I attended Pitch Please, an all-day media workshop in New York City. The workshop is hosted by Farnoosh Torabi, host of the So Money podcast, (who I interviewed here) and Susie Moore. Throughout the day, I learned so much about what it means to leverage media features, how to create better pitches to editors, and what is working in the world of the media today.

 

Though I could never narrow down all the takeaways into one video, here are five useful tips I learned to consider creating your pitch for the media. There’s also some behind-the-scenes from the day. Enjoy!

 

 

 

Tip 1- Have a Strategy

Not all media outlets, and their audience or benefits, are the same. It’s important to know what you specifically want to get out of the media. From there, you can create a map and plan for how to best make it happen.

Tip 2- Focus on YOU

Though you want to be in service to your ready, you’re going to be most effective by sharing your experience and your story.

 

Tip 3- Have one key takeaway

The days of the list are numbered. If you can give ONE big takeaway to make your point, rather than several, you will get your point across stronger. And, you don’t have to worry about losing people’s attention span.

 

Tip 4- Be Timely

How can the topic of your pitch be related to a current holiday, remembrance, anniversary, month honoring something, and so on. Especially for TV, make their job easier and add a reason to feature it sooner than later.

 

Tip 5- Be an expert

You don’t want to be the jack of all trades, but rather, the master of one, if you want to be featured in the media. They want to feature people that are well-known and clearly an authority on a specific topic. Even if you know what you’re talking about, they care about their reputation and want to feature people that are well-known for a certain area.