Pitching tips following a recent call-out
Hope you're all well. After that whirlwind banger of an illness, I’ve emerged the other side and am writing this from the Oaxaca coast, where I’m staying in a tipi with a group of other travellers. From Puerto Escondido I took a taxi > collectivo > pick-up truck > boat > pick-up truck to finally arrive here but four hours later, I’ve emerged at a tranquil paradise. Phew. It’s probably one of my best finds (thanks to the recommendation of Dutch woman I travelled with for 10 days in Mexico and Belize).
ANYHOW. Thanks for the messages.
The other week I put a call-out on LinkedIn asking for strong pitches. This was the post:
"I'm open to strong tech-for-good feature pitches dropping in my inbox.
Note: Must be feature pitches (rather than one company doing something).
Must be fresh, and not covered by the BBC before.
Very keen on solutions-focused and/or sustainability stories.
To understand more about what I'm after, here's some stories I've previously written for the section:
The festivals searching for greener ways to rock
'We are creating new crops five-times faster'
Disasters spur investment in flood and fire risk tech
How much will AI help in the next pandemic?
You can start by DM'ing me on here."
Within an hour or so I updated the post to say: "Thank you for all the pitches so far. But what I've noticed is that people are firing me pitches without having read/understood the below criteria. Please send FRESH feature ideas. Please CHECK it's not been featured before. I'm receiving pitches which - after my own online search - I can see have been covered before. Thank you."
What was positive was I received A LOT OF messages.
But what was disappointing was that people just simply didn’t read (or chose to ignore) what I'd actually requested.
I received so many pitches that:
Weren’t focused on tech at all
Were just focused on one company
Were subjects that the BBC had already covered in detail – there was nothing new, or fresh. And when I’d mention this in the feedback, people just responded saying their organisation hadn’t been featured before.
Ideas came through that I was sure I had seen or would have been featured on the BBC and then sure enough when I researched, they had.
And people chased far too quickly (for example, the same day, a day later).
I’m going to say about 75 pitches came through, three of which I was able to take through to my editor.
I ended up spending a lot of time explaining what I needed/what was wrong with the pitch. And then I would receive further pitches, which again hadn't been well targeted.
My recommendations going forward are really simple - and I know a lot of you obviously know this already - but overall this would have saved me a lot of time:
Please read what the journalist is looking for. If it says TECH stories, then you know, just send tech stories.
If it says feature/trends-led stories, don’t be sending a press release, or information just about your company.
Please check if the story has been covered before. And if it has, find a new angle. I know it's hard work (and time-consuming) but hey, it's also something I have to do for a living. I can't be sending my editors ideas that they've already covered before.
Many people just told me to watch a video or click on a release or report. This is so off-putting. If you can’t be bothered to write a succinct pitch or you can’t explain it in your own words, then you need to work on that before you ever pitch to a journalist.
Don’t chase so quickly. That's adding to our already crazy inboxes.
And by the way, I did appreciate the few strong pitches by the people who read the brief.
If you'd like more tips and examples of strong pitches, I'm running my popular Lessons from a Journalist: How to Secure Media Coverage workshop in London on August 21, in Mexico City on May 20, and also online on May 8 and July 30.