To get your client content placed in the media is highly dependent upon developing positive relationships with editors of all key publications you want to target. If you can prove useful as a trusted source for quality content, editors will actually will contact you out for editorial. Over the past ten years our Dubai Headquartered PR agency has been very fortunate to develop key editorial contacts across the GCC. And we would like to use this opportunity to share some of our best practices that we use to get our content published.
Perfect Interview Pitch
The first step of any relationship with an editor begins with a pitch. We as PR specialists devote hours crafting the perfect pitch to a news outlet that innovatively focus on highlighting the intended message and how it will prove useful for the readers of the publication. In our pitch we always think about how an article or interview with an industry veteran impact the industry in general. From an editor’s standpoint, it is the potential impact of the story, not how much effort was put into perfecting the pitch.
Each individual PR specialists may have different viewpoints about sustaining connections with editors. Some of them don’t try to build relationships at all and resort to blindly calling a media outlet to pitch a story or gather information. It may be necessary to use this method at times; however we believe creating a strong association generally helps in getting your work noticed.
We ensure that all material we provide is thoroughly wetted to ensure false or useless material does not get to the editor. We believe that giving them unreliable information is a sure way of getting your pitch deleted. We always provide them with verified messages, and are available to answer any follow-up questions they may have. It is our job to be a dependable source, and an editor or reporter should be able to rely on us to get the correct information they need.
Don’t pitch all the time
When you are constantly focused on pitching your clients to anyone who will listen, you lose sight of the bigger picture. PR is all about relationships and savvy publicists know when to pitch a client and when to hold off and come up with a better angle, strategy or pitch so that their communication with editors is as efficient as possible.
The most important thing to remember is the relationship between an editor and PR practitioner is mutual. A significant amount of the information editors gather comes from PR professionals, so they need us just as much as we need them. All communication experts value relationships. Maintaining strong and functional relationships between PR practitioners and editors will help accomplish the ultimate goal of both professionals, which is to disseminate meaningful messages to key markets.