Phone
pitches aren’t for everyone. In fact, I’m one of the growing populations that groan
at the thought of contacting businesses or trying to gain press attention over a
telephone line. An email seems a lot less intimidating than trying to convince
someone to write your story over the phone. Rejection is much more immediate over
the phone, and the risk of ruining the pitch completely increases. However,
sometimes a phone pitch is necessary.
A
lot of the times a successful pitch of any kind first takes knowing the
reporter or the media that you are pitching to. In a market where a rising 80%
of journalists prefer to get their pitches via email, it’s still important to
realize that there is still that 20% that doesn’t. It is also important to
remember that email pitches are the most frequent and because of that, can be
the easiest to ignore. Maybe taken the time to prepare that phone pitch will be
what makes you stand out from the pack.
But
it’s just that: a phone pitch takes that much more preparation and can also be
the most difficult type of pitch to master.
With
an email pitch, the words can be sculpted and changed until the pitch is perfect.
There is no chance of stumbling over the words or nerves jeopardizing a story
from being covered. The pitch can perfected right up until the final moments
before hitting ‘send.’ And you are never left wondering if you’d gotten your
point across without confusion. Grammar, spelling and punctuation can be
checked and double checked, and the hook that is meant to capture the reporter
can perfected until you’re sure that it won’t miss.
However,
the chances of your pitch even being read are still small. And the creativity
behind that “perfect pitch” can be stifled. In most cases, email pitches can
come straight from a basic template that is only tweaked, but not created, to
fit the reporter you are trying to reach.
In
contrast, a telephone is not only more engaging but no pitch is the same. It
takes a lot more effort and practice to master, but the reward comes with being
more memorable to a reporter. And tone can play apart in the effectiveness of a
pitch. But phone pitches also carry a high risk, and even the slightest of
slip-ups can kill the effectiveness as well. This is why practice and complete
understanding of the story you’re trying to pitch is an absolute must.
So
which is better?
It
seems quite clear that thought the phone pitch carries the highest risk; it
also carries the highest reward. And practice can make the phone pitch as easy
to do as an email pitch. The key, as always, is to keep it short, concise and
the find the angle that will make your story memorable.
Sources:
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