3 Ways to Successfully Pitch to the Press
When doing PR, you must always be careful when approaching press. Think about it, press get inundated with thousands of emails from PR professionals each day asking them to review and experience hotels, holidays, products and run stories. So when pitching to press, you have to make it interesting and worth their time.
Here’s our three top tips to successfully pitch to press and get your voice heard:
Title
This is the first impression you give to press and determines whether your email gets opened or goes straight into the bin. Make it catchy and interesting. Instead of the boring intro of just ‘hotel review’, let them know what they have the chance to experience – ‘luxury five star stay in The Cotswolds’. Keep it short so they can read the entire title or create a tag line that makes them want to read more.
Content
Make sure you’re not emailing them with something completely irrelevant. It may sound like an obvious point but you wouldn’t believe how many journalists get hundreds of completely pointless emails daily.
Don’t simply ask them to stay in a five star hotel in The Cotswolds. Tell they why – what are they going to get out of it? Does it include a Michelin Starred five course tasting menu, luxury king size bed, afternoon tea and bottle of wine? If it does, say so!
Also, don’t miss out any detail. But make sure you don’t send them the world’s longest email too. Be straight to the point and full of the info they want to see. Be specific as this contact creates your long term relationships with press and whether they continue to open your emails or not.
Contacting the right person
Make sure that you’re contacting the right person and ensure that if you’re offering a review or article, you sell it. Don’t just send it to the Editor or general news team because that’s the only email that you can find– they don’t want to know. Send it to the right person like the Travel Editor or Lifestyle team. This will also last a leaving impression on press and either build or destroy relationships with them.
If you need some help with PR, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us as we’d love to help!
