Pitching news and story ideas to journalists is a fundamental part of what we do, and it’s extremely important to ensure a pitch is both relevant and stands out from the crowd – especially when journalists receive hundreds of email pitches and phone calls a day.
Journalists will occasionally impart helpful tips for companies who approach them, a lot of which is usually very simple and sensible. For example, it’s often helpful to relate a pitch to a current news story, make it as clear and concise as possible and, if it’s via email, you should arguably put as much thought and creativity into crafting your subject line as the body of your pitch itself.
One interesting and important consideration expounded by Corporate Visions, which is a sales training and messaging company (and in the interests of full disclosure is a Finn Partners UK client), is that of outlining your prospect’s ‘unconsidered needs’ first.
Unconsidered needs “are the gaps and deficiencies in a prospect’s current approach that they’re either underestimating or don’t yet know about.” It’s interesting to think about this approach from a PR perspective, and how useful unconsidered needs are from the perspective of telling a PR story – most obviously an interesting hook or angle that adds to a topic and, vitally, that hasn’t been written about yet.
For a PR pitch to be successful, it must get the basics right above all else. Beyond that, it is creative ideas and considering the unconsidered that will really set it apart.
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