{"id":116430,"date":"2018-07-16T10:52:30","date_gmt":"2018-07-16T09:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=116430"},"modified":"2018-07-16T10:52:30","modified_gmt":"2018-07-16T09:52:30","slug":"5-pitch-tips-from-ben-titchmarsh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/5-pitch-tips-from-ben-titchmarsh\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Pitch Tips from Ben Titchmarsh"},"content":{"rendered":"

How\u2019s your pitching? Are you reaching the most relevant media contacts in the right way? Or perhaps your relationships with journalists never seem to fully develop? One man who knows what a successful pitch looks like is Ben Titchmarsh, head of media and marketing at Propeller Group.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We spoke to Ben for our white paper \u2013 Media Relations in 2018<\/a> \u2013 and he revealed his top pitch tips for the modern PR.<\/p>\n

1. Know your sector<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ben says: \u2018Never underestimate the power of reading constantly and really immersing yourself in the sector you\u2019re pitching to.\u2019 <\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s no point starting your pitch until you know your industry inside out. That means knowing the company you represent, its place in the market and any major trends that could affect the company or its clients. With a holistic view of the industry you\u2019ll be able to provide rich and varied content to journalists who are, themselves, experts in the field.<\/p>\n

2. Personalise your pitch <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Ben says: \u2018Always personalise your messaging because journalists can tell if you\u2019ve mail merged. I tend to make a shorter media list and personalise every line of the message.\u2019 <\/strong><\/p>\n

This should be a given but it\u2019s clear some PRs (surely\u00ad\u00ad not readers of the Monday PR Club) are still aiming for quantity over quality. The short-term aim of your pitch may be to secure coverage, but you should really be focusing on the long-term goal of building a fruitful relationship.<\/p>\n

Ben\u2019s advice for anyone struggling to personalise a pitch is: \u2018For subject lines, I would write \u2018Hi [name], story for publication \u2013 [story title]\u2019 and then in the first line I would reference another story they\u2019ve done that was similar to my pitch.\u2019<\/p>\n

3. Write like a journalist<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Ben says: \u2018If you\u2019re writing a press release, try to write it as a news story, which includes using the house style of the publication you\u2019re pitching to.\u2019 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Journalists are overworked and understaffed; most don\u2019t have time to take a template press release and turn it into a news story that fits their publication. If you write in the house style and lose unnecessary elements (for example LOCATION: DATE<\/strong> at the beginning of the release, and sales speak in the copy) it makes it much easier for the journalist to use your content.<\/p>\n

4. Don\u2019t hold the gold<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Ben says: \u2018I was once told that with an email pitch, you should imagine you have 100% of their attention for the first line, 50% for the second, 25% for the third, 12.5% for the fourth etc. That\u2019s true, so don\u2019t hold the gold; put what they need to know at the beginning.\u2019 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Your email may be more exciting if you tease a build up to what you\u2019re sending but for a journalist, they may not read all the way to the pay-off. Again, they\u2019re understaffed and overworked \u2013 don\u2019t be too clever in the pitch, just make it clear why what you\u2019re pitching is a great fit for them.<\/p>\n

5. Make it exclusive<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Ben says: \u2018There\u2019s also a benefit of scarcity with journalists \u2013 they love an exclusive. They will always google the story to see if it\u2019s elsewhere, so if you say it\u2019s an exclusive, mean it.\u2019 <\/strong><\/p>\n

If the same story is appearing in multiple publications then all you\u2019re doing is making those outlets compete for audience share. And if the story has already appeared elsewhere, you\u2019re making a publication play catch up. Obviously, it\u2019s not always possible to make a story exclusive, but when you can \u2013 and when the audience is right \u2013 use it to your advantage.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Find out more about media relations in 2018, including relationship advice and how this affects the GDPR, by downloading our white paper here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How\u2019s your pitching? Are you reaching the most relevant media contacts in the right way? Or perhaps your relationships with journalists never seem to fully develop? One man who knows what a successful pitch looks like is Ben Titchmarsh, head of media and marketing at Propeller Group. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":116431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7365,350,7272,7238],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116430"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116430"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116530,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116430\/revisions\/116530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}