The (Non)Art of the Pitch Call

You’ve heard it from your clients: “Well did you call Reporter X? What did they say about the release?”

And you’ve heard it from your boss: “Give Reporter X a call to see if they have any feedback.”

Despite Twitter, e-mail and texting, picking up the phone is still a key component of the PR profession, but it’s often neglected in favor of “easier” means of communication. And rightly so, some might say – with so many other means of communication, a phone call can almost be seen as intrusive, especially by busy journalists/bloggers who have much better things to do than to take a phone pitch.

If you do plan to do phone follow-up or to otherwise call a specific journalist, here are some guidelines for the PR phone call:

• Try to start via email – Do your best to get the conversation started via email. Once the journalist responds to you, either positively or negatively, by electronic means, it gives you more to follow-up with rather than just “Hey, did you get my email?”
• Have something new – On that note, never, EVER, call a journalist just to ask if they received your email - 99 percent of the time they read what you sent and they weren’t interested in what you said. Make sure that on the call, you have something new to tell them – a piece of news you held back, a new angle, a new customer that will talk, etc. “Did you get my email AND my direct message” does not count as something new.
• Respect their schedule – Try to understand how deadlines work at the journalist’s publication. Are they responsible for filing stories each day? Do they only run a weekly column? How many pieces do they write each week? Calling the journalist at a time that fits their schedule will likely give you more time to talk and they will be more receptive to hear what you have to say.
• Don’t expect too much – Getting feedback on something your client considers news is one thing; asking a journalist to sit on the phone for 20 minutes for a comprehensive media audit is asking a bit much. Respect the journalist’s time – ask what you need to ask/say what you need to say, then let them get off the phone.

These are good strategies to remember, but remember – if the journalist isn’t interested in your email, they probably aren’t that interested in what you have to say on the phone either. Say your piece, ask for feedback, and let them get back to work.

--John Terrill