Share Pitches? What?!?

Whether you’re pitching a trend … or a human interest story – two (or more) resources are better than one. Journalists are being asked to do more with less — which means they don’t have time to chase down interviews. Smart PR people realize this and are finding ways to help journalists (think HARO). Another way to help busy journalists? Instead of just pitching your client, provide reporters and bloggers with multiple sources.

Within agencies, this kind of “packaged pitching” is already taking place; however, freelancers, boutique agencies and small businesses don’t always have these kinds of resources available. Until now.

Pitch with Me helps PR people collaborate amongst each other to discover potential resources. Think of this site as a forum to share “needs” … to partner with each other to assemble more complete packages and increase the odds of capturing a reporter’s attention.

How does it work?

1. Submit your “need” through the Pitch with Me site. It’s easy: All we need is your contact info, a general description of the media outlet, an overview of the pitch and the type of resource you’re looking for.
2. Check the homepage of this site to see if you can fill a need, or follow @pitchwithme on Twitter, an automated feed of submissions.
3. Got a resource? Contact the poster and begin collaborating to develop a strong packaged pitch.
4. The PR person who posted the original idea will most likely also be the person conducting the media outreach. This should be confirmed on a case-by-case basis by the PR people involved in crafting the pitch. Everyone involved needs to be respectful of boundaries and “face time” for each party included in the pitch.

This should be obvious, but this is not a mechanism for spam. If you find that you’re getting spammy results, let me know (heather [at] gebencommunication [dot] com). As part of the “beta” process, we’ll have to figure out how to work around that. For now, let’s see how it goes. We’ll adjust as needed.

Where did this come from?

A couple weeks ago, I was working on a pitch for a client and realized I had an okay pitch, but it had the potential to be a great pitch … if only I could find another resource. Basically, Pitch with Me came out of my need to connect with other PR people. It’s just an experiment. I have no idea if it will work or not. But, I hope you’ll try it out. I truly believe that if we work together, we can deliver better results for our clients. And, after all, isn’t that what it’s all about?

If you have questions, comments, suggestions for improvement — I’m all ears. Email me at heather [at] gebencommunication [dot] com, or shoot me a message on Twitter. I’m @prTini.