You think you’ve got a great nugget of an idea but aren’t sure how to pitch your story to the media. Do you attempt to write a press release? Do you pick up the phone? Do you wing over a video to the pics email of your favourite publication?

In an ideal world, media relations is the wing of your public relations strategy that builds relationships with your target media (whether that’s print newspapers and magazines, digital only titles, bloggers or Instagrammers). Ultimately, these relationships make it so much easier to pitch your story because the door is already open between you and the writer. I call it the long game.

However, not everyone is armed with the expertise, time or experience in media relations. And sometimes the story’s too good to keep quiet. Equally, you might just be dipping a toe into publicity to see what a ‘quick and dirty’ sell-in returns.

Within that effort, there are myriad ways to pitch your story to the press. The crux is genuinely having a timely and relevant hook. The addition of data, a case study or third party opinion all helps but isn’t necessarily essential. Great imagery and resonating commentary will go along nicely too.

Assuming you have some or all of the above, which mechanism will work best for you…

7 ways to pitch your story to the media

1. Press release - let’s start at the beginning, because even if you don’t issue the release (and please don’t just fire it out blankly on bcc to a bunch of journalists you like), the art of the press release is to craft your pitch in a coherent and newsworthy fashion for the media to quickly take in and then learn more if they wish to read on

2. Newsjacking - in other words piggybacking on a current story with your own version of events, alternative perspective, or product solutions

3. Letters to the Editor - as demonstrated beautifully by Ed Paine of Last Frontiers recently, he wrote to the editor of The Times urging the government to do more to support the travel industry through the pandemic

4. Desk drop - send product samples to your target journalists (much trickier without established media relations when journalists are increasingly freelance or remote working and the glossies are renowned for having entire rooms full of freebies that have never seen the light of the publication)

5. Twitter - it’s the conversational social media platform and it’s also where most journalists are active and vocal; find your media targets, strike up a conversation and familiarise yourself with #journorequest

6. Video it - digital publishers love video, so if it’s a suitable medium for demonstrating or telling your hottest news capture it that way and provide a password protected link to the content if you want it to remain exclusive to specific titles, otherwise host it or post it and do your thing

7. Capture it - whether the news is about an individual or a product you’re going to need hi-res photos (cut-outs for products too) and don’t wait to be asked for them, they form part of your basic media kit, even better lead with a knock-out pic that says more than words ever will

This is not an exclusive list, it’s a basic one, to get you thinking about the different ways you can talk to the media. For a more strategic perspective on your public relations activity or a publicity plan of attack, drop Kate a line.