Lessons

Lesson Info

Get the Media to Say "Yes!" to Your Pitch

Well now we're gonna look at how you get the media to say yes I will take it to your pitch so this is where you look at you know how is it then that you sell this idea to the media and when you're selling your story when you're selling your message the media it's really critical that you helped them envision you in their website or publication right? You want to make it so easy and so fast for them to see how you're a perfect pitch and so what we often see people dio is what the first thing that's up on the screen here which is you know, kind of introduce something in a very vague or general way you know I think your readers would love a story on making a great first impression you know how is it when you go into a meeting that you could make a great first impression like there's there's so much advice out there about you know do you go into an interview do you get on the stage there's so many different ways you can spin this one story idea versus writing it into a memorable headline f...

ive ways to make a memorable first impression now this isn't even the best headline in the world right that we could get a lot more playful and fun with this but just look at how how much that might catch an editor's eye or a blogger's I if they can see exactly how you might fit with theirs and so that's what we want to focus on this because crafting headlines is a great way to show that you have a fit when you're working with a media outlets we want to look at some techniques to do this because when you have your message it's not just enough to say this is what I want to talk about but you want to make it really easy for them to include it so I've got five ways you can make your headlines sing and these are my five favorite techniques so the first is compare and contrast an example of this article that you see we've talked about finished an exercise eat drink and still shrink these are all headlines that have actually pulled from media outlets that I have in my collection at home that we've used for pitching so these are all really headlines ok so compare and contrast how can you like eat a big meal and still shrink like I don't know that sounds awesome I want to read it apply alliteration this isn't my favorite so small so space solutions I actually pulled this one off of them I think an old actually I think was an old domino magazine small space solutions so here you can see that you can take your ideas about how you might decorate for somebody with a small space and you put it in the language of of a publication that you be reaching out to you challenge expectations do you really need shampoo? I'm actually no poo it's a thing it's a movement but this is a real outlet so where you people don't use shampoo it's like this whole thing and so you see all these beauty articles on you no hear what you're doing is you might pitch somebody who has a beauty article about you know here's the ten best champ who's or the splurge er steal shampoos and things like that and how you can come in and challenge that and say do you really need that shampoo that would be a great angle to do it like a fashion publication seasonal inspiration this is one of the easiest ways to go so another one I pulled out a simple springtime gardening tips we actually have seasonal inspiration and a liberation so it's a one two punch so is great too d'oh and then the last one is thinking trends gadget wish list from new york's top techies so this is one of the ones we did for a client jenny to pozzo and thinking trends is a great way to look at you know this is all about wearable tech and you know how can you have like fashion? It was like fashion and wearable tech kind of thing in a chicago publication or not chicago is actually new york, so what did that we might do is just kind of play a little bit with your messaging and think about how you might convert it into headlines so I'd love to work with a couple of people on using these different techniques and thinking about what was that message? What was your story idea and how can you really use one of these techniques to make a fun headline and make it sing who wants to start what thinking about a lot of people come to me the reason that they're not doing whatever their creative thing is is uh they feel like they don't have time they don't have why why am I doing this? I'm not going to make money from it or whatever and one of the things that I share is that there's a lot of research around ah when you do when you do something that put puts you into a state of flow, it actually activates the part of your brain that allows you have more patients and more focus and be able to get things done so putting a little bit of time into their creative thing first thing makes the whole rest of their day go better so instead of having the feeling like I can't do that it's a waste of time you know I'm taking time away from work or my family or whatever my message is you you actually need to do it because it's going to make you more much more effective with the rest of your day so how much time would you recommend let's? Let's massages a bit. Spend first thing in the morning on something creative. How much time do you want them to spend? Well, when I got back to my own art, I made a commitment to just fifteen minutes a day. Okay. Great and that's doable it's ridiculously achievable that's one of my mottoes. Yeah, ridiculously achievable so that you actually do it and you feel successful. And even if you miss a day it's so much easier to get started again and it makes your whole day feels your whole day go better a whole day go batter I love that. So if something like that would be you know how carving out fifty are spending fifteen minutes a day fifteen minutes on your art in the morning, will but I want to say like well by you ours for us today or we'll make time slow down how fifteen minutes of artistic expression in the morning can make time slow down for the rest of your whole day something something their way have any improvements on that? I know you guys there were geniuses. No. Okay, so that's the way that you can kind of take that idea and compare and contrast it you know, I love that I love that let's do another one no we have the tag a burger for every lifestyle but I don't think that would be necessarily good for you know a headline for you like to promote a grand opening so I guess I would kind of need help I don't know I'm thinking I wanna include the uh it's a stone's town so I mean what could I do to encompass a stone town is getting something new but it's also you tell me about stone town what is that it's a gala islam all over here in the city okay and that's where the location is going into the mall yeah which so you don't have your average mall food right I know where the only a burger place there and it was were all fresh and natural ingredients and it's custom so so with you that's where I might take it is taking a little bit away from your tag line but you know encapsulate the idea behind it but for me what the comparison is it's like I mean I was just in a mall and like just you walk in the food court and like the smell makes your stomach turn right for me on so that idea of you know to find something that is really fresh and a food court fresh food kurt oh my god we have a liberation going or how much lately we're on the outside so we actually have an outdoor areas that were a little bit better off than that in the food court solution yang okay all right what are we gonna get hungry while they're working up like do they actually eat like a healthy tasty burger your way or the way you like it or something like that? I think it's more of that like food you actually want to eat at the mall right like this no way in the mall shopping I'm hungry even I feel like there's even something in about how you make that the destination so like people aren't even going to the mall for the food they're going to the mall to eat your burgers we're also so closest francisco state but I mean obviously you want to include everything you can in a headline because but you're here and kind of get that read at least so that's probably too many messages and when a phrase yeah what you would do there if you have a a lot of different ideas you can do a sub heather so you're going to be doing local outreach mostly for this and so in a local you know newspaper you might see a sub headline so that can work but you can also take your headlines and pitch different ideas to different people so maybe you have an article that you would go to like a tv producer and there you are highlighting because you bring a camera into the outs or location so to me that would be the perfect pitch tohave for that this is an actual destination right forget forget the clothes and the shoes you've got to go get this burger right that's basically what your pitches about and so you can have the cameras going and seeing how beautiful it is and how good the food books and so you have that angle and then for the sacramento state so they're going to have a local newspaper so you can invite like a student reporter over and they can come and write up an article and so you can play that up so you can customize your message there a little bit for the different audiences he's reaching out to you okay and I think the fact that your burgers air customizable is different in this day and age where everything comes the way it comes yeah I mean that's different you know it would be really fun if you had a segment where you brought out people my god and like you had a perfect for tv you like have about all these burgers and you have like different tv personalities competing or you could do this with bloggers like a bunch of bloggers can be like create your craziest burger concoction or whatever create your favorite you know what is that thing you've always wanted the menu and then you have all these people make these frank and burgers and then they taste test um and it's a competition oh that's so good. You gotta use that. Okay, awesome. We'll name the burger after them on the menu or something, you know what I mean? I'm just saying, yeah, so as you can see, this isn't really something that you can do, like on the fly, as well of creating these headlines. So what I really recommend that you do is you go out and start looking at what are the different kinds of headlines that catch your eye and just play with these techniques in your message, and do a little message. Man lives with that and play them up and refined them until you have three to five headlines that you feel are really great and that you can be sending out with your pitches. Because when we get to the different kinds of pitches that we're going to do, you're going to see that a lot of them you want to send about three different topics to sew these headlines, you'll be using a lot in your outreach.