It’s easy to land press when you connect your product to the pages you want to be a part of. But certain mistakes, often even made by PR professionals, will send your pitch straight to the poubelle. Here’s what sends an editor reaching for the “delete” button. Avoid these and you’ll be that much closer to seeing your product or story in print!
1. Your pitch doesn’t fit on one page. In fact, the pitch is shrinking by the day. If you can’t get our attention in two paragraphs, then you need to work on it a little longer.
2. You don’t address the writer by their name (or you misspell her or his name).
3. You call the editor instead of emailing a proper pitch.
4. You attach the pitch as a Word or PDF document, instead of pasting it in the body of the email.
5. You attach high-resolution images and your company logo for the editor (instead of embedding a low-res image directly into the email). Most editors won’t open attachments.
6. You fail to include a link to your website, your email address AND your phone number. If we call, we’re ready for business and on deadline.
7. You CC other media contacts in the same pitch or you BC other media contacts and leave the intro vague (even though we know you just emailed every other editor in your address book).
8. You didn’t read the publication or blog before you pitched. We have a spider-sense for this!
9. You use a number of different texts, emoticons and italics to get your point across.
10. You tell us how you think it would be a perfect fit for our pages.
