How to tell a story, that media won’t ignore?

How to effectively pitch a story.

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When it comes to creating an impact amongst the media fraternity, it is not just about flowery language, it is also about moulding the news in a manner that is newsworthy. We are aware that journalists are story tellers, and hence it is important for a PR person to effectively pitch a story. While we may focus on getting powerful imagery, it’s extremely important we also spend some time understanding the news from the point of view of a journalist. Searching for that underlying interesting story idea is what will earn the interest of the reporters, thus making the pitch stand out from the hundreds of other emails that flood the newsroom every day.

Interestingly, while in the past, a telephonic call was favoured, until very recently, journalists are increasingly preferring an email or even a tweet, keeping in mind how time-dependent the story is. Having said that, it is very important that the agency is extremely active on social media.
Pitching the story to an appropriate person is half the battle and the other half is about convincing the person. We as an agency follow the below to impress our media friends:

• We are far away from the old school press release approach. We are more into video releases which capture snippets of the news. We’ve had many clients say that the use of video has been the most effective tool in their media kits.
• Everything works perfect when you step into the shoes of the journalist! Try to think like a journalist and focus on the ‘story’ aspect of what you are trying to get across.

Use social media to reach out – you can literally speak directly to an individual reporter on Social Media. We also prefer sending Twitter releases to online media, considering how are impressive they are.