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Hot Seat: Email Submission

Tell us a little bit then about your product and where you what people love about it so I'm a photographer so in terms of products I do anything from aprons two coffee cups to prints two canvases everything and my focus really is that you purchased a print or something a product with every photo shoot so that you have it forever so so your customer comes use you don't sell your prints independently it's like I come to you for a photo shoot and then I get a print of that on a product so they pay for the photo shoot and then they decide what products they're going to purchase after they see their photos very cool and what are some of them were popular products so the popular products depending on the holidays the most popular would be like a canvas over the sofa are on the wall of the family most families get their portrait done about every four years and so they'll trade out the canvases and things like that but the ones that are really popular our photo albums or coffee cups of tea apr...

ons for grandma those are big I love a prince for grandma hasn't anyone and now the coasters and now that they're no product okay okay cool I'm trying to think of, um an angle that isn't a gift guy just so we can be a little bit to france. So what kind of media outlet are you looking at so I'm not quite sure I'm very open I think that my type of client tends to go to starbucks and read really simple or parent magazine really I kind of focus on the parenting aspect because I focused more on the families and the kids s o oftentimes like I will do blog's on my website and those blog's are how I often will get clients and so getting those blog's out there to media outlets is kind of how I 00:01:57.208 --> 00:02:01. can drive local traffic to my website I love the parenting 00:02:01.44 --> 00:02:04. publications are you here in san francisco uh san 00:02:04.97 --> 00:02:07. jose california's out fifty miles self because also 00:02:07.56 --> 00:02:09. another thing you would want to look at are probably 00:02:09.32 --> 00:02:12. like regional magazines regional parents and mega 00:02:12.93 --> 00:02:17. exactly is their regional parenting there is parenting 00:02:17.07 --> 00:02:19. magazines like in each county I think so they're very 00:02:19.86 --> 00:02:22. local press that's a great one to look at another 00:02:22.16 --> 00:02:24. one I was thinking of for you are a working mother 00:02:25.17 --> 00:02:27. because I was thinking of a working mother with gifts 00:02:27.2 --> 00:02:29. would like the mug so you can take with your kids 00:02:29.22 --> 00:02:32. with you that seems like a great angle for that kind 00:02:32.0 --> 00:02:35. of ah yeah and I specialize in being very quick so 00:02:35.09 --> 00:02:39. husbands bree book me every time because they only 00:02:39.91 --> 00:02:42. want to spend twenty minutes but the moms want eight 00:02:42.38 --> 00:02:44. thousand poses and I do it all within a half hour 00:02:44.94 --> 00:02:48. to forty minutes so dad is getting fit in your busy 00:02:48.65 --> 00:02:54. schedule that's my uh oh that's so good okay so we're 00:02:54.09 --> 00:02:56. talking about getting him in quick in an hour which 00:02:56.99 --> 00:03:00. is another selling point it helps the it helps moms 00:03:00.22 --> 00:03:02. where the typical purchasers of the pictures they're 00:03:02.95 --> 00:03:06. the ones who typically hire me and their cell around 00:03:06.87 --> 00:03:09. their husband is the fact that I'm very quick it taking 00:03:09.25 --> 00:03:11. photos what school years we're gonna have to pick 00:03:11.74 --> 00:03:14. one but I see a lot of different kinds of angles that 00:03:14.38 --> 00:03:16. you could be using them for this the same kind of 00:03:16.88 --> 00:03:19. service and product that you're offering here you've 00:03:19.06 --> 00:03:22. got the gift angle you have I think there might be 00:03:22.78 --> 00:03:25. something about back to school like what you know 00:03:25.31 --> 00:03:27. thinking about back to school like your kids they're 00:03:27.23 --> 00:03:29. going back how to take your kid like bring your kids 00:03:29.85 --> 00:03:32. to work with you comes back to school and back to 00:03:32.13 --> 00:03:35. work like work eats up a lot of the stories that same 00:03:35.11 --> 00:03:38. time and most my clients are working moms okay awesome 00:03:38.59 --> 00:03:40. yeah I really think there's something there the aprons 00:03:40.96 --> 00:03:43. for grandma is like a really sweet sweet gift idea 00:03:43.98 --> 00:03:48. too so um let's think about which one we might want 00:03:48.02 --> 00:03:50. to start with I think we should start like the quick 00:03:50.42 --> 00:03:52. one isn't so much a product that's more of like a 00:03:52.21 --> 00:03:55. focus on of us your service so let's not do that one 00:03:55.16 --> 00:03:58. for now. Um do you wanna do like the cups for mom 00:03:58.73 --> 00:04:02. hopes are the aprons for mom or grandma for mother's day grandma or like uh you want okay awesome you know cooking stories too could be really popular in the fall maybe we should do something like that you know cooking story around holiday that sounds perfect okay so it we've got a home for the holidays family for the holidays like how to bring um like get your whole family involved in the holidays or make them feel what are we what are we getting with that anything stirring up for anybody maybe something about the multi generational aspect of it okay okay I like where you're going yeah I love to take a lot of generations photos where it's mom and dad their children and their children's children so it's like when your whole family is together for the holidays like capture that moment so I love this idea like over the holidays everyone's home for the holidays how do you keep your family with you you're around yeah oh yeah that's a great idea especially for grand parents I think that's beautiful yeah so what I would do here for your subject line then it is really something like a parent's magazine you know it's literally that like home for the holidays how to extend that feeling all year long it's really beautiful yeah you can see that right just immediate I would read that article you would pick that up it would be like oh, how did I do this how to extend this warm feeling I'm having so something like that I really would think that you'd want a place around november the thinking of lead time's gonna be pitching if it if it's a print six months in advance but online maybe a month or two perfect and so we've got our headlines so in her first paragraph we want toby now telling them like kind of what it is here so you know this kind of story would be going probably to a section editor you know appearance publication would probably have a section editor that deals the family perfect you know family if they don't it might be like a home to court kind of person so what you want to do is actually look at the listing and just see which section feels most relevant for this story and then you you address it to that editor perfect and then your first paragraph so we've got how to extend that feeling all year long so when you're looking at an article like this what you'll see is that they have this language that's kind of introducing this story right it's called a lead in journalist parlance so your lead would be something like you know it's so wonderful when you have all the hustle and bustle for the holidays grandma's visiting your sister is actually around, you know, really talking in that warm and friendly language and then you can say reflecting your bend that feeling yeah the rest of the year but how do you bring that feeling into the rest of the year perfect and then here you go ahead and introduce your product so how would you then talk about your product you think I would talk about the fact that you could purchase products for each of the family members whether it's a coffee cup for dad at the office or apron for grandma or coasters for your aunts and uncles you know like I would probably do something that's kind of forever you can get a family portrait taken and then you can actually have these in products that people can take to the office they can use in their kitchens and they can feel that togetherness all throughout the rust beer till they get together again next thanksgiving perfect and then and then the next paragraph what you would do is if you can find an area where you look at a section heather something another place to look at us their website with their drop down navigations so you might just say like I really feel like this would be a great fit for your family section where you're giving you know ideas for people on how to build their relationships with their families or have happier times you know whatever it is I'm doing so be explicit about where you see the fittest and then you know I love like you can see some pictures of the products here I'd love to show you some samples or you don't have to send a sample so no yeah or I'd love to send you some high rez photography so why do I say I'd love to send you higher s photography I wanna pause there so that they can put it right on the website but also in print so that they have to request it so you know they're going to use it so an editor isn't going to tell you always that they're using your idea sometimes you're in such a rush they don't get back to you so if you don't give them the high risk photography at front and they have to request it then they you know they're gonna use it oh I didn't even think yeah it's totally well so that's kind of tricky so that's why you say like I can send you no send you some high res photos you want to hold that piece back the web is okay because it's easy to monitor for you can you know set up a google alert or search for it but when it comes out in print are you gonna go every month unlike check the magazine probably not really not so there you know you want to have that called action and then sign off on your phone number somewhat a great thank you very much. I am really excited to see this story. Wow, we just managed to put together two amazing pitches on the fly there, absolutely one hundred percent usable. So this is just a technique that you could be using right now to put together these pitch templates, which is your final action item for this first segment, all about how to put your media pitches together. So as you're preparing your first pitch, right, going back and putting together, you know, you have an idea, you're doing some research. Remember that, remember, the two are is a media outreach, reed and research the media. You're gonna pitch. You want to make sure that you're sending it to a specific person at a specific media outlet. So even if you're sending the same product to ten media outlets, at least that headline and the person you're addressing to reflect specifically where you know you want that piece to show up.