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#021: Do the work

How to pitch a story to a journalist: what to include, how to tailor your angle and why a press release isn’t always enough. A practical checklist with examples to help you get press coverage for your business.

#021: Do the work
Lucy Werner
Lucy Werner
6 minutes read

Hiya 🌊,

I had one of those weeks where winter bugs took me out. I hunkered down under a duvet and watched The Hunger Games and tried to not panic about the work I had to push back.

And in my snot and cough bedrot I remembered I need to schedule in some time for some proactive pitching. Tuesday is usually my pitching day, a habit left over from my agency days.

This week, I’m revisiting a popular post about making your pitches better. But don't forget as a paid reader you have access to the archive and you can catch up with my How to write a press release or My Pitch Perfect live class.

Lucy x

🙋🏻‍♀️ I see a lot of people responding to press pitches publicly via #journorequest, Lightbulb or on LinkedIn. They fail at the first hurdle because they don’t do the work for the journalists.

What do I mean by do the work?: If you're pitching to a journalist, give them all the info they need in one go. But remember, journalists are busy so keep it short and sharp. 

❌ Saying “I would love to do this, come and check out my work” is rarely (if ever) going to land you coverage. ❌

✅ Instead, you need to give them the quotes, the link to your website, the headshot all upfront. If they don’t use it - recycle! ✅

This week, we are going to take a look at the following:

  • Why a press release isn’t always enough.
  • A checklist of things your story needs
  • An example of ‘doing the work’

Why a press release doesn’t work

Caveat: a press release WITH a great tailored email pitch can work wonders.

The problem, for me at least, is that press releases make pitching to the press lazy 😴 It gets whizzed out, spray and pray style, to a long list of journalists.

This, to me, isn’t PR. Or publicity. It is spam.

  • The press release was created in ¹1906 to share a breaking news story. It was not meant to be the way we disseminate all information to journalists
  • Unless a journalist is a news editor covering NEW news, a press release isn’t always that helpful because you are forcing them to find the story
  • If you are a feature writer, you will want a feature pitch. You will want to know the real-life story if you are a real-life editor. If you are a shopping editor, you want an image, price, URL and description as you would feature it. If you are a business editor, you are going to want to know the…. (you get the gist)

Let's find ways to do it better.

A checklist of things your story needs