PART TWO.
"Peg"
Your Pitch to Something
A "peg" is media jargon
for a date or an event that a story is attached to. So if you see a movie star
on the cover of a women's glossy, it's usually because she has a new movie out.
That's the peg. Pegs help orient the editor, writer or producer by giving them
something timely. A peg can be literal, such as that your business is turning
50 in July; you have a cookbook coming out in August; you're launching a new
service, etc. But you can also "peg" what you do to trends in your
industry or the culture. So if you own a salon that is offering the same
highlighting technique that a pop star sports in her new video, peg your pitch
to that. If you've produced a new film that relates to a hot topic-social
media, Wall Street corruption, gay marriage-make the pitch as much about that
trend as it is about your film. When you do that your pitch becomes bigger than
just what you're pitching, and positions it with stories and trends on a
national level that the media target is already familiar with; already thinks
is important; might already be covering; and can therefore include you in it.
Get
Personal and Get Physical
Imagine you're a producer for a
national talk show with millions of viewers or an editor at an online magazine
with millions of readers, and you are overwhelmed all the time simply getting
your segments produced and your stories out. Then imagine receiving 100 group
email blasts a day from publicists and just as many tweets and updates, all of
which vanish forever into electronic oblivion within minutes. Then imagine
adding your group PR email, tweet or update to that tsunami, and consider
exactly how much of a shot you'd have at getting and keeping their attention.
In contrast, imagine that you're that busy producer or editor and someone from
the messenger center comes by and hand-delivers the one physical package you'll
get that day, that will sit on your desk for days, weeks or months, and that
comes along with a personal call and email, and imagine your chances of getting
on their radar in that circumstance. If you want your pitch to stand out and to
be treated as something superior to spam, invest your PR energies in
person-to-person physical pitching.
Prepare
an Insta-Pitch
One of the biggest mistakes
people make when pitching the media is making the assumption that the media
target is going to sit down and peruse all the materials like its Sunday in bed
with the Daily Nation, figure out what the
story is, and how they're going to work it in to their production schedule.
They're not. If you manage to get their attention at all, you've got about half
an instant to get the story across. This is where the insta-pitch comes in. Three
little words and the producer or editor has got the story - in the subject
heading of an email, on the home page of the website, on the cover of a press
kit, in a phone call or in a tweet-in as close to no time as physics allows. If
the insta-pitch hooks their interest, they'll want to know more and will then
log on to your site or look at the press material you sent them or log on to
your Facebook page, and take it under consideration. Note: if you already have
an "elevator pitch" that takes 30 words and 30 seconds, cut it by 90
percent and you'll have an insta-pitch.
Get
Creative
Getting game-changing national
media coverage is akin to running for national office, it requires a tremendous
amount of strategy, and, if you're an underdog, just as much creative thinking.
But being creative when it comes to media can mean lots of things: if you own a
small coffee chain and black coffee are all the rage in the food media, start
making black coffee and promote that; instead of sending press releases, send
clever post cards that will make the editor or producer laugh and want to hang
it up in their cubicle or save it on to their desktop. Whatever it takes to get
through the deluge of pitches and stick out! Do that.
Think
Long-Haul
The media can be chaotic,
unpredictable and driven by personalities, and they will use you when they need
you-and not one second before. So one of the most important ingredients to an
effective PR operation is persistence, which, tactically speaking, translates
into being around long enough until the moment that they need you. From a
behind-the-scenes perspective, here's why this is the case: When a media
professional gets to work producing a story or a segment they look around their
inbox, their computer and their desk to find anyone who has pitched them
recently who would fit in. You want to be there the moment that happens. That
opportunity could appear in a month, or it could take two years. So if you're a
holistic nutritionist who wants to go on The View, you
need to send them pitches regularly until the day comes that they do a segment
on holistic nutrition; if you run a new kind of social media site and want to
be in Wired, you need be on their radar
the moment they assign a story on new social media sites. This is where
persistence and patience-in addition to precision-become a must.
Hiring
a Good Publicist Is All About Knowing What to Ask
Finally, by helping to create
invaluable media exposure for your venture, a good publicist can be your most
powerful ally. A bad publicist can be like a shady mechanic -they keep your
operation in a cloak of mystery because it isn't about doing the job; it's
about making the money. But by asking the right questions you can divvy out the
good publicist from the shady mechanic who is going to leave your car broken so
you have to come back-and, of course, keep paying. So if you are interviewing a
publicist and they show you whom they represent and how much media they get,
ask them how they did it. A good publicist will tell you. But a lot of
publicists take on clients who are already well-known and take credit for the
media coverage, and they won't answer the question because they weren't
actually responsible for it. In addition, just because they represent people in
the same field doesn't mean it's necessarily good for you -- if you have a skin
care line and they already represent 10 skin care lines, you may get lost in
the shuffle. Ask about that as well. The point is that hiring a publicist you
can trust who winds up being that powerful ally boils down to transparency, a
publicist who is secretive probably has reasons to keep secrets, while an
honest publicist will happily answer questions. Finally, if they claim that
that they can guarantee media coverage or insinuate that the media just does
what they say, you've got a red flag there: media coverage is the editor,
writer or producer's decision, and neither you nor a publicist can make them cover you.
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