Pitching small business stories
Reporters work for their editors - Mary Marshall
Those of us who have the privilege of representing small business always struggle with the issue of newsworthiness. If Megakluge announces the future release of Vaporware 1.0, due to ship three years from now, it will be treated as news for no reason save that it came from Megakluge. But if you call from TheLittleEngineThatCould Technology Corp., you have to deal with the “Who are they?” issue. Presumably, your client hired you to solve that problem.
It is critical to have a detailed understanding of TheLittleEngineThatCould’s product and what problem it solves. The story will almost always revolve around solving a problem that had not been previously addressed. You must determine who cares about that problem and why it is news.
Begin at the end. Since you want the story to generate sales, begin with the prospects. Who buys from TheLittleEngineThatCould? Are they network administrators? Civil servants? Financial advisors? Chief information officers? You must know your audience before you make your pitch.
What sort of publication do TheLittleEngineThatCould’s customers read? A favorable review in an obscure professional journal may be a better placement than a national newspaper. Only when you know whom you are writing for can you begin to formulate the pitch. Have a specific reader in mind as you write. This inspires livelier copy.
The reason Technoflak begins with the reader rather than the editor is that it is too easy to concentrate so much on the news organization that we lose sight of our purpose: to communicate our client’s message to the pubic in a way that inspires trust. Always remember that you are talking to the public, not the reporter.
The other reason Technoflak begins with the reader is that it is easier to pitch the newsworthiness of stories if you can point to specific readers. If you can say something along the lines of “both the network administrators and the security officers who read your magazine will be interested in this story because...” your message will have a better chance of generating a response.
If TheLittleEngineThatCould has an inherently newsworthy customer, the State Department or National Institute for Health(NIH) for instance, you should pitch the State Department or NIH as the story. This is very difficult as you have two different organizations that must sign off on the story before you pitch it. However, your chances of successful placement are greatly enhanced.
Offer exclusives: send email along the lines of “TheLittleEngineThatCould has a new web services application that provides for world peace and thin thighs, please let me know by Friday if The Weekly Whiz is interested.” Setting a deadline encourages a response and frees you to offer the pitch to a rival news organization if The Weekly Whiz fails to respond.
Editors want readers, clients want customers. Finding the place where their interests converge is the secret to all successful story pitches. Reporters want stories that will grab the attention of readers, impress editors and win a promotion. If they don’t want these things they are not doing their job. Persuade them that TheLittleEngineThatCould is moving down their readers’ track, and they will use your story.
Author: Alice Marshall | Jul 14, 04 | Permalink
| 5 comments
Category: @ Alice Marshall | Topic 3 Making PR Work
Hi Alice -- Thanks for the tips. I've been "PR flacking" for over 10 years now, and I'm always on the look-out for other insights. I've worked for both a billion-dollar corporation and a dotcom failure. I agree with you that I barely had to lift a finger to generate press hits for the billion-dollar behemoth. Conversely, I've never worked longer hours than when I was with the startup. I'm with another small company now, where I often hear, "Who are you?" It's back to media education mode. We have an impressive list of customers with innovative stories, yet I'm baffled by the media's lack of interest today in customer deployment stories. What happened to "the customer is king?" Yes, our company is constantly reaching for the next sales deal... but who do the pubs think most of their readers are? It ain't grandma sitting at home, retired and contentedly knitting, that's for sure. It's the very technical people who are buying our software that are also reading their trade pubs! If that isn't a common audience, I don't know what is... yet for all the creative ways I've pitched these customers -- using many of the very tactics you describe -- it's a tough, tough media crowd out there.
Posted by: Ann at July 14, 2004 05:08 PM
I hope we can use blogosphere to educated editors about the newsworthiness of these stories. I wrote an earlier post aimed at editors-
http://technoflak.blogspot.com/2004/06/why-small-business-is-big-news.html
Posted by: Alice Marshall at July 14, 2004 06:48 PM
Ann - I feel your pain! Most of my clients are small, and much of my work over the past years have been with tech start-ups. I am running into the same issue with customer stories. Press are just uninterested in talking with you unless you are a big player already. Reporters and editors themselves have admitted this to me, althought I still am perplexed as to the "why" of it all.
This is one of the major drivers for me in trying to figure out the new world of communicating directly to customers/potential customers, partners, influencers etc. through tools like blogging, eNewsletters and others. The gatekeepers to the trade press have closed the doors on us, so we simply have to find another channel.
Posted by: Elizabeth Albrycht at July 15, 2004 03:44 AM
Elizabeth, I think you are on to something. In the short term blogs and eNewsletters get a company's message out. (I also think it is important for small companies to participate in user groups, professional societies, trade associations, etc.)
In the long term such methods will demonstrate a market for such material that larger news organizations will not be able to ignore.
Posted by: Alice Marshall at July 15, 2004 09:13 AM
In the long run, those tactics will work. It is the short run that is the problem when the big reason my clients hire my agency is to get "ink" (read: cover of BusinessWeek).
Of course, we explain the difficulties, but often times it goes in one ear and out the other. We've gotten to the point that we won't take on clients who don't demonstrate some understanding of this during our intial conversations.
Posted by: Elizabeth Albrycht at July 15, 2004 09:23 AM
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