The Case for Longer Pitches
By Arthur Solomon for PRNews
During my long career in public relations, I’ve always ignored many of the basic tenets of PR that are taught in communications schools, written in books and practiced at agencies.
Many of these traditional methods can hamper, not help, PR employees from receiving positive results. I came to that conclusion based on my experience as a reporter and editor at New York City dailies before joining the PR industry.
One tenet that that I believe makes no sense is always sending a journalist a short pitch with a snappy headline. The reasoning behind this practice? The belief that journalists receive so many pitches that they don’t have the time to read them all, particularly long ones.
My opinion? Keeping the pitch short means PR people will come up short.
Here’s some ways a longer pitch can attract the attention of even the busiest journalists.
More Detail Yields More Results
A pitch of few words is useless to a journalist because it doesn’t provide enough information. Exceptions can be found when pitching a well-known celebrity or a story regarding a legitimate, ongoing news happening, like Boeing’s problems or trending hard news subjects.
Make It Interesting
Journalists may send pitches directly to an assignment desk if they don’t include reasons why it might make a good story. Of course, when writing a pitch, it must be crafted so it doesn’t waste the recipient’s time. That means producing a pitch that is intriguing enough so the recipient will continue reading it regardless of the length.
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