How to Pitch Media Like a Professional Publicist - Part 2: Let's Pitch

How do you go about pitching media? And what's the difference between marketing and publicity?  Get answers to these questions from Jason Jones of Jones Literary.

 

Transcript: 

Everybody, thanks for being here. Welcome back. If you were here for our first session last week, we talked about all the things you need to do before you pitch media. And today, we're gonna talk about a couple of things, including actually pitching some media. So once you have those things completed, from last week and and have your house in order, you should be ready to go.

We're also gonna talk about the biggest difference between marketing and publicity, which the topic that I don't know if I can ever really and truly cover enough as we just, get so, so many questions about it, and these two landscapes continue to evolve. So we'll, be getting started here in just a couple of minutes. While we're waiting, why don't you guys put in the chat where you're joining from? And, tell me a little bit about your book. Give everybody a chance to get in here, and we'll get started.

I am in Nashville, Tennessee for any of you guys wondering. Maybe some of you guys have been to Nashville. Looking forward to talking with everybody today. Alright. Still picking up some viewers.

Just give it another minute or 2, and we'll get going. Oh great, Sue in Boulder, Colorado. Love Colorado. I'm gonna get back out there this winter and ski. Love it, love it, love it.

JLS from Central Texas working on a 3 part series with a ghostwriter. Very exciting. Very cool. Won't complain about the heat here in Nashville because you're probably hotter than I am, JLS. Matt Hayes in Greenville, South Carolina.

I have a good friend in Greenville, beautiful town. Chris, born in Chicago. I have a a son in school in Chicago. Love Chicago. Alright.

Oh, and Chris says he was raised in Memphis. And so was I, Chris. I am a born and bred Memphian. And, I feel like you know me already. I love Memphis, my favorite town.

That is home and always will be. If you talk about it, I'll fight you. All right. Let's get going, you guys. It's 3 minutes after we've started here.

So, it is time to get going. Let's see here. Well, we have another person. We have someone else coming in here. Okay.

Alright. Philip from Trinidad and Tobago. Hey, Philip. Okay. Let's go ahead and get started, you guys.

I wanna, again, say a big welcome to everybody that's here today. My goal is to stay as close to 30 minutes as I can with the actual presentation. I do wanna take some questions. So if you have a question or you can stay on a bit longer, I'll be here after. We'd love to chat about any of those questions you might have when we're done, so just post those in the chat.

And, this webinar is part 2 of our series on how to act as your own publicist. In part 1, we cover the things that you absolutely have to do before you pitch media. And today, we're gonna talk about how to actually write a great pitch. So if you missed part 1, highly recommend that you go back and watch that one. And, as I said a few minutes ago, we're also gonna talk today about the differences between marketing and publicity.

For those of you who didn't see part 1, I'll reintroduce myself. My name is Jason Jones. I'm the founder of Jones Literary, a publicity firm in Nashville. I really really love getting to work with authors and experts and publishers, media all over the world. I've been really really lucky to work with producers and folks at Fox News, CNN, NBC, ABC, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, you name it.

And, of course, 100 and 100 of faith based outlets which is actually our specialty. I worked for 6 years at HarperCollins. I led the nonfiction trade PR group there, and was really blessed into lead campaigns for 11 New York Times bestselling books while I was there. My agency is coming up on our 8th anniversary already. We're still growing.

We work with 10 to 15 clients a month. Most of those are traditionally published authors or best selling authors, speakers, ministries, non profits. We book radio, TV, podcasts for them. We help them write and place op ed pieces. So all manner of PR execution really to help them, share their books and messages with the world.

But we really, really, really love working with first time and self published authors too. Unfortunately, though, because what we do can, you know, be rather expensive, and all self published authors aren't able to afford that, and some just aren't ready to do big national media yet. So, those combined factors mean, that we need to create a way for us to work together with self published authors. So we did that. I'll tell you a little bit later about a great suite, of publicity tools and resources, that will equip and train you guys, self published authors, to serve as your own publicist.

Really, really cool stuff, and an extraordinarily helpful investment for indie authors. But this is, not gonna be it's a big pitch for my business. I want you guys to walk away today with some really practical tools to help you write great media pitch emails. Okay? Before we get into that, I do wanna circle back and talk for a few minutes about the different types of media and the difference between marketing and publicity.

So when it comes to media, there are 3 key types of media that you're gonna hear about. Okay? Owned media, paid media, and earned media. Each one of those is really important to your overall book launch strategy. Okay?

Owned media is what you control. That's gonna be, your website, your blog, your social media accounts, newsletters. Great thing about owned media is that you decide what to say and when to say it. It is your space to communicate directly with your audience, and you can build long term relationships there without having to rely on anybody else. The downside is that it can take time to build that following, and, you're responsible for keeping the content fresh and engaging.

And that's that can be a lot of work. Then there's paid media, which is exactly what it sounds like. Okay? Media that you pay for. K?

This is gonna include things like digital ads and social media, sponsored content, influencer partnerships. Paid media is all about basically, it's it's a guarantee that you're gonna get your message in front of a targeted audience quickly. Okay? And that you can keep it there for as long as you like and for as long, you know, as you've got money to spend. Okay?

It's great for increasing visibility, and for reaching people that you might not otherwise be able to connect with. However, once you stop paying, the, the the visibility tends to drop off. And the, you know, it's it's also less credible, I guess, in in the eyes of of consumers. Okay? Lastly, there's earned media, and this is the holy grail.

Okay? Earned media happens when other people talk about you, and this could be an article in a newspaper, positive review, someone sharing your content on social media. And and this is what we're after is earned media when we pitch television radio podcasts. Okay? You can't buy earned media, but it's incredibly valuable because it's seen as being more trustworthy.

Okay? People are much more likely to believe something if it comes from someone else rather than from the brand itself. And the challenge there the challenge with earned media is that you have less control over the narrative, and it takes a lot of effort to build enough credibility to get people talking about you. Okay? So the sweet spot's using all 3, owned media, paid media, earned media.

Your own media is your home base. Your paid media helps get you out there, and the earned media is the gold standard and the credibility. Okay? Each one has its role, and when they all work together, you're gonna create a really solid and balanced media strategy. So the difference between marketing and publicity.

Okay? And this is what ties into all these different types of media. Marketing is the broader strategy. Okay? That's all the efforts that you take to promote your book or really more strategically to promote you because you are the brand.

Okay? It's more structured and often involves, paid media, you know, like, you know, ad campaigns or influencer partnerships to directly target the audience and drive your engagement, and your sales. Okay. On the other hand, the publicity is about generating the earned media, and it's it's more about building relationships with media and getting the organic coverage, whether that's interviews, features, reviews. Okay?

Publicity is less about selling and more about creating awareness and credibility, through stories that other people are gonna tell about you. And those others in the instances that we're covering in our series are, of course, media outlets, podcasts, radio, TV, online news organizations, or social media. So think about it. What drives a sale more often with you when you're the consumer? Is it an ad, or is it a recommendation from a friend or a trusted podcaster or media source in the form of an interview?

I think we know what the answer to that is. I know what the answer is for me. So in sum, you know, both marketing and publicity are really, really important, but they serve different purposes. Marketing controls the message and ensures that it reach the right reaches the right people, but has a little less credibility, while publicity builds trust by allowing other people to tell your story. And when you can balance both of those things, that's when you really win.

Okay. I hope that makes sense. I know that's a lot of, information. There's a whole, whole lot to unpack there. We could probably spend an entire series talking about the differences between marketing and publicity and really breaking those down.

Marketing has become so complicated the last few years. It is really easy to let that get away from you. So, if you missed last week, we talked at great length about all the things that you need to do before you ever think about publicity, before you ever think about sending a pitch email to TV or radio producer or podcaster to get that earned media. I highly recommend watching last week if you missed it. And at the end, we gave you a checklist of things that you need to complete.

And if you've done that, then you're ready to start firing off those emails, and we're gonna talk about those emails today. Okay? Now you are probably asking before we ever get into this conversation, why email? You know, why are you teaching us to write great emails? Why don't I just call?

Or didn't you tell me in session 1 that there are other ways to reach out? And, yes, I did. But far and away, far, far and away, email is the best and most effective way to connect with media. They absolutely hate getting phone calls. Okay?

So think about it. When you're at work and you get a random call from a stranger, telemarketer that wants to tell you all about this great new thing that they wanna make available to you, do you enjoy that? What's your posture immediately? It's annoyance. Right?

Are you defensive? Yes. You're looking for the first chance to hang up? Yes. So that's how they feel when they get a cold call from a stranger in the middle of their workday wanting to tell them about this great book.

Okay? So email is not only less intrusive, it's also the way that they organize their communication just like the rest of us. They want something that's easy to read, that they can share and reference easily. Okay? Not to be scrambling to write a handwritten note on an envelope that hopefully they'll understand later.

And and even in the very, very small chance that you do reach somebody on the phone and talk to them, that you actually have them listen to you and and have them want more information. They're just gonna ask you to send them an email anyway. So let's just start there. Okay? That's the answer to that question.

That's why email. So first, I'm gonna walk you through the elements of an excellent email pitch. Okay? Then I'll show you some examples. I'll try to post some examples here if I can, you know, of what to do and what not to do.

First things first is your subject line. Okay? Your subject line is extraordinarily important. Really, really, really critical because it's the first impression that you're gonna make in a reporter's inbox. Hopefully, it won't be the only thing they see, but it is what will determine whether or not they ever see the rest of your email.

Okay? Quickly, you know, if you didn't see the first session, I relayed an example of the inbox of a producer, a friend of mine at the Today Show. And, if you if you missed that story, I'll recap it for you real quick. I was in the offices at the Today Show with my, you know, producer friend. She had books stacked floor to ceiling, all four walls.

Those were just the books she'd gotten that month. Okay? In her inbox, in her email inbox, she had 500 emails, and that was just from the previous 24 hours. And those were all people, for the most part, you know, agents, publicists, publishers, people trying to get one of those very, very few book segments that she had available on our show. So the competition, is really, really fierce.

And if you want to have any chance for that producer or editor to scan their screen full of emails and open yours, then a good subject line has got to be short and compelling and personalized. Okay? That should include something to credential you and the relevant topic. And, and, by the way, your book being released is not a relevant topic. What topic are you gonna discuss with them?

What's happening in your community or the world that makes you relevant to them? Also, that email subject line should never ever ever include all caps. It should never include hyperbole. Don't use words like incredible, sensational. Free is also a really bad one.

Free is probably the worst one. Attention, stop, and do not use 7 exclamation points in your subject line. Okay? You cannot have your subject line look like a marketing email or spam. And there are certain keywords that will get your email delivered straight to their junk folder.

Do not use those. You can look them up. You can just Google those and find out what the worst words are to use in an email subject line. It's pretty easy, to find several articles on that, but it is so important. Okay?

So, an example, for instance, of a really simple and effective subject line might be something like, you know, local author and economic expert available to discuss potential recession. It can also be a good idea to ask a leading question or a question they could use in a news tease. Okay? An example of that would be US headed for recession, local expert available, to talk about how to know and what to do. You're telling them in that subject line.

You're telling them why you're writing. You're letting them know that you're nearby and that you're one of them and that you're credentialed. All those things communicated in that very short email line. Okay? So let's keep going with those essential elements of pitch emails.

Okay? I'm gonna explain each one of them to you and then try to show you some examples. Okay. At the beginning of your email, you wanna include the important items first, like your name. If you're pitching local media, the fact that you're local and presenting yourself as an authority.

Okay. You're an author, so you've done some extensive research, maybe years of it on a particular and relevant topic that they're covering or should be covering, and that makes you an expert. K? Even if you're a fiction author, there's likely something that you know more about than most other people because you've surely done a lot of research create realistic settings and characters or situations, whether they're romance or location or a legal thriller or you name it. Okay?

You're also letting them know your intentions, which is to have a few key conversations with a member of the local media in hopes of appearing on their show or their website or in their publication. And you want to do that because you have information that is relevant to their audience. Okay? Not because you wrote a book that you think is great and that they should read it. It is always about the audience and benefiting the audience.

You wanna relay that right away in that email. Okay? Next, you wanna explain to them why your message is timely and important for their audience, how exactly that does it benefit the audience? Why is it relevant and timely? Why is it important?

Okay? And now remember, I cannot state this enough. One thing you absolutely have to understand is that the media outlet is not interested in providing you with free advertising, and that can't be your value add in this pitch. They are not interested in this for information that is beneficial to their audience, and your book only credentials you to present that information. Okay?

So, the exposure in doing this can can lead to book sales and help you grow your own audience, but that's secondary at this point, and that is not something that they care about. If you get airtime and you're engaging and you're interesting and the audience wants to hear more of what you have to say, that's why we're doing this and why we'll push them back to places online that we can capture them where we can capture them as an audience member of our own and engage them further, at which point in time they will probably buy your book and share it with their friends and buy your next book and your next book. So that's the that's the objective here in doing media. It's not a 32nd infomercial, which may never make the airwaves, by the way, if that's what your segment becomes. The objective is to grow an audience of your own, people that you can engage.

Okay. Next, this leads us to, the next really important piece of information, which is convincing them of your particular authority to speak on the subject. Okay? And I mean doing that without reproducing your entire professional resume. Are you gonna be able to present true and dependable information to their audience?

Okay? And this question is more important than ever in today's media culture of fake news. Okay? So help them answer this question. Okay.

This is relevant, but why should we listen to you? That's the the question you're helping them answer. K? Then you wanna explain how you bring a unique approach to the topic. You don't wanna inundate them with some massive essay about this, but, you need to help them understand why your your approach may be different from what everyone else is saying.

These folks are really good at their jobs. Okay? They're gonna have a number of ideas about the most creative, informative, and relevant ways to present the idea that you pitch. Okay? So give them a few good ideas.

Let them know that you're glad to approach the topic from whatever perspective they would like, but let them know how and why. Again, in short order, your perspective may be, one that the audience hasn't heard before, or considered. Okay? I e everyone's saying this, and there may be some truth to that, but here's something I bet they haven't considered. Okay?

Lastly, sign off. Thank them. Let them know how to reach you, and and say that you have additional details and information available at their request. You want to arm them with just enough to reach out and ask for more, and then make sure that you have it ready to deliver immediately. You what you don't wanna do is overwhelm them with information and words and attachments and links and all those things.

Okay? They're just gonna trash your email, if that's what it is, and and move on. Or it may end up in their junk folder, and they'll never see it to begin with. So and and they don't have time to read, you know, a long email. So remember the example, that I just gave you about the television producer.

Okay? That's why your subject line is so critical, why it's so important to keep your email short. These folks are scanning, and they're skimming their email, inboxes for a few things that they wanna open and read. They do not have 10 minutes to read your email, and they will not do it. So a good test is to read your email back to yourself.

And if it takes more than a minute, it's too long. Okay? A minute tops. And, honestly, preferably, it's 30 seconds. So once you have your draft written or 2, with great subject line, some good next steps are to read it out loud.

Okay? Have somebody else review it and get some feedback, and and, you know, someone who may not know anything about your story or what you're pitching. That's it's a great litmus test because, just like that producer, you're you're coming into their inbox cold. They know nothing about you or this you know, what you're pitching. So, have you communicated in a very brief amount of time what it is you're pitching and why and who you are?

Okay? And then, you know, have a few different versions ready to go, ready to be adapted to whoever it is that you're pitching. For example, you could have one that's completely for cold contacts, one that's for local media, one for journalists or producers that you know, you know, one to you know, the different contacts in different industries, you know, different mediums. You don't wanna talk to you don't wanna send an email to a TV producer talking about their readers. You know?

So, slight variations in that email. It's basically the same, but you wanna personalize it and customize it, a little bit for each outlet. Okay? You want them to know that you're familiar with them, and then the email will need to explain why your particular messaging is important. Okay?

So in summary, email lines are critical. Okay? You have to be compelling, short, free of hyperbole. They cannot look like marketing or spam. There are keywords not to use.

Look those up. No exclamation points, and then writing great email subjects is something also, that Dibbly create can help you do. K? But those are the elements that need to be considered, and, again, great tools at Dibbly for for that. You know, why is your message timely and important for their particular audience?

You gotta be able to answer that question. Why are you the person they should listen to? That's the other hugely important question. How is your message maybe different than what they've heard before, and is this pitch if this pitch is, to local media, which we highly, highly recommend, by the way, pitching local media first, can't not cannot recommend that strongly enough, How can you put a local spin on a national story or topic? Okay.

So, lastly, you wanna let them know you're available, and how to reach you and that you have additional information. Okay? Those are all the critical elements of a really great, pitch email. And don't forget, again, if you're feeling overwhelmed by this, there are so, so many things that Dibbly Create can help you with here, you know, now that I've given you the recipe. Dibbly has a lot of great writing tools and editing tools, ghostwriters, editors, narration, cover design for your book.

And, by the way, that's something that we can talk about on a different day, but do not, whatever you do, cut corners on your cover design. The last thing you can afford to do as a self published author without that big, you know, legacy publishing logo on your book spine is for your book to look self published. Okay? So use Dibbly's cover design services. Don't neglect to use those.

Nothing will kill your book faster, you know, in the eyes of of media, than something that has a cover that looks like it was designed, you know, by your high school age nephew. Okay? I don't care how great a graphic artist he is or just have this done professionally. So important. Okay.

And as for the toolkits that I mentioned earlier, you know, we've put together this fantastic package where we custom build you a press kit. We custom build you a media list based on your closest major media market, and usually that's between 23 100 journalists in the proper field and market. The packages include hours of coaching and consultations, 365 day editorial calendars to help you know what media will likely be talking about, and then, you know, when and when they'll be talking about these things just based on over the last several years of research that we've done, what they talk about and when. And then we project out too, based on current news cycles, what they'll be talking about. So all these things help you so that your pitches can be timely.

There's a 3 part media training course as part of this package to help you conduct great interviews once the opportunities do come. So check out that link as well. And, like I said, it's a great investment for you as an author because the press kit and the media list, not to mention the skills you're gonna learn, are all gonna be applicable no matter how many books you write in the future. You can still use those. So, between Dibbly's amazing writing and editing and cover design and, you know, narration tools and our custom book press kits, media lists, and everything.

You've got everything that you need to put together a really amazing book and then reach the media with it effectively. So I know that leaves you guys with some questions. Probably leaves you with some questions, and we can start scrolling through and finding some of those now and and answering some. Let me start looking here. Gosh.

We've got viewers in South Africa, Atlanta, Colorado, Trinidad, and Tobago, all over. This is really fantastic, you guys. Go ahead and drop your questions in the chat. And I know you have some, because I didn't explain everything that well, guys. Okay.

There's one second here. Okay. So how do you determine the right balance between owned, paid, and earned media, for a book launch? You know, honestly, I I think it depends on a number of factors, your budget. You know, have you spent more in one place than the other, and maybe you haven't seen any momentum or traction created?

Maybe, you know, you you want to, be flexible and nimble enough to change that strategy up a little bit. But I think that, you know, earned media, like I said, is the holy grail. It's always, to me, for my money and and my experience, what you want the most of. Ads are just not just not effective. I think banner ads and all these things that we all just scroll right past, I I really think best bang for your buck is is, is earned media, and it takes a little more time, like I said earlier, to, to get that put together.

But owned media, is is the investment of time you make in engaging with an audience that you own. You can put in as much time there at no cost to you as you want. I think you you probably always need to make a heavy investment there and then, you know, earn media. For me, paid media is the smallest piece of that pie, you know, by a long shot. Okay.

So how can an author identify and approach influencers or partners for paid media campaigns? You know, honestly, guys, that is just gonna be completely honest with you, not something I feel really, really qualified to to answer, for you because I you know, we don't we don't do paid media. So, I I think influencers, I will say, because we've done this with a lot of our own clients, over time, as you engage influencers in your space, you comment on their socials, you know, they they see you participating, you you make an interesting comment. They follow you back. You become a familiar name.

You can start to gain some traction there in that space, in these big conversations that are happening. And at some point, DM, you know, them reach out, ask about partnerships. There are other, there are companies that do this. There are firms. There's one, I I think the name of the firm is Influencable, that does that kinda work, you know, help you, connect with influencers in specific spaces, but I think it's pretty expensive.

So I think, really, it's just an investment you have to make over time. But, yeah, sorry. I don't have a better answer for you on that one. But, how do you maintain the momentum of a media campaign after the initial book launch buzz fades? You know, this is all and and there's something that we'll we'll talk about this at length next week, in in the next session, what to do after the media, campaign is over, what to do after your interview.

The opportunity here is not just to create relationships with, the audience, but with these media outlets. A lot of times, you're gonna have more in common with these folks that, you know, than you think. You you send the thank you notes. You, you you you send them the, you know, hey. Watch the show.

Great great job today, Ken. But, you know, you stay in touch with these these folks, so that you can have a return appearance. Now particularly, we mentioned this last week, I think, local media gives you such a fantastic opportunity to be a regular on a show, to create that kind of relationship that will have you back quarterly or monthly or weekly, on a show. You just gotta stay in touch with them. You gotta do a better job.

You gotta work harder at cultivating a relationship than the next guy does. Make sure that you're also using these segments on your social feeds, that you're giving them shelf life. That's one of the big advantages too of having these great radio and television clips is you've got these things to push out on social. You're tagging making sure you're tagging the station and the hosts and, other influencers in your space so that they see that you've done these things. That's how you give it some shelf life.

And if you have done what we recommended, and that is establish yourself as an authority in a particular, you know, area or or on a particular topic, you know, it's highly likely that that topic is gonna stay in the news. You know, or if it's not particularly newsy, you know, every May, for instance, you always see the story about what are the summer's great beach reads. You know? You always know you know, you start to learn those new cycles. And with with our our our, you know, PR tool kits that I told you about, we have the editorial calendar.

So you you see opportunities on the calendar coming up to talk about, you know, your top where does your topic fit in? It's always fine to reach back out and say, hey. This is coming up. I've got something some input on it that might be of interest to your audience, and just every so often, reach back out. That's the best thing that you can do.

You can support it with some paid media as well. You know, after you've gained some momentum, people are starting to see this organically show up in their feeds. Yeah. I mean, spend a little bit of money if you have it, and and on some paid media. But, I think the biggest opportunity is to do media interviews, grow an audience of your own, but you've got to while you've got that momentum, you've got to engage that audience and take advantage of that momentum that you've created.

You know, you can't let that die. That's the that's the biggest value here is growing an audience of your own. So be ready to engage regularly after, you've done your media cycle. So, can you share some real world examples of successful media pitches and discuss what made them effective and what we can learn from studying these examples? Well, this question is a little difficult for us because we work with over 500 authors, and so there's so many media pitches out there.

We pitch all of them, you know, constantly. But there are some some pieces of, some consistencies in those those pitches that I've I've talked about, that make them successful, and and that is I'm pitching to people that that I've created relationship with. I'm pitching them something that's relevant and timely and topical, and they know that I'm you know, we're reliable and that we're gonna give them trustworthy information. All these things take time. You know, I think, you know, the most successful, you know, campaigns honestly, a lot of it has to do with with your book as well.

I mean, if you've if you've written a great book, and you get it introduced to enough people and they begin to share it, you know, that's that's where things really, you know, take off. Organically, you know, that that's where it happens. We've we've pitched some books over the years that, you know, honestly, probably weren't great books, and people find that out pretty quickly too. It maybe have a popular name attached to it, but maybe the book's just not that great. So and the most successful launches are gonna be the ones that, you know, have a unique perspective on a timely topic, you know, and are are released, you know, at at a time when it's advantageous for them to be, you know, in the marketplace.

Right now, it's all about politics and and and issues. So anything that was, you know, released around this time that speaks into those issues is is what's gonna be, gaining the most momentum and traction. So, yeah, Natasha, thank you so much for having me. This has been so fantastic. Yeah.

And there's just there's so much to say. And so little time to do it. It can be difficult to to encapsulate it all in these in these conversations, but, thank you so so much for the opportunity. Really, really appreciate it, Natasha. And Dibbly is just doing some fantastic things, you guys.

So, again, tap into these tools, the the PR tool kits, and tap into Dibbly's tools. Just amazing stuff. All of the writing and editing tools and cover design creation, narration, all these things. The tools are there for you guys. Media, earned media is just something, you know, that takes time.

I guess the best piece of advice that I can give you is not to jump into this 2 weeks before your book launch and really think that you can make a whole lot of progress here. This is something that takes months months, of of investment and watching, reading, and listening to your the news you're pitching and, and and writing these great email pitches and all the things we've talked about. So, if your book releases in a week and you haven't started these things, not suggesting that you don't do them, but maybe know that for your second book, it's something you need a little bit more runway on. Anyhow, this has been great. Really appreciate the time you guys.

Hope it was helpful, and check out session 1 again if you missed it, and, we'll we'll see you again, next week for session 3. So thanks.