1 pitching strategy that stands out

There’s a common strategy that stands out among the great media relations pros I’ve observed.

They all do this one thing. And most of the people who are struggling to pitch . . .  don’t do it.

I saw it again this week during a presentation to my Inner Circle. Here’s one of the opening slides that gave just a sliver of the standalone articles my guest has landed over the last twelve months:

She’s Michaela Kron, senior PR manager at Duolingo. She joined the Inner Circle in 2015 (paying out of her own pocket) to accelerate her PR growth. And this week she gave back by sharing how she’s applied all she’s learned from the Inner Circle with tremendous success.

One of them – that strategy I mentioned that all great pitching pros implement – is building a custom media list for every new story angle.

What? On top of everything else today’s overworked PR pros are taxed with? Maybe – you might be thinking – if I worked somewhere like Duolingo, with all those resources . . .

But you’d be surprised at what Michaela has to work with. Duolingo is still in startup mode, with only 180 employees, and Michaela does ALL its social media and splits PR duties with the only other member of her team (her boss).

And she still swears by creating a new list for each pitch. Her lists are 75-100 journalists long – and it’s not as much work as it sounds, if you build it into your daily and weekly routine.

Michaela’s daily media monitoring and reacting to journalists on Twitter and via email keeps a steady stream of new contacts top-of-mind for her. After that, she researches outlets she really wants to get into one at a time to identify the right people. You won’t see any lists pulled from a media database in her office.

And that’s how Michaela and her boss are dominating the “share of voice” in the language learning space, with multiples more coverage than a competitor with four times Duolingo’s revenue.

Michaela and I also discussed:

– the simple but nuanced media placement scoring system she uses to track results, that goes beyond mere reach

– how she works with colleagues to uncover and create great story angles

– 10 word-for-word pitches she used to land some of her best placements over the past year

This presentation is only available to members of my Inner Circle group coaching program, which is currently closed to new members. But the recording lives on inside our Training Vault.

If you’d like to watch it someday – and be a part of new trainings like this every month – sign up on our wait list. That way you’ll be sure to know when we open up again.