Blog Post: The Importance of Press Outreach by Phone

Sending pitches electronically is an efficient way to deliver a message to your media targets. But if that’s the last step in your efforts to gain press coverage for clients, you are forgetting a vital step in the process – the phone call. Relationships matter, and the best ones are built by using your voice, not your keyboard.

The topic of “How Do Journalists View Follow Up Phone Calls?” has been addressed by Jeremy Porter on his Journalistics blog – after surveying comments from more than 50 journalists, he found that 88% of journalists still say they welcome follow-up phone calls.

A direct approach via phone will help you to:

• Stand out from the crowd: Since e-mails outnumber phone calls, this step alone will help your pitch to stand apart from the rest and receive individual attention.

• Confirm the best contact: If you are pitching a particular editorial calendar topic, a call is the quickest way to find out who’s working on that article. This can save you time by ensuring that you are going after the right contact and avoiding follow-up with the wrong person on staff.

• Go beyond a press release: A conversation offers an opportunity to maneuver your pitch in the direction of the listener’s interest. By listening closely, you can pick up on cues about the type of article the writer or editor may be interested in. If you are following up on a press release, a future article may not have anything to do with the announcement. In this case, the release becomes a conversation starter and you’ll likely be sending follow up information.

• Build a relationship: This is an opportunity to engage the editor or writer in more than a conversation about your client. You are also building a relationship and establishing your credibility as a resource for information.

So you’ve decided to contact the editor of a target publication by phone. What now? You’ll need to prepare a clear, concise pitch that draws interest – you may want to prepare a written draft of your pitch in advance to refer to.

• Introduce yourself and the client that you are representing. Confirm that this is a good time to talk. If not, schedule a future day and time to call them back.

• In no more than 2-3 sentences, discuss your story idea and what makes it interesting or informative for the publication’s readers.

• If you know of a future editorial calendar topic that’s a fit for your idea, refer to the issue date and topic and explain that you are hoping to serve as a resource for that article.

• The editor will likely do one of the following: ask you for more information, tell you when she will contact you, refer you to another writer, or tell you that she’s not interested and why.

• Thank her for her time. If there’s interest, follow up with an e-mail that further elaborates on the details about the story idea and your client.

With these benefits in mind, a phone call is great investment of your time and effort. In best case scenarios, the press will be contacting you proactively when researching a future story.