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How to (Phone) Pitch The Media

Guest post by: Anthony Mora

Article Overview: You may be a natural salesman, and your clients may indeed love you, but you're playing a different game when you’re contacting the media. You are entering a very specific phone world. You may be a great person one-on-one, with a winning smile and a firm handshake, but that won't get you far over the phone. Having an interesting and compelling story to tell is vital, but how that story is pitched is of equal importance.

How to (Phone) Pitch The Media

You may be a natural salesman, and your clients may indeed love you, but you're playing a different game when you're contacting the media. You are entering a very specific phone world. You may be a great person one-on-one, with a winning smile and a firm handshake, but that won't get you far over the phone. You may be an extremely successful high-pressure telemarketer, but remember, here you're dealing with a different, more weary, more sophisticated audience. Making PR follow-up calls can be a difficult proposition. Be candid with yourself. Do you have a personality that works over the phone? If the phone intimidates you, or if you come off gruff, demanding, or impatient over the phone, don't make the calls yourself, hire someone to make them on your behalf. You need to be painfully honest with yourself. Most of us don't like to admit that there are areas that aren't our forte. But none of us are proficient in everything. Developing a good pitch and writing a strong press release are important, but you also need to have an effective follow-up plan, which could include learning to communicate differently.

Don't try to be everything to all people. If you're uncomfortable on the phone, too shy and passive or too demanding and pushy, consider either learning how to adjust your approach, or consider having someone else make the calls. Otherwise you're not doing you and you're business any favors. You're only going to hurt your chances for success. You may be a good field general when it comes to your business, but what you need here is a savvy diplomat. You may not even be aware that you have a weak phone voice, or you talk too quickly, or you're too aggressive, or your tone is too confrontational over the phone. You might figure you're you and they better like it. But the aim here is to make sure that the media likes the pitch. A part of that is making sure you have an interesting compelling story to tell, but how that story is pitched is of equal importance. Both the message and the messenger have to be on target.

So take a step back and evaluate yourself objectively. Ask someone who you trust to give you feedback. It will do you no good to have a great story to pitch and then alienate the media by making poor follow-up calls. Know you strengths and your weaknesses. It will pay off in the long run.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2011

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Article Tags: business, pitching the media, pr campaign, pr followups, pr pitch, press release, public relations, small business



Related Forum Posts
How do i answer the phone? - I learned this technique from a successful businessman who earns over a million dollars a year. He just uses his name like this... Phone rings... " This is Dwayne..." It kind of throws people off who have a preplanned script and gets right into it. Phone rings... " This is Dwayne..." No Hello, no good morning/afternoon/evening Phone rings... "This is Dwayne..."
Re: Can you read body language and convert it into a sale? - I can definitely read their mood by how they speak on the phone. You can usually also tell by the way they respond to the things you are saying. Phone sales aren't as easy as when you see them in person, but I still believe their tone can tell a lot.
Re: Kevin needs "social glue" ideas - Hi, I like the idea of "10 items that could act as "social glue" because I am an internet marketer. But I agree with the rest that the 10 recent post is nice. Maybe we should open up a new section in the forums on Social Media...or Social Media Marketing. I will tell you that the world is about 1 1/2 behind when it comes to understanding social media. Building a section now will put EvanCarmichael.com is a great position a year down the road when people realize Social Media can produce more traffic than SEO. Jeff
Pitch Like A Girl: How a Woman Can Be Herself and Still Succ - Pitch Like A Girl: How a Woman Can Be Herself and Still Succeed Ronna Lichtenberg 2005 From the inside cover: "As a woman, you probably feel uncomfortable when it comes to promoting yourself and asking for what you want." WHAT IN THE HECK IS THIS, I asked myself when I read that. Women are the fastest growing business owners in the US and Canada, there are t housands of women executives and CEOs - though not as many as might be expected, admittedly, yet the book opens with this surely out of date stereotype. However, as she continued to give examples of women who had high paying jobs but were routinely not paid as much as men because it hadn't occurred to them to ask for raises, etc., I decided it was probably true for a majority of businesswomen... Anyway, more of the info from the jacket: "Other books have told you how to get what you want by being more like a guy. Pitch Like A Girl tells you why its an advantage to be who you are and how to do better by bringing more of yourself to work." The TOC: 1. Pink and Blue 2. The Quck-dry Chapter 3. What's In your head that's not in his 4. The Me, Inc Mindset 5. Visioning: Discover What You Really Want 6. Identifying Prospects 7. Pre-pitch homework and heartwork 8. Crafting the pitch 9. Pricing the pitch 10. Packaging the pitch 11. Delivering the pitch 12. Closing Conclusion A Word to the guys The Empathy Quotient The Systemizing Quotient Bibliography And on a side note - non-fiction books without indexes - of which this is one, annoy me.
Re: Kevin needs "social glue" ideas - [quote="WebBizIdeas.com":gvtxsu7g]Hi, I like the idea of "10 items that could act as "social glue" because I am an internet marketer. But I agree with the rest that the 10 recent post is nice. Maybe we should open up a new section in the forums on Social Media...or Social Media Marketing. I will tell you that the world is about 1 1/2 behind when it comes to understanding social media. Building a section now will put EvanCarmichael.com is a great position a year down the road when people realize Social Media can produce more traffic than SEO. Jeff[/quote:gvtxsu7g] Hi Jeff, Thanks for the suggestion. Why don't you start a new post (with a poll) to see if there's enough interest in your idea for a social media section?


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