By Erica Ho
So, what is your story? Unfortunately, your startup is not a story. When you pitch your company to me (when I'm not a business reporter), I simply just don't care. All you've just done is tell me about your company but you haven't answered the why should I cover you. Should I cover your travel networking app because you've got $100k in funding?
No, because that’s not my beat. I actually care about travel services that generally improve the travel experience for the consumer. Find out what the reporter cares about, and pitch from there.
For instance, take my company for example. I run a travel blog focused on travel hacking and gear. Instead of pitching Map Happy, what I could do is pitch somebody at Fast Company about how five journalists have bailed ship to start their own companies and what that says about the state of the industry (and then outline those five journalists, and have a clear opinion about the state of the industry).
People in general are lazy, and this applies to reporters. Write the story for them so they can see the story without having to do as little as work as possible.
Here are things that reporters think about when deciding to cover a story:
Side note: There can be multiple stories. For instance, one story is how your startup has ROCKED it (TechCrunch), the other story is how it's a must-have gift for Christmas (Refinery29). Pitch accordingly to the outlet you are trying to reach.
Must be short (two or three paragraphs max, with everything I need to know). Remember how I said reporters have short attention spans? Get to the point in the first sentence or two. Highlight what's unique.
Got a travel planning app? Okayy, soooo how are you different from ALL of the other travel planning apps out there? would be my next question.
NO TEMPLATES! Tailor it to me.
If you write “I thought you might be interested in XX because I know you wrote about Airbnb here and here, and travel tech is a specialty of yours and I know you started out in tech,” I know this is a targeted email and I’m more likely to read to the end.
No need for filler statements like how are you? I love you?! we know you want something. So just sell it to us already.
Media lists are like investor lists when you begin fundraising. Same idea, different set of people.
Excel columns: Name, Outlet, Email address, Area of expertise, links to previously published works, date contacted
Chances are, if they're in a similar subject space, they probably communicate a lot and find out the entire editorial staff has just been carpet-bombed with the same pitch. Plus, I like to think if you can't narrow it down to one particular writer, that means you haven't honed in on the right writer yet.
It's the fastest way to piss off a reporter. As a former journalist turned founder (and even now), I spend about a total of two seconds before I archive, delete, ignore or respond. When I worked for TIME magazine, I would get up to about 300 emails a day (seriously no joke). Sometimes this didn't even include external pitches. So reporters often make a snap decision in seconds.
I see this all the time in the startup world and it drives me crazy. Adding a reporter's email to a mailing list—without their permission—is the fastest way to make heads roll and not in the good way. Plus it is a potential violation of the FCC's CAN-SPAM Act, which I have no problem pointing out to startups (or threatening to report them if they don't comply). NO TEMPLATES!
I also know it’s a mailing list because I see the Mailchimp logo on the bottom.
Hello, my name is Erica and I can tell when you are sending a templated email to me because you neither mention my name nor the outlet that I work for. Plus, it reads like a template. NO TEMPLATES!
General rule of thumb: Publications that publish less are more picky about their content. Publications that publish more, the Buzzfeeds and HuffPos of the world, are usually less picky. That's because as a reporter, sometimes you've got a writing quota whether there is any good news that day or not.
After the first or second follow up, stop. Sometimes no response is a response. (Adding comments from other reporters: it’s okay to follow up, but be brief and polite. I agree, but don’t be the bad egg in the bunch. I’ve had people call me in the middle of my lunch, and that was not OK.)