Episode 07: 5 Things to Stop Doing Now if You Want to Get Featured in the Media
There are a few things that you need to stop doing…
In this episode, I am walking you through 5 things that you need to stop doing now if you want to get featured in the media.
So many people have asked me what they should and shouldn’t be doing over the years, so this episode is covering it all.
These five things are straight from my community and my own experience. They have also all been validated by reporters.
Should you include your name in the subject line? Is it beneficial to add attachments in your email pitch? By knowing the answers to these questions and more that I answer in this episode, you’ll be able to send the most effective pitch emails.
Topics We Cover in This Episode:
Make sure that your subject line is specific and relevant to the editor
What you should do instead of adding an attachment of your media kit or headshots
Why following up and staying top of mind is so important
The benefit of tweaking your subject line
How to monitor your email open rates
The importance of doing research on the journalist you are emailing
There are a lot of ways to make yourself relevant and show that you not only have done your research but also respect the work of the journalist that you are pitching to.
I hope that the five things I talk about in this episode along with the examples I give of each are super helpful for you and allow you to tweak your pitching method going forward!
If you want to see actual pitches that have gotten featured using my proven method along with more do's, don'ts, and insider hacks about how to get featured as a small business, head over to gloriachoupr.com/masterclass. This masterclass is the number one masterclass to help you land your first media feature in 30 days!
Resources Mentioned:
Join the Small Biz PR Pros FB group
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TRANSCRIPT
Episode 7
Speaker1: [00:00:00] Wasps, hey, there, are you pitching to an editor and writing your name or your company name in the subject line? Or better yet, are you dying to send your media attachments, beautiful headshots and all the information in a pitch? Well, my friends, I am telling you these are two of the five things you need to stop doing right now. If you want to get featured. Hey, friends, I'm Gloria Chou, small business PR expert, award winning pitch writer and your unofficial hype woman. Nothing makes me happier than seeing people get the recognition they deserve. And that starts with feeling more confident to go bigger with your message, because let's be honest, we simply cannot make the impact. We're here to make by hiding behind the scenes. So on this podcast, I will share with you the untraditional yet proven strategies for PR marketing and creating more opportunity in your business. If you are ready to take control of your narrative and be your most unapologetic and confident self, you're in the right place. This is the Small Business PR podcast. In this episode, we're going to cover the top five don'ts if you want to get featured. These are straight from my community, from my own experience, and it has been validated by reporters. You're not going to want to miss this episode, but first, if you want to see actual pitches using my proven method that have gotten featured with more do's and don'ts and insider hacks about how to get featured as a small business, head over to Gloria Chou.
Speaker1: [00:01:29] That's CHOU PR masterclass dot com and see the number one masterclass to help you land your first media feature in 30 days. All right, my friends. So I wanted to do this episode because so many people have asked me throughout the years the kind of things little things here and there about what to send in a pitch, things like timing, or whether or not they should add their bio or slide deck or what to put in the subject line. I am here to tell you very simply that if you're doing these five things that I'm going to tell you that you should stop doing right away. Are you ready? Ok? The first one is you need to stop putting your name and your company name in the subject line. Remember, I always say that your pitch is only as good as the subject line, because if it doesn't get opened, it doesn't get read right and open rates are all about subject line. So in your subject line, you want to make it clear what the pitch is about, what the story is, what the insights are and putting your name and your company, which is really of no relevance to the editor unless you know them, is just a no no. So I cannot stress enough that the number one thing you need to stop doing is do not put your name, your company name or anything that's not relevant to the editor, right? I had a podcast episode.
Speaker1: [00:02:43] If you listen to the first one, I interviewed Margo Leshin, who is a writer for various outlets, including Forbes Refinery in BRITANICO, and she says that a subject line needs to be specific. So if you are pitching a gift guide, it's maybe a gift guide. Best eco gifts for, you know, vegan moms under $50, right? It tells the editor exactly what you're pitching. Now, if you were to replace that with your name, your company and story and feature me, she's probably not going to read it. So this is directly from the journalist, and I'm here to tell you, do not waste time putting your name in the subject line because your subject line is probably the most important part of your pitch. It is a first step to getting it open, my friends. Ok? Number two is you need to stop adding your bio, your attachments and media kit or photos in the email if they have not asked for it. I cannot tell you how many times people have asked me inside of my Facebook community and people in my PR starter pack already know this. But people are asking Gloria how this beautiful media Typekit. I paid hundreds of dollars to get it done. I cannot wait to attach it and I say, no, do not attach it. No one adding any attachments will increase the likelihood that your email will go straight to spam. And we all know you are competing for the editor's attention, so you don't want to do anything that's going to lower your deliverability rates, right? So do not add attachments.
Speaker1: [00:04:08] And number two is I know if you have a product and you have gorgeous photos, you've paid a photographer hundreds or thousands of dollars for. I understand that you want to add it into the email, especially if it's something about getting onto a product guide or a gift guide. But I'm here to tell you that you do not need to do that in the first email. What you should do instead is do a hyperlink. So, for example, in the gift card episode, which is number one, the editor who writes for a lot of gift guides and does a lot of product roundups. She said that it's as simple as you saying in parentheses how much the item costs with an hyperlink on where it's found, so it can be a link to your website. Or if you sell it at like a target or a beauty store, then you might want to tell them as well the other ways that consumers can access it, right? And especially if you're not pitching for a product feature and it's more of a general story positioning you as the leader, you definitely don't want to add bios or attachments. It's a little bit presumptuous. And again, the editor doesn't know you yet. I actually had a discussion with some of the people in my Facebook community, and a lot of them are podcasters and they get pitches all day, every day.
Speaker1: [00:05:16] And they said that it doesn't impress them when there are all these attachments and slide decks because they don't know you and they're not going to spend the time to open up these attachments. So remember, you want your pitch to be super clear to the point with a good subject line, and you don't need to add all of these bells and whistles if you have a compelling pitch. And if you want to know how to turn your product, brochure or story into a newsworthy pitch, you're going to want to listen to the episode titled How This Pitch Framework Helped hundreds of entrepreneurs get featured. That is when I break down my CPR method that has helped again. Thousands of small businesses turn their product brochure into something that is relevant and something that is to the point and concise. So CPR stands for credibility, point of view and relevance. So that's number two. So. No one thing not to do is don't put your name and the word pitch in the subject line. Number two is do not add any attachments, do not add your media kit and your beautiful photos. Instead, you can do a hyperlink to a press page on your website even. Or you can do a link to a Google folder, whatever it is, but please don't attach it. Number three thing that you should not do is just relying on one email.
Speaker1: [00:06:29] Then that's it. I cannot tell you the number of times from my own pitching, where every single time that I've gotten a client featured it was in the follow up. In fact, a lot of the journalists I talked to, whether it's the journalists I interviewed in episode one or the Business Insider, small business reporter who I have on another episode, they all say this is that they might not be responding to your email because they can't respond to every email, but they are looking at it, and they might have their own way of filing it away and categorizing it because there is a chance that they will be tasked with a story and they're going to need someone to speak on the subject. So if they're interviewing someone in E! Commerce and you happen to pitch about E! Commerce a week ago or a month ago, they're going to go back into their inbox. Right? So having the follow up and keeping top of mind is so important. Now I know a lot of founders, especially small business owners. This is a muscle that they're not so used to using, right? They're not used to even writing a pitch, let alone following up in the DMs or doing the three or fourth time follow ups. And I get it right. It's human nature to not want to follow up and to open yourself up to rejection. But I say, and you know those, if you're already inside of my PR startup community, that everything you want is on the other side of the send button.
Speaker1: [00:07:50] And in fact, episode two Tanisha Simone, who is a member of my PR starter pack, she was crowdfunding. She had no revenue. She had no investors. She had no finished product. She was able to get on to 10 plus publications because she realized that what is the worst that can happen? She doesn't know this person. She needs to act from a place that's going to open her up for opportunities. And that means following up. That means connecting with them on DMs. That means having a value driven conversation and being unafraid and unapologetically your most confident self to say, Hey, I sent you an email a week ago. I know that the holidays are coming, and this pitch, I think, is relevant for X, Y and Z or, hey, I write an article that you covered last week about mom pioneers and the shifting trends in this industry, so I thought you'd be interested in hearing my perspective, right? These are all the ways to make yourself relevant. And again, if you have a good pitch that's not super salesy, then you're not going to be afraid to pitch and pitch again. That is the beauty of the CPR method. It allows you to not sound like a used car salesman. So that is so, so important. And I think that's why so many people love the CPR method.
Speaker1: [00:08:58] It gives them a structure of framework on exactly how to pitch. So the third one I just said is don't rely on one email. Every single article feature that I have gotten for my clients has come from follow up. It has not just come from one email, so follow up, follow up, follow up. Now, in terms of the actual cadence, there is no crystal ball. There is no right answer, right? But I will say if you can follow up no more than once a week and then maybe connect with them in the social media, like on DMs, for example, LinkedIn is a great way to connect with them. Then your chances are probably going to be boosted because you're staying top of mind, you're following them on social media, you're engaging with them. And remember the beauty of this method of exactly this kind of small business PR method that that I talk about and that so many people in my community they love is it's a relationship. And if you can build a relationship with just one one reporter, get on their good side, make them trust that you are the person with insight and point of view doesn't matter how long you've been in business, or it doesn't matter how many years of experience. As long as you have a point of view because experts have point of view, they will be able to keep going back to you if they ever needed someone to talk about the industry again.
Speaker1: [00:10:09] I interviewed Jennifer Dawkins, who is the small business reporter at Business Insider, and she says she has a Rolodex of a few people who she constantly goes back to because these people are people who she's interviewed. It's reliable, but she's always looking for more sources. So if you don't throw your name in the hat, then guess what? Your name will never be picked, so don't forget to pitch. Don't be afraid to pitch because journalists are always looking for new sources and new voices. All right, so that is number three. And if you want a database and media list of every single editor across 60 different industries with their email, their contact, their social media with the exact strategy on how you can actually find them and build connections with them so you don't ever have to pay an agency, check out my PR starter pack. All right, so number four of the five things you should stop doing is following up with the same pitch and the. Name email without tweaking your subject line. So this is kind of the laziness in all of us where we're kind of like afraid to really tweak it because we're like, Oh, well, you know, I'm not really confident anyways, resend and I cannot tell you how that is detrimental because it just takes a tiny little tweak in the subject line or maybe tweaking it to relate to like the fact that, you know, now we're in a new season or connecting it to what's relevant now that can really help you boost your open rates so it can be in the same email.
Speaker1: [00:11:34] It can be like a forward or it can be a reply, but you might want to try and tweak your subject line. So if you pitch something around the summer time and it didn't get featured, maybe now with fall and winter, there are so many more angles, right? We have a lot of beauty entrepreneurs in the PR starter pack, so your angle for summer avoiding like heat rash, whatever kind of skincare thing, you might want to tweak that now because now we're getting into the colder season. Again, it's not a one and done. There are so many dividends that come with pitching and staying relevant and building that relationship, and it means doing the work to find angles where you are relevant to what people are talking about to the reality that we live in now to what people are solving and wanting to talk about. So whether it's seasonal, whether it's a different holiday, whether it's something in the news or just a general trend that you are seeing, make yourself relevant and tie your story into that, right? So that is number four is just sending the same email without at least tweaking a little bit of your subject line. Here's another pro tip, and all of my PR starter pack members know this is you want to install a software or even a chrome extension where you can monitor your email open rates.
Speaker1: [00:12:44] I cannot tell you how this has changed the game for myself and all of my PR starter pack members, and I wish I wish that somebody told me this when I started pitching because without an email tracking device, so you can know exactly if your email is being open or read or not, you have no idea, right? And you're going to make assumptions about whether or not your pitch is good and you're going to get discouraged. And I don't want you to do that. And in the age of information, everyone's listening to us, even our phones are listening to us and sell a simple email tracking device. You can Google. There's so many of them, each with their own price points. There's even some free ones you can just monitor whether or not your email has been opened, and that's going to give you the data to allow you to make informed decisions such as maybe I should follow up again? Or, you know what? My email is just not getting through to this journalist for whatever reason. Maybe it's time for me to really focus on messaging them or connecting with them in the DMs. Ok, so now we've got to the final and the fifth thing that you should stop doing right now if you want to get featured and that is sending the same generic pitches without researching what the journalist covered.
Speaker1: [00:13:50] So I know that we have a lot of beauty and product founders, so a lot of them, you know, you want to get into like a vogue or like a refinery or a bustle. But not every single reporter at these wellness outlets cover the same thing. And guess what? You need to know which journalist is in the position to actually write your story. So the person that the editor in chief you know at Vogue is probably not going to write your story. They're busy doing their book tours. They're, you know, not in the actually writing desk, right? But the staff reporters or maybe the contributing writers. They are the ones that are in the position to actually write a story. So make sure that you understand who you're sending your pitch to and not just sending your pitch to every single person at the outlet. So that's number five is do not send generic pitches so generic meaning sending a pitch to everyone. But I also want you to be specific with the pitch. It doesn't mean that you need to spend hours tweaking every single message. What it means is just do some research about whether or not the journalist you are pitching to you has a history of writing about what you're pitching, right? So if it's gift guide season and right now we are in gift guide season, you don't want to send a pitch to someone to say, Hey, please include my body butter in your gift guide.
Speaker1: [00:15:03] If this person has never written a gift guide, or please include my eyeshadow like vegan eyeshadow or vegan makeup brand to someone who writes about consumer electronics, right? That's just not going to look good. You can literally Google like the reporter and what they've written. Look at their previous articles and make a quick assessment. Maybe find them on LinkedIn. A lot of times they will put their own bio about what they like to cover, so then you can get information on what they'd like to cover and what they're interested by. Again, it's all about finding the points of connection between you and the reporter. So if they are a vegan dog mom, right? Or they love rescuing dogs, and so do you. There you go. Maybe that is a point of connection. Where you don't want to do is send your leather bag to a writer who is vegan and has written a lot about sustainability. Or you don't want to write a pitch about why you love Big Tech and all this stuff. To someone who's probably been talking really badly about Big Tech and covering data security and what Big Tech is doing wrong, right? So just just spend a little bit of time and I mean, a little bit of time. Just to research, right, the pitch can still be roughly the same, you can maybe just change the first sentence and say, Hey, I really love the article you wrote, you know, on X, Y and Z outlet, are you still like writing about this topic because I have a follow up, a suggestion for you? Right? These are all the ways to make yourself relevant and to show that you not only have done the research, but you also respect their work.
Speaker1: [00:16:26] And again, it does not have to be an exhaustive thing. You don't have to go into their complete bio and read their whole story. I understand that we want to be pitching to as many writers as possible that's going to increase our chances. So it just have an organized way. Have an Excel spreadsheet, maybe write a couple of notes and maybe narrow down like twenty five or fifty media targets. And I don't mean outlets. I mean the actual writer who is in the position to write your story. So, for example, it's not going to be the editor in chief, but it might be the sustainability reporter or it might be the technology writer, right? And again, if you are in my PR starter pack, you already have this detailed information because you have already had access to over 60 media lists with all of the information, including their social media and their email and their bio. And that's going to allow you to very quickly decide who is in the position to move your story. So there you have it, my friend. These are the five things to stop doing right now if you want to get featured now.
Speaker1: [00:17:23] If you want to see actual pitches with a lot of these tips that I said in its entirety, word for word that have gotten featured in places like Forbes and Fast Company. Head on over to gloriachoupr.com/masterclass so that you can see exactly the do's and don'ts and all of the insider tips that I have gathered from years of pitching. I'm so excited that you're here with us listening to this. And until next time. See you later. Hey, small business hero, did you know that you can get featured for free on outlets like Forbes, The New York Times, Marie Claire, PopSugar and so many more, even if you're not yet launched or if you don't have any connections? That's right. That's why I invite you to watch my PR secrets masterclass where I reveal the exact methods thousands of bootstrapping small businesses used to hack their own PR and go from unknown to being a credible and sought after industry expert. Now, if you want to land your first press feature, get on a podcast, secure a VIP speaking gig, or just reach out to that very intimidating editor. This class will show you exactly how to do it. Register now at gloriachoupr.com/masterclass. That's Gloria Chow CHOU pr masterclass dot com, so you can get featured in 30 days without spending a penny on ads or agencies. Best of all, this is completely free, so get in there and let's get you featured.