Media Relations Best Practices With Axia

In this episode, Kasey Klee, Marjorie Comer, and Bob Wiltfong join On Top of PR host Jason Mudd to discuss media relations best practices.

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Our episode includes Axia’s news team: Kasey Klee, Account Executive; Marjorie Comer, News Media Consultant; Bob Wiltfong, Public Relations Account Director; and Jason Mudd, CEO. Together, they discuss the five best practices for media relations: preparing, relationship building, messaging, pitching, and following up

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5 things you’ll learn during the full episode:

1. How to plan and prepare for pitching stories 
2. How to build meaningful relationships with reporters
3. What your messaging should look like
4. How to go about pitching stories
5. Why you should follow up

About the Axia Team

• Jason is the founder of Axia, serving as a trusted adviser to renowned brands like American Airlines, Hilton, and Verizon. He resides in Amelia Island, Florida.
• Bob, a PR strategist and former award-winning news anchor, brings his expertise to clients like Boeing and Sony. He calls Jacksonville, Florida home and joined Axia in February 2023.
• Marjorie, an award-winning PR professional, has been with Axia since October 2011, skillfully implementing PR plans and handling reactive needs from her base in Joplin, Missouri.
• Kasey, known for her enthusiasm and attention to detail, coordinates client programs and has been a trusted adviser since August 2021. She resides in Jacksonville Beach, Florida.

Quotables

• “The goal for any public relations person is the media list, the contact list and the relationships that we build with the media.” - @Bob
• “You're always looking to localize a national story and PR people do that with news jockey. What we're trying to do is tie in a newsworthy item involving our clients to a national story. So it's kind of the same idea.” - @Bob
• “All news is local. And so if you can find a local angle to a national story, then that's very beneficial.” - @Jason
•  “AI is never going to replace the PR person because it's still about relationships and you start to be human to have those types of relationships.” - @Jason
• “Relationship building is probably one of my favorite things that I get to do as a PR professional.” - @Marjorie
• “Building a relationship with a reporter doesn't have to be scary. It doesn't have to be this taboo thing. We're all people and we all want to build a connection with someone else.” - @Marjorie 
• “The relationship between a PR person and a journalist could be such a dynamic duo if it's done correctly.” - @Kasey
• “It's not just who we know, but it's really who knows us.” - @Jason
• “Every pitch is a little bit of an experiment.” - @Jason
• “Smaller wins will lead to bigger things.” - @Jason 
• “You would be amazed at how many stories that we have secured just because we've followed up.” - @Marjorie 
• “You just need to break through the clutter and I think following up is how you do that.” - @Kasey
• “Never accept a no from someone who's not empowered to say yes.” - @Jason

Resources

Additional Episode Resources:

• Jason Mudd on ‘X’
• Jason Mudd on LinkedIn
• Marjorie Comer on LinkedIn
• Kasey Klee on LinkedIn
• Bob Wiltfong on LinkedIn

Additional Resources from Axia Public Relations:

• Listen to more episodes of the On Top of PR podcast.
• Find out more about Axia Public Relations.
• Top PR pros share their tips for earning media coverage
• Top 5 media relations practices to attract more coverage

Episode Highlights

[04:09] Planning & Preparation 

Bob: “The goal for any public relations person is the media list, the contact list and the relationships that we build with the media.”

• Take a big list of media and funnel it down to a tighter target
• Listen to the news to see what’s newsworthy
• Develop pitches and ideas to send to journalists - sometimes the need news to report on!
• Being on the news is only around 2 minutes long - don’t overcomplicate it

Bob: “You're always looking to localize a national story and PR people do that with news jockey. What we're trying to do is tie in a newsworthy item involving our clients to a national story. So it's kind of the same idea.”

Jason: “All news is local. And so if you can find a local angle to a national story, then that's very beneficial.”

• Create a new media list using media databases to help you determine who to start pitching to.
• Don’t forget quality is better than quantity.
• The shorter the better … Can you say you pitch in one or two lines?
• Look into AI features that help you determine who to pitch to.

Jason: “AI is never going to replace the PR person because it's still about relationships and you start to be human to have those types of relationships.”

[18:14] Relationship Building

Marjorie: “Relationship building is probably one of my favorite things that I get to do as a PR professional.”

Marjorie: “Building a relationship with a reporter doesn't have to be scary. It doesn't have to be this taboo thing. We're all people and we all want to build a connection with someone else.”

Kasey: “The relationship between a PR person and a journalist could be such a dynamic duo if it's done correctly.”

• Use manners.
• Connect with a journalist on a personal level.
• Thank them for their interest.
• Don’t be creepy. 

Jason: “It's not just who we know, but it's really who knows us.”

• Connect with them via social media.
• Be personal when making connections (i.e. Connect with them on LinkedIn and give them an example of their work that you like).
• Be a good sport/connection by sharing a report work and tagging them/the news outlet.
• Be genuinely interested. Only mention a journalist's work to them when you actually read and like it.
  • Have some substance to your message to the journalist.
• Keep up with the reporters - if you are aware of their birthday, text them!
• Give reporters a “freebie” - a tidbit that doesn’t even have to be related to your client.

Bob: “Small visits lead to long relationships. Your dialog or your conversation with journalists doesn't have to be this big pitch. It can be just a, hey, thinking about you or a happy birthday.”

[33:14] Messaging

• Keep it concise.
  • Get the main idea down in three lines.
• Use white space. 
  • Draw the eye to your key takeaways.
• Save information for follow-up emails.
• Entice them.
• Tailor your subject line to the individual you are pitching to.
• Be provocative, give a unique perspective.

Jason: “Every pitch is a little bit of an experiment.” 

Jason: “I would encourage our audience to just go on Twitter where journalists will share bad pitches and you'll learn what not to do.”

[43:00] Actual Pitching

• Individualize each pitch that you're sending.
  • DO NOT mass-send pitches.
• Look at the media outlets that you are pitching to.
  • Tailor the pitch to whom you are sending it to.
• Set up as much as you can in advance and include it in the pitch.
• Make customers available for journalists to interview for stories.
• Start small, get big, and end with a large impact on some of your pitches.
  • It’s just storytelling!
• Include human interest aspects in your pitches.
• Consume the news for the outlet you want to get your client’s story on.
• Focus on one or two media outlets and do a deep dive into them instead of shooting for a lot of different ones.

Jason: “Smaller wins will lead to bigger things.”

[53:30] Follow Up

Marjorie: “You would be amazed at how many stories that we have secured just because we've followed up.”

• Just do it.
• Aim to help them. 
• Don’t look at it as being annoying.
• Time it just right.
  • Call when it’s slow at the station.
• Change how you contact them.
  • Call, DM, text, etc.

Kasey: “You just need to break through the clutter and I think following up is how you do that.”

Jason: “The expression of a quick no is better than a forever maybe.”

Jason: “Never accept a no from someone who's not empowered to say yes.”

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Transcript

Jason:

Hello and welcome to On Top of PR, I'm your host, Jason Mudd with Axia Public Relations. And in this episode we're doing something just a little bit different. I asked my fellow colleagues at Axia Public Relations to help us discuss best practices for media relations. And to that end, in this episode, it's going to feature basically an onboarding specialist, an account executive at Axia, Bob Wiltfong, an account director, and Axia, as well as Marjorie Comer, who's been with Axia for more than a decade as a news media consultant.

Jason:

And of course, I'm going to be joining in the conversation as well as we're sharing with you some of our best practices for earning media coverage. I think you're really going to enjoy this episode. So listen in and let us share with you some of our experiences in media relations and getting media coverage. If you have some other tips you'd like to add, we would love to hear from you.

Jason:

So be sure to share a comment or contact US podcast at Axia PR dot com. Here we go.

Jason:

All right. Hello, everybody. This is Jason Mudd with Axiom Public Relations. I've got some members here of our news media team starting in the top left. What are my top left? At least you've got Marjorie Comer. Marjorie, welcome. We're glad you're here. Marjorie has been part of the Axia team for about 11 years now, and she's an award winning public relations professional, and she helps oversee their news campaigns.

Jason:

And then we also have with us to my bottom left, Kasey. Kasey Klee is a trusted adviser, coordinating day to day activities for various client programs. Clients love Kasey's enthusiasm and attention to details. She joined Axia in August of 2021, and then in the other bottom right corner, we have Bob. Bob, welcome. Glad you're here, too. Bob is an account director, a PR strategist and award winning television news anchor and reporter.

Jason:

His client experience includes Boeing, Johnson & Johnson, Nationwide Insurance, Sony, T-Mobile and Bob joined our agency in February 2023. I'm Jason Mudd, a trusted advisor and strategist for some of America's most admired brands and I founded Axia in July 2017, 2002. I was recently named top PR leader in North America, and I'm glad to be here. And today we are sharing our best practices for earning media coverage and media relations.

Jason:

This is obviously an important topic. When people think about public relations, they are almost always by default, thinking about media coverage and earned media. And earned media comes from media relations and being obviously putting on a hat, thinking about what NEWSROOM wants and how you can help newsrooms and journalists get stories told. Meanwhile, if you think about it, it's like a Venn diagram.

Jason:

There's what the newsroom wants to know. There's what our clients want to tell, and there's what the audience of those news outlets want to learn. And so it all has to work really well together. We all have to be very focused on what's of interest to the marketplace and use newsrooms and journalists as an audience, a channel and a tool of public relations.

Jason:

And more specifically for today's conversation, earning media coverage and news coverage. So we've got a list here of different things we want to talk about, but we're just going to have kind of a spontaneous conversation as well to kind of keep it light on this Friday afternoon. We're recording on April 21st of 2023. So let's talk about planning and preparation.

Jason:

So just so our audience is aware, we want to talk about five different categories today of media relations and best practices of earning media coverage. The first one is planning and preparation, The second one is relationship building. Third, we'll talk about messaging. Fourth, actual pitching. And then last is follow up. So, Bob, you want to share one of your favorite tips or some of your advice when it comes to planning and preparation for media relations work?

Bob:

Yeah, will do. Jason, thank you. The goal for any public relations person is the media list, the contact list and the relationships that we build with the media. And one of the things that was introduced to me very early on in my PR career is the idea that you cannot just fully accept the first pass of a media contact list.

Bob:

You have to scrub it a little bit and make sure that your contacts are as close to the ground floor of people who put stories into magazines, onto TV shows, on the radio, whatever the case may be as possible. So, for instance, if I get a media list full of and I'm looking at national TV shows and I get the executive producer of The Today Show, for example, I am not going to have much luck trying to knock on the door of the executive director of that big program.

Bob:

But if I can get down to maybe an associate producer or even better, a booker of a segment on one of those shows, those are the people I want to make relationships with. That's where I want to put my time. And so my first thought on planning is to scrub your initial fine off your media list and do some research and find the people that are as close to storytelling as possible.

Jason:

Bob I'm going to yes. In that I believe you're absolutely right. And I would say yes. And it's really helpful when you can get to the actual reporter that's going to do the story themselves. And as we all know, but maybe our audience doesn't is those reporters are challenged or required or requested to bring a news story or a story idea to every meeting, every newsroom meeting.

Jason:

They have a pitch meeting. They have one about every day. And some days it's hard to come up with one, and some days they have two or three. And maybe ours is going to be a better one or backup one or one they can give to a friend. But at the end of the day, they need a pitch.

Jason:

They need a story to pitch their own producer for. And if they don't have one, they're not in a good spot. Bob, I bet you could talk a little bit about that based on your television experience.

Bob:

Oh, my gosh, I'm having flashbacks. Now. You say that, Jason, because part of my professional background is that local TV news reporter and anchor and one of my first jobs was at KPRC TV in Lake Charles, Louisiana. And the news director required that we come into every morning news meeting with three story ideas. And if you can imagine, Lake Charles has a fair amount of stories, but there are definitely slow news days.

Bob:

And so it was a gift. If anybody came to me the night before or that morning and said, Hey, I've got a story idea for you, because there was plenty of mornings I was stressed out driving into work and saying, I got nothing. And that informs how I form my pitches and how to build my relationships with my media members too, that we'll talk a little bit later about.

Bob:

We're giving them a service. We're not there to pastor, we're actually helping them. And a lot of ways.

Jason:

I saw a report that said about 50% of news stories came from a PR person.

Bob:

Oh, wow.

Jason:

You know, sometimes journalists say, I don't need PR people. I've got all the stories I need. And that might be true for them. But for everyone saying that, I bet you there's two or three other ones are like, oh my gosh, I depend on PR people for my guests, for my expertise, for my story, ideas, etc. So we should never beat ourselves up and feel like we're not part of that process, because we absolutely are.

Jason:

And we're the eyes and ears. And I think we'll get into this a little bit later. But, you know, the idea of bringing somebody a news story of value that you may have nothing to do with, but you heard it on the street and you want to be helpful source for those journalists to build that relationship. Bob, when you went to these meet these assignment meetings, they typically start between, in my experience, nine, nine, 30 or ten.

Jason:

What is that similar to what your experience has been as well? I mean, for the day shift, right?

Bob:

Yes, I was a day shift reporter in in that station and we had newscasts at five. We may have had a six and a ten. So you probably had a noon and we had a noon. So yeah, sure. They. David start around 9 a.m. You'd do about a 30 to 45 minute news meeting where the assignment desk would lead.

Bob:

It generally. So the assignment desk and the general releases of the day is what they would bring forward in the meeting. And then one by one, the news director would go around the room to each reporter and say, What do you got? And you had to pitch. And it was a good day. If you had something set up and it was your idea and it was news worthy, that was a great day.

Jason:

Yeah. Do you get a chance to say pass in those meeting Bob or, you know.

Bob:

I wish I could get, you know, if I had a get out of jail free card, I would have used a hundred of the Jason it got so it this is an indication of how slow it can get in those type of markets. I did a fifth grade field trip one time for our newscast, one of our evening newscasts.

Bob:

It was like a two minute story about fifth graders going through one of the historical districts of Lake Charles looking at houses. Okay. It didn't. We get desperate. So, yeah.

Jason:

Did you say 2 minutes?

Bob:

It was about a two minute newscast for a local TV news. You fill in about a minute and a half to 2 minutes. Whether there's news going on or not, you've got to fill that.

Jason:

Yeah, well, and that's why I wanted you to clarify 2 minutes, because I think the best thing we can do and our audience can do is consume news, right? Watch local TV, watch national TV, read local newspapers, national newspapers to get a sense of what's news, what's newsworthy, what's trending, what topics are out there. But I think sometimes clients have this misunderstanding, or if you're listening to this in your client side, you know, your managers, your leaders, your bosses, you know, your internal client, they think if they're going on television, it's going to be for a longer period of time than 2 minutes, 4 minutes kind of thing.

Jason:

But, you know, in television, if you're on for 4 minutes, you're on for a long time.

Bob:

And it's a long time, you know.

Jason:

Yeah. You might not feel like it's a long time when you're in studio or when you're doing the interview and they edit it down to 4 minutes. But for the viewer, what they don't want is them to get bored and click the channel and move on to the next thing or fast forward on their device. So you know, it is going to be short.

Jason:

And I'm glad you mentioned 2 minutes because sometimes people have this idea it's going to be a ten minute, you know, mini documentary and it's just not going to be there.

Bob:

Now, it may take 10 minutes to do the interview. The end the final edit will probably be about 20 seconds. That ten minute interview. Yeah, that's right.

Marjorie:

That's right. It's so important, you know, when we're helping clients that they have key messages and soundbites prepared like that. They know what they're talking about just so that, you know, you want to make sure that it may have been a ten minute conversation, but you want to make sure those key messages are hit upon. And, you know, yeah, I'm currently in a smaller market myself, and some of the new stories are quite, quite fun to try and pitch and to communicate with with the news media here.

Bob:

Yeah, you're always looking on a local media. You're always looking to localize a national story and PR people do that with news jockey. What we're trying to do is tie in a newsworthy item involving our clients to a national story. So it's kind of the same idea.

Jason:

Well, there's a cliche in news, right? All news is local. And so if you can find a local angle to a national story, then that's very beneficial. And while we work and focus on national clients, it doesn't mean that our clients don't have local stores, local locations, local factories, facilities, offices, etc., and local experts. And so, you know, if a topic is trending in the national news and we have a client who's based in, you know, Atlanta or Chicago or Austin or Dallas or something like that, you know, we can, as you said, kind of news, Jack, or tie on to that trend of that story nationally and offer the media in that marketplace, you know, and expert as well. So. All right. So any more thoughts or ideas on proper planning and preparation?

Kasey:

I mean, I would say honestly, in my experience, obviously scrubbing the media list is so important. But also every time you have a pitch, I think that's an opportunity to almost create a new media list. Whether you're taking people off of your list or you're adding new contacts that you haven't necessarily pitched a lot to before. Using media databases to search like this is the topic of my pitch and who's writing about This has been a really great tool for me to kind of narrow the funnel of who exactly I'm going to start pitching to.

Bob:

Mmhmm.

Jason:

I love that, Kasey. That's a very good point. So what we're describing is Bob said first you take a big media list of all the media and you kind of start funneling it and narrowing it down to where you have a tighter, tighter, tighter target. And what I think I'm hearing Kasey say is then you might take that same media list and maybe even go up a little bit broader and then narrow it down and customize it even more specific to the one time pitch or the one time story or topic that you have.

Jason:

So there's really just an ongoing process of grooming and narrowing down the focus of that list, you know, so that you're more aiming at a very specific target instead of a very broad target.

Kasey:

Right. Quality over quantity. I think honestly.

Bob:

I would agree with that. And I think also, especially with TV news outlets and national news with TV is the shorter the better, the more you can get to the punch right off the bat, the better. So, you know, part of the planning is to look at your pitch and then ask yourself, can I say this in one or two lines?

Bob:

You know, it's an elevator pitch on steroids. That's what I kind of need to do.

Jason:

Yeah, I like that. I like the idea that you can summarize the pitch in one or two sentences. And if they bite, that's when you can give them more information. But you're really just kind of teasing them to get them interested and maybe even interested enough to show up to that pitch meeting right where they can, you know, pitch the thing and then come back to you to get all the details, because they really don't need all those details just to do the initial pitch.

Bob:

Mmhmm. Right, Right.

Jason:

Yeah. You know, we were talking earlier about media lists and, you know, I think what's what we're going to start seeing and I'm already seeing and already starting to use some of these tools personally. But, you know, there's an engine that some of our media database providers have now where you can go in and, you know, tell them the topic and it will come back to you with a list of we'll hear some of the people you might want to pitch for this.

Jason:

And you know, so that's going to be, I think, an interesting game changer. But just like everything, I’m still learning, it still needs to be, you know, supervised and implemented properly. I was telling somebody the other day that, you know, it's you know, I if you ask it to write something, it typically is writing what I would describe as an entry level quality.

Jason:

So the same quality maybe than an intern or an entry level person could do. The problem is for people who are not, you know, experienced professionals, what do they do after they have that? Where professionals like us would use that as a foundation and then build upon it, make it better and better and better. And then, you know, they did a lot of the heavy work or the busy work for you.

Jason:

It created a foundation for you of which you could then optimize. But if you're maybe somebody in-house who's not very experienced, unfortunately, I may have brought it to the level that you're comfortable doing, but then you don't know how to polish it and perfected beyond that. So, you know, I will just as a, you know, tangent, all is never going to replace the PR person because it's still about relationships and you start to be human to have those types of relationships.

Jason:

But air is a tool that we all should be using and leveraging to make our ultimately our time more efficient and and get a get a head start on the first draft or, you know, whatever it might be and borrow from the recommendations of an air engine of who might be a good person to pitch this to and that kind of thing, and use that to help identify broader leads for your media list as you narrow it down in JSON.

Bob:

I think to experiment with that is wise on our part to get your feet wet with GPT and play with it a little bit. A colleague of mine was just telling me the other day that these tools will also, if you direct it, communicate in the voice of a 40-year-old woman who makes $150,000 a year.

Bob:

I mean, it can be that kind of directive that you can give to these, you know, tools to give you some copy that may speak more directly to a book or a national TV show than anything I could come up with myself. Yeah, that's tough. But you're absolutely right. It still needs the human touch. It always needs the human touch.

Jason:

Let's talk for a minute. Does anybody else have anything else about planning and preparation they want to share?

Marjorie:

Not right now, but I won't say that I won't come back to it later.

Jason:

But if you think of something, don't forget it. Just write it down. We'll do a little recap later where we can do an open forum. For more ideas, let's talk about relationship building Master. You want to go first with relationship building too?

Marjorie:

Yeah, relationship building is probably one of my favorite things that I get to do as a PR professional. You know, I can recall one reporter that I connected with. I had found a bio from a previous article that she'd written, and her bio stated that she loved to garden and, you know, just loves doing time and regard. And so as I started to build a relationship with her, I, you know, Eisner's some questions.

Marjorie:

And then I asked how her garden was and it just took off from there. You know, I told her about my garden and the vegetables and things that I had here at my house, and she was just like, Oh, well, I'm more into the floral garden. But I mean, we built this relationship on gardening. And she sent me photos of her house and her garden and, I mean, like, it was a beautiful way to build a relationship, you know?

Marjorie:

And then she did end up writing about what I pitched her about. But it was just I mean, I spent and then several weeks I did I was so connecting with her about her garden and sharing with her. I think we'd gotten some vine vine bugs or whatever that they make cucumbers, but, you know, it was just such a cool thing.

Marjorie:

I mean, how many other reporters or or how many other PR professionals are getting pictures of their like reported that they've just met? They're like their house and their garden. I mean, and her garden was, I mean, amazing. But I mean, it's just about like, what would you talk to your friends about? It doesn't like building a relationship with a reporter.

Marjorie:

It doesn't have to be scary. It doesn't have to be this taboo thing. I mean, it's just we're all people and we all want to build a connection with someone else. So just don't be spammy and make a friend.

Jason:

Be real, be authentic, be willing to build that relationship. Yeah. Kasey, did you have some?

Kasey:

Yeah, I honestly just love the overarching theme of that because I feel like we kind of lose the human aspect and sound a little bit salesy sometimes as we're pitching. But like I joined a new market recently, I moved to a new city and I think just sending out those emails, like introducing myself to local journalists did wonders because the relationship between a PR person and a journalist could be such a dynamic duo if it's done correctly, like mutually beneficial.

Kasey:

Everybody gets something from the relationship and it doesn't have to be this pressure of like, I'm only in your inbox because I want you to cover what I'm pitching you.

Bob:

And that's I think, yeah, I think there's there's no replacing good old fashioned manners, you know, asking somebody in advance, introducing yourself and asking asking them if they'd be open to connect, asking if if you can pitch a story to them just starting there rather than just out of the gate saying, I'm going to pitch you something. I think that's a good place to start.

Bob:

Handwritten notes thanking a journalist for a mention or an article coverage just for their interest. Thank you so much for that. I think that goes a long way. I think the gut factor factors into this, too. If you start to feel like you're creeping somebody out, you probably are. And I and I think that's probably a good indication you to maybe take a pause and and back it off, even though it hurts to do it sometimes as PR people because we're so like I've got I've got to get this mention or I've got such a good story just to back off a little bit, just like a relationship.

Bob:

You know, sometimes the best thing to do is say, I need a time out here if.

Jason:

I'm going to share something when, you know, there's a great cliche we've all heard, right. It's not what you know, it's who you know. But I actually think that's wrong. I think the truth is it's really who knows you because you could know somebody, but if they don't know you, it doesn't matter. So I know of Richard Branson, but it doesn't mean he's going to take my phone call.

Jason:

But if Richard Branson called me, I'm probably going to answer the call, right? I'm going to take that call. So I think it's important that we think about that. It's not just who we know, but it's really who knows us. And so to that end, you know, one example would be that one day I just realized, you know, how to connect with a lot of the journalists that are part of my daily routine of the news that I consume, even though I may never pitch them.

Jason:

At least I'd like to get connected with them on LinkedIn, follow them on Twitter, etc., which I may already do, but they're not in my network. And so one day, as I was listening on audibly to CNBC News alerts, Wall Street Journal news alerts, the things you get on you like your Alexa device, right? I was just mindfully listening to the names I hear every single day, but I didn't really think to take the time to connect with them on LinkedIn.

Jason:

And so I just connect with them on LinkedIn. I just said, Hey, I listen faithfully every day. Like your voice is playing while I'm getting ready in the morning when I'm driving in the morning, or whatever it might be when I'm doing my morning workout. I really just kind of found when I generally hear them reporting and I made it personally say, I hear you every morning when I'm going for a walk or whatever it might be.

Jason:

And then I say, I love to connect with you on LinkedIn. And so then that's an authentic relationship you built with them. You're telling them their work matters and that you care and that you want to follow them closer to see what they're up to. And then with the right time, you might be able to pitch them, you know?

Jason:

And the example I mentioned even just this morning to Kasey and Bob was that I was recently interviewed by Ink magazine for a story. I was not included in the story, but I went ahead and shared the story on my social media. I tagged the reporter and I tagged the outlet so that hopefully she thinks of me again as this person took the time to share the story, even though they weren't part of it.

Jason:

That shows I'm a sport and that I'm a good connection and I'm not bitter or upset, even though I was disappointed. You know that my sound bite didn't get included. I'm still playing or playing nicely and playing along and supporting her work of journalism. And I think that's the one thing you could do is really reach out to people on Twitter or other social media platforms, even just send me an email and say, I really liked your reporting on this story today and that's it.

Jason:

And then wait for them to reply and say, Hey, thanks a lot, I appreciate it. Then you could say, Hey, do you mind if we connect on LinkedIn or P.S., I follow you on Twitter and here's my Twitter handle if you want to follow me. Back then you built that foundation and then maybe months from now, weeks from now, or maybe even two years from now, you'll go back to that email that you were kind and they were kind back and you weren't asking for anything.

Jason:

And then you might say, Hey, I've got this story. I don't know if it'd be a fit for you, whether that's for your client or somebody else.

Bob:

Yeah. And Jason, I would think even to caveat that a little bit is mean it. Yeah. So sometimes we're guilty in PR or some of our colleagues are guilty in PR of saying, hey, I read this article, good job. And you didn't really read it, you didn't really care about it. You just kind of said it because you wanted to.

Bob:

You want the journalist to know, Hey, I noticed what you were doing. So I think if you're going to take the time to mention stuff like that, really invest yourself in understanding the piece that you were commenting on. So, Jason, I think you're absolutely right. If you're a real listener, a real consumer of that media, let the person know, you know, that's great.

Jason:

Yeah, I think what you're saying too, is have some substance when you're commenting or complimenting right now. Great article. Yeah, you could say, you know, I really like this article, especially how you went here or here and and then that might be a time to say, you know, if you've thought about it, maybe you might want to do, you know, go this direction as a follow up story.

Jason:

Obviously not to benefit you or your client in any way. I would.

Bob:

Say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had the six months. Yeah. Go for.

Marjorie:

Emergency. I've done that before and I've actually like, oh, I don't really like maybe the angle that they were taking in this or didn't really fully understand what they were trying to say in this article. So I've sit down like three or four. So not even like I haven't picked the most recent article, you know, because I've and I've read several of them and said, Oh, okay, this one really spoke to me and here's why.

Marjorie:

And then kind of kind of along the same lines, you know, just building those relationships. And as you follow them on LinkedIn or Facebook or Twitter or whatever you may, you may find out when special events are in their lives, such as birthdays or anniversaries. I mean, if there's one reporter that I've built a pretty nice relationship with and found out that we have the same birth date, not the same year, but just the same birthday.

Marjorie:

So it's really easy to just text that reporter each year on her birthday and say, have you read a twin or, you know, like it maybe a little cheesy, but I mean, it also shows that I'm remembering and recognizing them on this day that it's special because they didn't have.

Bob:

Any common ground you can find right that share and genuine ABC. You do a really good job of building relationships in my opinion with media. And one of the things that I've learned from you is the idea that even when you're not pitching, it's helpful to give. Sometimes it's helpful to give a freebie, if you will, to your media members.

Bob:

So you are pitching them, Hey, cover my client. It's like, hey, I came across this. I think it may actually fit you. And I was thinking about you. Here you go.

Kasey:

Yeah. And I think honestly, they start to think of you as more of a resource if you're constantly just feeding them tidbits. Yeah. And honestly, even if it has nothing to do with your client, it's a good way to kind of get your foot in the door and say, Hey, I know I sent this to you last week.

Kasey:

I have someone who can talk about that or I have a thought leader here who can offer their perspective. And it's kind of not really a sly way to sneak your client in there, but just continuously feeding them information I think makes it feel a little less salesy.

Bob:

Yeah. And I think part of our job is to stay on top of the news. And some of the news doesn't always fit our clients, but it may be a great story idea for somebody on our media list for that client. They give them a freebie.

Kasey:

I think it's interesting too, particularly being in the agency world. Sometimes you get a new client. Obviously we all have our little niche industries, but sometimes you go to a client and you feel like you're learning a whole new industry. And so just consuming the news yourself and whether or not it relates to your client, like finding out what's trendy in their industry can be really helpful in terms of understanding what your contacts are even looking for.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

It goes to one of the adages that was given to me a few years back from a random guy in my life. I met him in an airport. I won't give you the whole back story, but it's just a random person gave me this great nugget that I, I lean on. And it's the idea that small visits lead to long relationships.

Bob:

And it's absolutely true. Your dialog or your conversation with journalists don't have to be this big pitch. It can be just say, hey, thinking about your happy birthday, like you said, Marjorie or I would, you know, found this cucumber seed or whatever. And that's all it has to be. And that could lead to something two months from now where that journalist says, Hey, I was thinking about that pitch you gave me a year ago, you know?

Jason:

Yeah, you know, sometimes we get nervous with the idea, thinking of short visits, you know, pitching media. And, you know, I know early in my career I'd pitched a reporter or journalist, I'd be a little nervous, you know, And so it'd be like one of those things. It's almost like it make me think back to like, you know, the movies, like back in the eighties or whatever, when I was growing up where the guy would call the girl and ask her out on a date.

Jason:

And as soon as she said yes, okay, great. And like, hang up, you know, because you're so nervous and you don't want to say anything to blow it. And I remember that's how in my early days of pitching media were, you know, I'd get them to say, yes, they want to do something about, okay, fantastic. We'll call you three.

Jason:

Okay, bye. You know, and it was yeah, get off the phone quickly, you know, because one, you're nervous and two, you got them to say yes, You don't want to do anything to talk them out of it. Yeah. You know, but it doesn't have to be like that because, you know, I was talking to a journalist last week and he was saying, you know, my least favorite thing about journalism and reporting is calling people, calling people who aren't expecting me, calling people who don't want to hear from me.

Jason:

And I was like, is a PR person. Totally can relate to that. Right. And you know, especially when you call a reporter and they're brushing you off like, what do you want? I'm busy, I'm on deadline. And it's like, oh, I'm already anxious enough about calling you. Now. You've made it even worse. But the right people with the right relationships, if they know you, if they like, you know you and trust you, you know, then that makes it even easier.

Jason:

And, you know, I literally had a reporter once tell me in a newsroom, you know, this is going to date me because, you know, we used to send stuff over the fax machine. But she said in our newsroom, every time something comes across and it says Jason Mud or it says Axiom Public relations, everyone I know in our newsroom will look at it twice because it has a name on it.

Jason:

And you've got a good reputation here. And so that speaks a lot to just having that relationship from the beginning. And every time we talk about reputation and relationship, I'm thinking of our core values, right? Integrity, ideas, relationships, results and improve. And you need all five of those things to be really good at PR. You need all five of those things to be really good at media relations.

Jason:

And I said this to I know at least Bob, already today, but you know, it blows me away. How much sales is like dating and media relations is like salesmanship, right? You're pitching right? You're pitching someone to go on a date with you. You're pitching someone to go on a second date with you. You're building a relationship and you have to be really good at relationship building.

Jason:

Same thing with selling. You've got to build trust quick and early and continue to add value in those conversations. Same thing with pitching media. You've got to add value to those. So let's talk, let's transition. And if you have other ideas, take a note. We'll come back to them later. But what about messaging? What do we need to be thinking about when it comes to earned media coverage and media relations?

Jason:

What are some tips, tricks, techniques or recommendations that you have for messaging those pitches and messaging when you're, you know, putting together something in front of a reporter?

Kasey:

Yeah, I think I think personally, first and foremost, keep it concise. Your important story that you're trying to pitch and so easily get lost in a paragraph or two. And so if you can get that main idea that you're trying to get across down to maybe like three lines, maybe a couple of bullet points that you can come back with a follow up, I think that's great.

Kasey:

And obviously your contact immediately sees what you're trying to say.

Bob:

So yeah, I think using that, using whitespace, drawing the eye to your key, your key takeaways is really smart. I love to use bold print on the exact ask or the most important line in what I'm constructing as in the email and withholding some of your best stuff. You know, give them the headline, but don't give them all.

Bob:

Think about a three step process with your pitch. Your messaging is the initial contact, the follow up, maybe another follow up, maybe even another follow up and always thinking, what's the fresh information I can give them on each of those follow ups.

Kasey:

Right. I kind of think of it like you're playing poker and you don't play all your cards at one time, so you can't put all of your juicy info and the initial attention grabbing message. You have to save something for your follow ups. Otherwise you're kind of just restating your initial pitch. Yeah,

Marjorie:

I think of it like fishing and like, you know, you've got the worm and like, you know, you entice the fish and they may not always get that first bite, but then you cast it again and you know, you try again and you fall.

Marjorie:

I mean, you follow up in addition to like with the messaging is just your subject lines. They do matter and they may change you know, this may fall a little bit more under pitching and individualizing those pitches. But your subject line is going to vary depending on who you might be pitching. You know, if you're if you're pitching in a news TV news station, your your subject line, maybe like great live shot like, you know, or live shot pop live shot opportunity then because that's going to catch their eye versus, you know, if it was a if it was for a newspaper or magazine, you know, it just you need to

Marjorie:

Tailor your subject line and your messaging depending on your outlet imagery.

Bob:

Let's talk about the subject line, because that's really important. I'm a proponent and I'd love to get your opinions on this. Jason, Marjorie, Kasey, I like to use the person's name in the subject line. So like, say hi, Marjorie, story idea for you. Hi, Kasey. I saw this thought of you. And the reason I like to put the person's name in the subject line is because I feel like for my own behavior, I get a 101 different emails that I don't know the person.

Bob:

Right. If I see it, then if I don't see my name, then it's a battle of is this pitch in one sentence sexy enough for me to open it? But if I see my name.

Marjorie:

Spelled.

Bob:

Out right, I'm more likely to open it. Would you guys agree with that? What do you think are best practices with the subject subject line? There?

Marjorie:

I like to go back and forth between like their name or like I'll do news sometimes just so that they know that this is a news story. It's not coming from a store that they may have subscribed to, you know, like I want them to know it's it's it's an actual something that they can pitch and.

Bob:

You put news and capital letters or bold print or just put it news.

Marjorie:

So sometimes I'll do in caps, but I'll do news and then I'm calling and something else to kind of catch their eye in that subject line.

Bob:

Okay. What do you do?

Kasey:

I think honestly, it goes a little back and forth. Like I said, with every contact, I kind of switch it up depending on what the vibe is with that person. I've tried the empty subject line before. I know a lot of people kind of stand by that. I'm honestly not a fan just because I think of myself in that position and I'm not going to open an empty subject email.

Kasey:

I think that's inspiring. A lot of times what I'll do is try to think if I were the journalist, what would I call this story? What would the title be? And so I'll bold print that and put that in the subject line.

Bob:

And Jason, what are your thoughts on the old Ice Age?

Jason:

I'd say I'm all over the place. I'm with Kasey. You know, I will use the subject line when they're not getting back to me. I will use the no subject line if I really want them to read it, because my research show or what I've seen from other research is people are more likely to click on something without a subject because they're bothered by.

Jason:

They're like, Why is there no subject here? So then they want to know what it's about. And I've had somebody read me before like, I can't believe you sent me this last subject line that's so unprofessional. And but yet they read it, you know what I mean? So, you know, it's kind of one of those. And so, you know, I'm a big believer in you make big choices, right?

Jason:

You make you take risks, you make big choices. And so, you know, as we were talking about earlier today, you know, I believe in experimenting with every pitch. Every pitch is a little bit of an experiment. And you might get rewarded for taking a risk. You might get penalized for taking a risk. And, you know, one place I would encourage our audience to go is just go on Twitter where journalists will share bad pitches and you'll learn what not to do.

Jason:

And, you know, as far as I know, our agency has never been called out for a bad pitch. And so the answer to that one, what's that?

Marjorie:

It's better not to and some way. Just kidding.

Jason:

Yeah, well, you know, two things there. One is, you know, I take it as a compliment, meaning that, you know, we do a good job and we're not wasting time and we're not trying to, you know, pitch things that are not newsworthy. But at the same time, part of me thinks, gosh, if we'd never been called out before, maybe we're not trying hard enough, like maybe we're not pitching enough, maybe we're not being aggressive enough.

Jason:

But at the same time, you know, I think that, you know, it's all about what your own boundaries are that you said in your own standards. For me, I would prefer to have a great reputation.

Jason:

Well, with that being said, we're going to take a quick break and be back in just a moment.

Jason:

Welcome back to On Top of PR. In this episode, my colleagues and I are discussing media relations best practices. Let's get back to it.

Jason:

Like someone said earlier, I really like this like you don't want to give away your entire story in the initial pitch.

Jason:

All it is is a teaser, right? And, you know, I've had journalists respond to pitches I've sent them and they're like, Jason, this sounds great, but please don't withhold the name of the person that you're offering, right? Or the name of the company that this is for. And, you know, I see their side of that. But the truth is I got exactly what I wanted, which was to say, yes, I'm interested in this.

Jason:

Tell me who's the source instead of them judging a book by the as to what the source might be, we had an opportunity for us to tell them, ah, to bring them the topic, bring them the angle without the proper nouns of who it is and what company it is. You know, I just want them to objectively be interested in the story.

Jason:

Then we can introduce more facts and more details later and I think that's the problem, is a lot of PR people will send a six paragraph summary or a six paragraph pitch and it's like, you know, the person, you just don't get a little bit of back and forth where they can ask you some questions. So for example, just yesterday I was pitching something and I just said, hey, I saw your, you know, your query or your request for a source on this topic.

Jason:

And I just said, I actually disagree with what you're asking. I have a contrarian view of this. And then I just said, Would you like to hear more about that? It was short, it was sweet, but I was provocative in saying, I know you're asking for a but I think be Are you still interested in talking to me about this?

Jason:

And she was. And what I got was a quick yes. And in sales they talk about a series of yeses. Right. So we want them to say, yes, I want to know more. Yes, I got your email. Yes, I'm interested in having a conversation. So she told me, Hey, I like what you sent. I will send you a link soon when the story goes live.

Jason:

And so by standing out from everyone else who just got in line to say yes, you know, here's my expert advice on the topic. You shared. I said, I have a contrarian and different view than what you're asking. And that, I think, helped me stand out a little bit more and build a relationship with her. And of course, once the article goes live and she tells me about it, I'm going to say, Hey, this is great.

Jason:

What else can we help you with? I have other clients, I have other sources, you know, and things like that. Well, let's move on to the pitching. I think we've talked a little bit about pitching. We've got several things here. I know we don't have a ton more time, so I'm going to let Marjorie go first with one top tip, then we'll go to Kasey and then we'll go to Bob.

Marjorie:

So, yeah, I would say into that individualize each pitch that you're sending, you know, don't number one, don't match, send to multiple outlets and one one email blast. You know make sure you are using their their names, you know. Hey I remember seeing I saw you recently at such and such or oh, I saw that you were recently in Boston.

Marjorie:

Like, how was it? Like, I have the story, you know, it all goes back to your relationship building. So it may seem faster or easier. Just copy the pitch. But you know, in sometimes like we use, we're on a Google platform. And I have found that sometimes, you know, if you've sent the same thing to multiple people like Gray's out, you know, your response like, you know like so so you don't know how it's going to appear on someone else's screen.

Marjorie:

So to be able to individualize those pitches and that that connection with a reporter, you know, make sure that you're not making a mistake or making them not feel like you want them in this story.

Kasey:

Right. I think to to build off of that, aside from your journalists feeling like you're just pitching like a story that everyone else is getting the same email for, I think looking at your media list and looking at the outlets that your contacts work at, like I had a situation last week where I was pitching two different media outlets.

Kasey:

One was more B2B, so business executives were audience of one, and then the second was just a regular news media outlet. So every average Joe drinks this coffee in the morning and watching the station. And I realized that the pitch would be completely different for those two outlets, even though I'm pitching the same story because we're not telling the story for the same audience.

Kasey:

And so I think even if you take that same like one punch line of what you're trying to pitch and then individualize that a little bit based on the message that they're going to put across, I think that kind of shows that you put in a little bit more effort.

Bob:

Agreed. I don't think cut and paste is going to win you a lot of mentions as much as just, you know, like you said, make it individual to each person you're pitching to my to thoughts on. I have two thoughts that are kind of related about pitching. One, as a former media person, a former local TV news reporter, we like things on silver Platters.

Bob:

So the more you can set up in advance for the journalist, the easier it is for them to say yes. So work with your clients. Tell them, Hey, we need your people lined up and ready to go. We need their contact information in the pitch if you can. The other thing is TV news people, especially because that's my background, do not like talking heads.

Bob:

Generally, we like people that are affected by the news that we're reporting. So rather than getting all tied up on your expertise, the CEO that you have to pitch as a spokesperson, that's important. But realize it may be more appealing to a journalist to have the actual customer that is being worked with that client rather than the CEO and trying to work with your client to make their customers available in the pitch as well.

Jason:

Bob, why don't you talk a little bit more about what you shared with me a week or two ago about the start small go big and small?

Bob:

Oh yeah. One of the things that you'll see time and time again in especially TV news stories is the idea they will start a story with an individual. So let's say the housing market, for example, in 2008 when it tanked, this was used over and over again. Instead of talking to big numbers right off the bat, all that stopped.

Bob:

Most news reporting started with an individual family or a person who lost their home. Right. And they told their story for a few paragraphs or a few lines. And then they used that story to get to the bigger, which is here's what's going on nationally with this and let's explore some of this national picture. And then they came back to that person at the end of the story to wrap it up and say, This is what's happening to this person now.

Bob:

So it's that start small, get big, go small again, which you can use to your advantage in pitching to.

Jason:

Yeah, I like that a lot. And as a consumer of news once you explain that now I, I mean not only do I see it now, but I've seen it all the time over and over again.

Bob:

You see it time and time again. And I've ruined news for you guys. It's like when you know what storytelling is, what movie writing. And once you get the formula down, then you see it over and over again in your movies. It's the same way with TV news.

Jason:

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Marjorie:

And stories are in that like first right before the first commercial break and then like, you know, because I mean, I interned at a couple TV stations as well. So I've got everything that you say, Bob. Like, I think I agree. But yeah, I mean it's, it's amazing to work on this side of things. But you have also worked like at a station and to see, you know, what goes in and and so many consumers don't know what what really goes into creating a new story or a you know a television interview like for some they may start their day and they do one interview here and then drive 45 minutes away, get another interview,

Marjorie:

that same story or, you know, it's just me. It's really amazing. But yeah, the more that you can provide to order. Okay, here's here's the person here's, you know, some statistics here's you know because you want they've got several stories they may have to do in one day and so what you can give them in your you know, in your pitch or in your outreach with them, the better that, you know, you can help.

Bob:

Them, especially in outwards outlets with daily deadlines. It isn't always that most newsworthy story that hits air. It's the story that you could do that day.

Marjorie:

And ones that have that human interest, it's what's going to pull on those heart heartstrings or what has a connection to two people because that is going to make, you know, an impact.

Jason:

Yeah, that's good. I would just say if there's anybody in our audience, you know, listening to this or watching this, who is striking out with pitching media, you know, we're giving them a lot of great content. We're giving them grapes of information and value that they can use. But I would say if you're not consuming news and looking for the structure of a news story and the trends and topics that news outlets are covering, you're not dissecting the news that you're seeing the target outlet you're pursuing and you're not spending time consuming it yourself.

Jason:

That's probably why you're unsuccessful. And I would do a deeper dive, deeper dive, and I would start slow and go into the details and go slowly into building that relationship, go slowly into pitching, because if it's really valuable to you that you get your client in this magazine, on this website, on this, you know, television show, if it is valuable as we say it is which we know it is, then why would you not spend the time doing that deep dive and perfecting the pitch so that stands out instead of doing a you know, a mass email to 100 outlets, you really spend time getting to know that person following what they cover, emulate their own language in their own voice, mirror their, you know, their tone back to them and what you're writing. And it'll be amazing how much different and genuine and authentic that'll feel to them and it'll feel for you and your. I think you'll see your win rate increase. So, you know, it's like a baseball player who waits for the perfect pitch before they swing.

Jason:

We need to be selective about who were pitching and how we're pitching them and really just try to get on, you know, maybe not always get a homerun, just get some at bats and get on base kind of thing. To use the baseball analogy of, you know, smaller wins will lead to bigger things. And one example I tell is how one time we had a client in the Orlando Sentinel.

Jason:

A few days later, the Tampa Bay Times picked it up. The next day, the L.A. Times picked it up, and the next day NBC National picked it up. And so it started arguably small, just with one newspaper, but then it went all over and it went viral in the way news is known to go viral. But, you know, it took that planning and plotting to get that first win under your belt.

Bob:

And Jason, I love that story you tell about Abraham Lincoln, that quote. Can you share that?

Jason:

Well, I heard recently it's not an accurate quote, but I will share it with you. Okay. It's a great.

Bob:

Story.

Jason:

You doing allegedly said, if I have 6 hours to chop down a tree, I'm going to spend the first four sharpening my ax. So, in other words, I think the way we could look at it is if I really want a client to be on in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNBC, I would spend a lot of time consuming that outlet in the sections and the writers and the topics and tones they're covering.

Jason:

Find the best person to pitch, pitch them in a way that you think matches the style that they report or the tonality they take in their topics. And you really just double down on that one journalist for that one outlet. And then meanwhile you do the same deep dive on the other two or three, and I think you'll find a lot more fruit that way.

Jason:

All right. So let's jump into our last topic here. The following up. When I think of falling up, I think of Marjorie and all the faults we've shared over the years with her follow up efforts. So, Marjorie, if you have a follow up tip, you want to do, I'll go to you first, Kasey next. And then Bob.

Marjorie:

Just do it. I mean, I wouldn't I wouldn't be working for you if I hadn't followed up. You know, I hadn't heard back from Jason. And I was like, All right, we're going to follow up and see if I can at least just do an informational interview with him and he was he liked that I followed up. And I mean, it's it has worked out very well for me, not only here at Axia, but, you know, in all my media pitching and in other forms of my life.

Marjorie:

You know, squeaky wheel gets the oil or the grease. There you go. There you go. But I mean, seriously. And and you don't have to be annoying about it. You know, follow up on a different day. Follow up, you know, just hey, just want to see if you need any more information from me. Can I answer any other questions for you?

Marjorie:

You know, but you would be amazed at how many stories that we have secured just because we've followed up, You know, without follow-up. I mean, you may have hitch a. Reporter And they didn't they were out of town and they didn't have they're out of office. So you would have, you know, didn't they get back And they've got 50 emails that they're trying to go through and they may have just missed, missed the email.

Marjorie:

I mean it just following up. I mean I just did a how like I mean it is that in relationship building are like my two favorite things and like you know I think Jason a couple of weeks ago we work and story and he's like did you follow up? And I was like, Come on Linda, let's go.

Jason:

Like when I read the.

Bob:

Book, I'm following.

Marjorie:

Like just it. I mean, seriously, I yeah, I don't know. There's I just love I mean, I love being a resource for or for reporters and, you know, knowing, like, being able to share media coverage with clients and saying like, yeah, we reach out to them. And then we followed up and here's the awesome story that we were able to secure.

Marjorie:

That included your company, your, you know, it just it is really awesome.

Jason:

Nice. Kasey, you're on mute, but please share a tip.

Kasey:

Sorry, I got a little noisy there for a second. Yes, I would agree with that. Honestly, I have. Recently I was speaking with Jason about adopting a new policy for myself where I don't stop following up until either my contact tells me I'm dead or the story isn't relevant anymore. I've gotten so many thank you's for sending follow-up messages and they're like, Thank you.

Kasey:

That's at the top of my inbox now, which makes me feel a little bit better because I think as a PR person, you do start to feel like, Wow, like I am being super annoying. I'm constantly sending this person emails, but at the same time have to think their inbox is full of so many of those emails that you just need to break through the clutter.

Kasey:

And I think following up is how you do that, so long as it's an evergreen idea. If it's timely though, sometimes you have to let it die of anything.

Bob:

Yeah, and I love that you're framing it different case. I think that's very helpful. Instead of going into those follow-ups as if I'm pestering you, I'm going into it as I'm providing service here for you. Is there anything I can do to help you? And I think that's a really important thing with follow-ups is that you have to realize a journalist constantly needs good stories.

Bob:

There's an endless amount of content they need to produce. And so if you go into it thinking I'm doing them a service as opposed to I'm here to pester them, it'll change the way you have to communicate. And I think the analogy I use, we've talked about different analogies, you know, the worm on the hook and all that stuff is I view it as you're a waiter at a very fine restaurant and think of your own behavior.

Bob:

You know, sometimes you don't want to eat the seafood, sometimes you don't want to eat dessert. And that's fine. It's no reflection of you as a waiter. Your job is to provide options as good a service as possible. If they have a good experience, they will come back over and over again and there's a peer bar in a PR Michael Smart, who's followed by a lot of people who has a phrase for this, and he calls it diplomatic tenacity.

Bob:

And I think that fits very aptly with following up. You're diplomatic at all times, but you're tenacious as well.

Kasey:

Right? I've found it recently that follow-ups can also be super beneficial just for us to better understand what the journalist is looking for. So I had an experience a couple of weeks ago where I pitched a story and I followed up a good handful of times. There was a long email chain going on and eventually, I got a response saying something along the lines of, I'm going to have to pass on this because I just covered something super similar to it.

Kasey:

But you're right around where I need you to be. Like, These are the ideas that I'm looking for, which is such good feedback. Yeah, feedback is big because then I know like I'm in the neighborhood of the story, but I can keep sending them stuff and then use it eventually.

Bob:

It's like they're saying Warmer. Warmer.

Marjorie:

Yeah. I went, okay, yeah, yeah. Well, like I recently had pitched a story to a reporter and you know, the company is pretty well-known in, in the town where this reporter was at. And so I sent him an email and then I hadn't heard back, you know, and I mean, while they have their cell phones and their emails now in their pocket like you don't know what they're doing, they're working on a story.

Marjorie:

And it was some really exciting news for this company that I knew they would want you to cover. So this one reporter that I have a really good relationship with, I, you know, waited a few hours and then texted them, said, hey, so some exciting news to your inbox. And I mean, the response that I got was they had read they'd gone to their inbox, read it, and wrote me back awesome in all caps and like three exclamation points, you know, sometimes, you know, But also it's knowing your audience and knowing who those reporters are.

Marjorie:

You know, I'm not just going to do that to, you know, executive producer at NBC. You know, I mean, because we're.

Bob:

In the timing and the timing is so key. If you really want to find a really bad phone exchange, call a national network assignment desk right around news time, you get the most rude reception on a phone you can possibly get. That's intimidating. It's awful. But then if you call during a time when it's slow or when they're you, they're in a lull.

Bob:

It's the slow news day that you're going to get a far different reception. So timing is key too.

Marjorie:

Yes. Yes.

Jason:

Yeah, that's right. I had a journalist recently not call me back when I left my voicemail and instead, he emailed me and just said, What do you got? We're so busy today, you know. But I knew the guy, so I knew he wasn't being rude and he felt comfortable with me, you know, being very direct like that. So I think we're running out of time.

Jason:

Does anybody have any closing things they want to mention? I've got three here that I can do, but I wanted to give you guys a chance as well.

Marjorie:

I just had one.

Jason:

Get quite.

Marjorie:

A back to some of the relationships, you know, looking back at maybe where you went to college or university and connecting with those reporters, you know, because it just is another thing that you can use to build a relationship with. So, you know, Jason went to the best journalism school in the country.

Bob:

Oh, can we cut that out of this for me? I'm a cool guy. You know, I can't stay apart.

Jason:

Sorry, Bob. The facts are in my favor, but.

Marjorie:

Hey, Matt from Kansas City, I can. I can relate to both of you all. Okay.

Bob:

Mizzou is a very good journalism school. I'll give you that.

Jason:

I'm sorry, Bob, you said something.

Marjorie:

You know, being able to connect with those or see. You know, for me, when I used our media databases, you know, I didn't go to Mizzou. I didn't go to CU. But I know people that did. And being from Kansas City, I can relate to those people. I mean, the first time I ever met you was like I was like, Oh, you know, and you're from Nebraska.

Marjorie:

Like, I mean, just like it just goes back to those relationship-building opportunities. And so I don't think that something that you think is silly, that you may have a connection with somebody. I mean, like I said, the garden, like it may actually be very fruitful for you.

Bob:

Yeah. Mm hmm.

Jason:

All right.

Jason:

Anyone else?

Kasey:

Think that I'm going to go for it, Jason.

Jason:

So the things I wanted to close with were speaking of follow-ups. It's amazing to me when we do follow up, how many times journalists will thank us. Thank you for falling out with me. I'm so glad you stayed with me about this. When you first reached out. I wanted to do the story, but I was on a special assignment.

Jason:

I was out of town or I was about to go out of town, and then they ended up doing the story. And many times it's after, I think, Man, this is so stale to them at this point. But, you know, again, going back to sales and being like media pitching, a sales guy used to work with told me that sometimes when you follow up with somebody and they just don't get back to you, sometimes you need what he said, a change of voice.

Jason:

So either you're changing the way you're following up with them. If you've been emailing them now, you text them. If you've been texting them now, you deem them or you just pick up the phone the old-fashioned way and call them. Or he might say, you know, maybe you need to tandem pitch them. So in other words, if cases, you know, if Marjorie's been pitching somebody, you know, maybe she might say, Hey, Kasey, would you touch base with this reporter about a story?

Jason:

And so Kasey might say, hey, my colleague Marjorie was reaching out to you about this. She didn't hear back. But I wanted to see if, you know, I want to try you one more time to see if you were interested or something like that. Even a week ago, I know Marjorie was pitching something for us maybe two weeks now, and I was in the car on a drive and I decided I'm just going to call that reporter, the editor and I actually called the editor and my voicemail went something like this Hey, I know my colleague Marjorie sent you something a week or two ago.

Jason:

As far as I know, you haven't expressed interest in it. I was a little surprised and candidly, kind of maybe even disappointed. So I thought I'd just you and make sure you saw it and see if you had any questions for me. I'm going to be in the car for the next 2 hours. If you want to call me, I can talk to you hands-free about it.

Jason:

He didn't get back to me, but the next day I sent an email saying, Hey, I left you a voicemail. I repeated my voicemail. Yesterday, my colleague Marjorie was in touch with you. We didn't hear back from you. Just wanted to make sure you saw it, because I would think you would be interested in this.

Jason:

And he replied back and said, Jason, I've been so interested in this that I've wanted to set aside time for me to personally interview the person about this story. And it's just, you know, we're short-staffed right now or whatever. And he said, But if you can tell me some good times, I'll schedule an interview, and boom, we had an interview scheduled, you know, by the end of the week or whatever.

Jason:

So that’s happening later next week, I guess. So the point is, is that we think we're being a pest by following up. But journalists really appreciate it, especially when we know we have something newsworthy and we know it's so newsworthy we're willing to take a risk like I did and call them and say, I'm kind of surprised you didn't get back to me about this.

Jason:

So I thought I would make another attempt to reach out to you. The other thing I've learned in sales, this expression of a quick no is better than a forever maybe. And I've also heard not in sales, but actually in pitching. Well, it's sales pitching a book to a publishing house that the first 50 rejections are the hardest.

Jason:

So I think about those two cliches, right? No, a quick no is better than a forever. Maybe. So I'd rather journalists say, no, this is not for me. I've even had journalists email me when I follow up to say, Jason, I will never cover this story. Well, now I have clarity, right? I know you don't want it. I'm not going to waste my time with you anymore.

Jason:

There used to be a reporter here in town for the daily newspaper who was pretty arrogant and so arrogant. He'd start pitching them by phone and he would literally start yawning like, Oh, you know, whatever. And people would bellyache about that and complain about them and how hard it was to work with. I'm like, I love that guy because the minute he starts yawning on me while I'm pitching him a story, which he did, I would then improvise and pivot and shift to another angle to try to get him to say yes.

Jason:

And he respected that for me. And he would often end up doing my stories either because I pushed back and I was like, Don't, don't yell at me yet, you know, or don't trust me yet. Like, there's a story here and I'm going to make sure you hear it or I would quickly pivot and come up with new angle for the same story.

Jason:

And that gained his respect. So a quick no is better than a forever. Maybe changing up your voice I think is important. The other thing is, you know, there's also a cliché of never accept a no from someone who's not empowered to say yes. So in other words, if you're getting from a reporter, then you know and you really believe in it, then you go to their editor, you go to the assignment editor, you go to the news director, you go to the show producer.

Jason:

And you know, they're getting pitched so many stories, they're probably not going to say, you know, oh, Jason called me about that one, too, until they agree to do the story. And then they have a conversation of why the first person said no. But usually, the first person is trained to say no. It's kind of like when you send your resume to H.R., you know, their job is to take 100 applicants and say no to 80% or 90% of them.

Jason:

Right? So if you really want to stand out, that's one way to do it. So anybody else got anything before we wrap this up?

Bob:

No. I'm glad we've got it all figured out, though. Yeah, we've got it all figured out. But yeah, I learned a lot from the conversation. So. Yeah.

Jason:

Yeah.

Kasey:

I think that a good point to make at the end as well. It doesn't matter how long you've been in the industry, you're still learning every single day. So I learn from you guys every day and I feel like we can kind of share tips depending on how things change over time.

Jason:

So yeah, that's another core value of getting better 1% better every day, right? And when you learn by doing and helping each other along the way and I have connections, Cassie's got connections. We all have other connections and contacts, so we should be collaborating as well.

Jason:

This wraps up our discussion on best practices of media relations. I enjoyed the opportunity to share this shared experience with you and our insights with you.

Jason:

I hope you also enjoyed this episode and if you did take a minute to share it with a friend or colleague who would also benefit from it. If you're interested in connecting with any of the PR experts on today's episode, we're all available on LinkedIn and look forward to connecting with you. Just make sure that you tell us that you heard of, heard about us, or listen to us or solace on On top of PR.

Jason:

Speaking of on top of PR, we love these types of episodes and doing these things for you. I hope you really enjoy it too, because it's been our pleasure helping you stay on top of PR. Hey, this is Jason Mudd with Axia Public Relations signing off saying, I hope something great happens to you today. Be well.

Sponsored by:

• On Top of PR is produced by Axia Public Relations, named by Forbes as one of America’s Best PR Agencies. Axia is an expert PR firm for national brands.
• On Top of PR is sponsored by ReviewMaxer, the platform for monitoring, improving, and promoting online customer reviews.

About your host Jason Mudd

On Top of PR host, Jason Mudd, is a trusted adviser and dynamic strategist for some of America’s most admired brands and fastest-growing companies. Since 1994, he’s worked with American Airlines, Budweiser, Dave & Buster’s, H&R Block, Hilton, HP, Miller Lite, New York Life, Pizza Hut, Southern Comfort, and Verizon. He founded Axia Public Relations in July 2002. Forbes named Axia as one of America’s Best PR Agencies.

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