.
What Are Freelancers Looking For?
These days, freelancers write about almost anything! But unlike staff reporters, a freelancer’s “beat” may vary from outlet to outlet. Like pitching staff reporters, it’s critical to research a freelancer’s most recent articles to determine what they most frequently cover.
Freelancers are looking for a unique story angle and are typically not interested in covering hard news like a product launch. They would likely be interested in the story behind that new product. Where did the idea come from? Was it developed using a new technique or technology? What is different about the process?
How to Get Freelancers to Notice Your Pitch
Now that you have a great story idea for a freelance journalist, you must make your pitch stand out. It’s not uncommon for freelancers to receive over 500 PR pitches in just one day. To ensure your email doesn’t get lost in the shuffle, here are a few key elements that can help you get a response.
- Include keywords in the subject line. Freelancers use their inboxes like a Rolodex for sources. While they might not be able to cover your story on a breakthrough early education testing technology, they may be looking for sources for a different early ed story a few months later. Packing the subject line with keywords helps freelancers find your email when needed.
- Add links! Include links to provide background on the story or expert that helps qualify them as a source. Have they been published in a reputable journal? Have they been featured on a podcast? Including links to other content identifies the source as a respected leader and adds information to support the story.
- Make it easy to read. A freelancer’s time is valuable, so using bullets and bolding to simplify scanning the email rather than reading through entire paragraphs is a big help. And it’s a good pitching best practice!
- Offer more story angles. Provide the freelancer with more than one story option. While the lead-in might be that breakthrough early education testing technology, offering two or three additional angles shows that you deeply understand the topic and can be a valuable source for future stories.
Building solid relationships with freelance journalists can be challenging but worth it. Especially for those of us at PR agencies working with multiple clients, having a freelance journalist you can pitch numerous stories to at once is a huge asset.
By Maggie Markert
According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, marketing is focused on selling products or services to end-users (whether those users are consumers or businesses) and helping them understand the value of those products or services. Public relations (PR), on the other hand, is described as the art of preserving a positive public image for a company, organization, or individual.
Based on these definitions, it is not surprising these entities within a company are often kept separate, as are many of their activities. However, by siloing marketing and PR, companies and organizations are missing out on opportunities to leverage both entities to their advantage.
The Messaging
Companies that are looking to integrate their marketing and PR efforts should start with their messaging – whether they be at a corporate level or a product/service level. While messaging may be conveyed differently in a marketing piece compared to a press release or pitch to the media, the overall takeaways should be the same.
When corporate or product/service messages are not aligned, it can lead to confusion and even a lack of trust. In order to avoid this, both the marketing and PR groups should host a joint session to outline and approve the messaging in all of its forms. And, this should be repeated each time the company is set to introduce new products, services, or initiatives.
The Plan
Companies should also always be on the same page regarding planning. Marketing and PR plans should be developed in conjunction with one another either annually, bi-annually, or quarterly.
Not only should these plans align when it comes to major initiatives such as product/service launch or an acquisition, but also content and social media that falls in between. The plan should lay out all initiatives, outline how they can be leveraged by both groups, and include key messages to be conveyed.
For example, if a software company is unveiling a new feature of its solution, there should be a press release and coordinated media outreach planned. These PR initiatives should align with the exact time the marketing group’s email and social media campaigns to their target audiences or current prospects and customers are deployed.
The Content
Companies often miss the mark when it comes to leveraging content across marketing and PR. This can be attributed to the fact that PR can consider some marketing pieces to be too self-serving and overly promotional for the media. In contrast, marketing may think a PR piece is not product- or service-specific enough for their target audiences.
While that may be true, it doesn’t make it impossible for any piece of marketing or PR content to be transformed into something that can be used for either purpose. Here are some examples:
- White Papers: This type of long-form content, which takes great effort to develop, typically offers guidance from a company or organization on a particular topic – whether it be in healthcare, technology, education, and more – or a product and service related to that topic. Once developed and finalized, white papers are often gated on a company’s website and used in paid social media or email campaigns to generate leads for the sales team to pursue. For PR, a white paper can serve as the foundation for a byline that showcases the company’s thought leadership on that topic.
- Data Sheets: This type of technical content can often be seen as “too in the weeds” for PR purposes as it outlines key details surrounding a specific product, service, or piece of technology and uses a lot of industry jargon. One key benefit of this type of content is that it can clearly outline key paint points and benefits in the industry that back up why the product, service, or technology is needed. These points can then be generally outlined in a thought leadership pitch to key trade media in the company’s industry or vertical.
- Bylines: This type of content is purely about thought leadership. These pieces set the stage for a company, and describe why their product, service, or idea is important without being promotional. Once this content is published by a media outlet, the piece can often be added as a news or resource item on a company’s website that includes a link back to the publication as well as a short, high-level summary of the piece and the point of view it makes. This enables the company to drive traffic to its website first before pushing the traffic to the piece. (Please note, companies should check with the publication that originally published the piece on their specific guidelines for reposting prior to adding it to the website.)
- Earned Media Coverage: PR teams work hard to garner earned (unpaid) media coverage for a company. This coverage can include executive profiles, product or service mentions, or thought leadership pieces like bylines or op-eds, and they help to build credibility by acting as third-party validation. Given this, these pieces should be repurposed for various marketing initiatives such as social media or monthly email newsletters/round-ups to prospects and customers.
The Time (Is Now)
It is never too late for a company to integrate its marketing and PR efforts. If time is taken to review current plans in both entities within the organization, there may be items that both teams can capitalize on in the interim while more in-depth planning occurs.
Contact Zer0 to 5ive to learn more about how your company can begin to align marketing and PR.
By Maggie Markert
Most startups and early-stage companies cannot rely on press releases alone to drive their media relations strategy and corporate visibility. As new companies, often pre-product, startups are rarely able to generate enough news to warrant a continuous flow of press releases, which means any momentum generated from hard news is left to wallow. However, all is not lost. What startups, especially those in tech or biotech, often have to offer is innovation and thought leadership – tackling a problem from a different angle or creating a new approach or technology to address a critical market pain.
Thought leadership as part of a startup’s communication strategy is smart. Thought leadership gives a voice to your innovation and can be a great way to elevate your visibility and industry presence.
What Is Thought Leadership in PR?
Thought leadership is a public relations strategy that enables you to position your company and its subject matter experts as industry thought leaders. When used as part of a broader communications strategy, thought leadership enables media coverage without hard news (e.g., a press release), as well as other avenues of visibility, such as speaking engagements and awards.
Thought leadership typically involves:
- Offering expertise on key topics or trends from one of more executives
- Developing bylined articles on industry trends for trade publications
- Securing speaking opportunities at key industry shows and conferences
- Publishing original research or data through surveys, white papers, internal metrics or other reports
- Providing industry commentary through one or more active social media channels – blogs, LinkedIn, Medium, or being a regular contributor to a respected publication, such as Forbes
How Do You Develop a Sound Thought Leadership Strategy?
At its core, thought leadership is about expressing your point of view on a new approach, strategy, technology, application, etc. It is something new and novel, differentiated from others. For technology companies, thought leadership often comes in the form of articulating a core difference in your product or solution.
One example is from a client of ours in biotech. They have developed a new approach to attacking solid tumors that is a true CAR-T 2.0 therapy, utilizing a multi-chain construct. No one else is doing this. Their thought leadership strategy includes talking about the challenges seen in CAR-T 1.0 therapies and how their new approach is more effective.
Often, the goal of thought leadership is to “own” a topic so that you become the foremost voice on the subject. This takes a commitment to being proactive. Tactics you should consider include conducting research, creating an industry perspective paper, giving presentations, writing articles, and identifying internal or external metrics that support your point of view.
From Thought Leader to Industry Leader
Thought leadership often leads to industry leadership. While thought leadership often relies on vision, industry leadership follows with hard numbers and customer engagement. By using thought leadership as a strategic part of your communication program, companies can expand their visibility and spur early customer interest that helps build industry leadership and success.
By Patrick Reilly
We’ve all been there. The client has no upcoming announcements and the proactive pitches just aren’t hitting the mark. That doesn’t necessarily mean the pitch angles aren’t ideal or that the topics aren’t of interest, but as public relations professionals, we are in a results-oriented industry where it’s our job to deliver media opportunities and coverage.
In this scenario, the best option would be some good, old-fashioned rapid response pitching. For those unfamiliar with the term, rapid response pitching entails some due diligence in searching the internet to find relevant media coverage that aligns with your client’s industry or a particular pitch angle and, well, responding to them rapidly. This practice is a great way to build media lists and create new relationships while securing interviews and coverage. Here are a few tips to get the best results from your rapid response pitch:
Track Your Client’s Keywords
This can be achieved by using services like Google Alerts or Talkwater, where you set up alerts for keywords that are relevant to your clients. For example, if your client is focused on “Cloud Cost Management,” you should include everything that is related to this topic, which may include a broader term like “Cloud Computing” to something more niche like “Cloud Cost Optimization” or “Collaborative Cost Management.” Major players in this industry should also be included, such as “AWS” or “Azure” in this example, to see who is writing about these organizations.
You should also include your client’s top competitors in your search. These might actually end up being the “low-hanging fruit” in terms of getting interest from reporters. Rapid response presents an opportunity to reach out to editors and explain what your client is doing and how they are better, different, or deserve inclusion in future story ideas. In addition, you should also customize all of your alerts to get notified as soon as they happen – this way, you’re one of the first to get the hot news stories.
Check Media Alerts Often
PR professionals should start the workday by checking their media alerts and repeat the process throughout the day. While scanning keywords for proactive pitching, you can identify whether the article is a good fit, as you will quickly find that a good portion of articles that come through are not relevant or come from small outlets outside of your client’s target geographies.
If you find a great article from a desirable outlet, you then move on to the next step (see below for how to go get ‘em). Another avenue to consider is a simple Google Search on related topics and see what the media is writing about in the last month that might be worth some outreach.
Go Get ‘Em!
Ok, you identified a perfect article – so, now it’s actually time to respond. The subject line I like to use is a simple “In response to your recent article in the Wall Street Journal” or something more broad and ambiguous that is more likely to grab a reporters attention. They are getting hundreds of pitches a day, so a subject line that is not too specific might encourage them to open the email – especially when you are talking about something they already wrote. The best way to start an email is to politely touch the reporter or editor with a simple lede that starts off something like the example below:
Hi xx,
My name is Patrick Reilly and I help conduct the PR efforts for “Clients Name.” I notice that you recently wrote the article entitled “XYZ,” and I’d love to connect you with “Spokespersons name”, “Title” of “Clients Name” – “Clients Key Message” to talk about “pitch angle.”
After your intro, customize the rest of the pitch to fit the angle and make it more personal. Sometimes the article might follow exactly along the lines of the angle you are pitching, and the reporters might not be that interested in speaking to your client since they just wrote about that topic. In this situation, it is still a good idea to reach out, as the reporter might have a follow up story or want to keep your client on radar for any related stories they’re working on. With pitching, the worst answer you can get is “no” – but you can move on and find another article of relevance to rapid respond to.
Responding to Rapid Response
I think this might be the most overlooked part of rapidly responding to the media – forgetting to follow up with the initial email. It is a good idea to respond directly to the email you originally sent, which gives you a ‘second chance’ to send another broad and ambiguous subject line that references what the reporter already wrote. For example, the response email can look like the example below:
Hi xx,
Just bumping this email to the top of your inbox!
Let me know if you can set up a future call with “Spokesperson name” “title”, of “Companies Name” to discuss “relevant pitch angle” for a story idea. Let me know what time/date works best to schedule a call.
Let me know if you also might be working on future related stories where you can use “spokesperson’s name” as a source.
Thanks!
XX
I wouldn’t follow up more than once on a rapid response via email – but you can also call the reporter on the phone to follow up with a similar message. Since the first note is a rapid response, the follow up is more of a courtesy reminder, after that – you are just annoying the reporters.
Timing – How Soon Is Now?
The ultimate idea of rapid response pitching is exactly that – responding right when a news article is fresh. However, since we are not robots and because systems like Google Alerts are not always reliable, it’s not always possible to get to every relevant story immediately. Ideally, rapid responding to articles should be within a few hours to days after they run – but it’s ok to reach out as far as three months after the story has ran. This also depends on the angle you’re pitching and the story itself of course. If the original article is a feature on “sustainability in cloud management,” you have more time to respond. However, if it’s a major announcement from a company, I think two weeks might be the most time you have before it’s considered ‘old news.’
Rapid response pitching is a fantastic way to create new and strong media relationships, build media lists for reporters that might not be listed on Cision or other media monitoring platforms, and above all, get a new interview in a desirable outlet that will hopefully turn into coverage.
by Michael Levey
At Zer0 to 5ive our “out of the box” strategic thinking has really made an impact in our media coverage. Most recently, it was pitching reporters with briefing times. We’ve grown accustomed to getting great news from clients less than 24 hours before the news will go live (i.e. a Fujtsu announcement that reached our radar in February right at the start of a 26 inch snowstorm!). And finding out at the last moment presents a challenge for sending the “last minute” press release to the typical reporter on deadline with two stories and sifting through 47 incoming pitches.
Instead of relying on the press release to reach the reporter, the Zer0 to 5ive team re-forwarded its original emails with the press release to reporters with specific dates and times for a quick 15 minute briefing – no long emails, no deadlines and no demands that the reporter must write a story. The end result: 11 interviews scheduled within a 24 hour period including PC Mag and even a television personality who has agreed to feature our client in a segment later this month. Our client deserves a special shout out: the CEO’s willingness to share his schedule made this process a smooth one. That’s another great thing about our work – building mutually beneficial relationships with our clients and the media.
We spoke with PC Mag’s Managing Editor Eric Griffith who offered insight into the value of pitching briefing times. “Any time pitches for a briefing can include a variety of times to pick from for a quick phone briefing, that’s always preferred, especially if it comes well ahead of an embargo date/time,” said Griffith. “It’s no guarantee, but it’s nice to know our time is seen as valuable (and busy).” We’ve found that most (if not all) reporters who accept briefings write something, whether it is an article or blog post. Sometimes taking that initial pressure off a reporter to write immediately does the trick. It gives your client a chance to show off a great personality while fostering a longer term relationship with the reporter – and lets all parties in Northern climates enjoy those 26 inches of snow!
Michael Levey is a Senior Strategist at Zer0 to 5ive
Image courtesy of Zer0 to 5ive