5 ways PR pros can perfect their pitches

A hot-button issue one day can be old news the next. Given these changing preferences, it can be difficult to latch on to what’s trending at any given time.

Yet, this is what PR professionals do on a daily basis to grab media coverage for their clients. Knowing what’s currently in the news and understanding media relations tactics are imperative to winning with journalists.

Here are five ways to perfect your pitches—and make your press releases and stories more newsworthy:

1. Read the news.

Don’t only read the news—read articles written by reporters to whom you want to pitch.

You will get a sense for what kind of topics reporters cover, their writing style and the kinds of things they print. You can then easily tailor a pitch or press release to a specific reporter or publication.

The more relevant it is to the reporter, the more likely your piece will make it to print.

2. Don’t spam journalists.

You want your press releases to be targeted. If you are arbitrarily sending story pitches blindly to an email list, you will get ignored.

Worse yet, any future press release you send to a journalist that you spammed before may end up seeing the same fate—whether you tailored it to the publication or not.