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Daniel Hunt

Anyone tried getting press coverage before?

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Wondering whether getting press attention is feasible for my product! A few questions: 1. What's the best way to find the right journalist/editor to message? 2. How to frame a cold email in a way they might find interesting? 3. Are there any hidden gotchas etc?

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Stephen Yeo
I'm thinking you should first draft a press release. This will help you to think about your value proposition and whether there is something worthwhile to announce to the world. That should answer Q2. From there, you can then determine who you can pitch the story to and that partially answers Q1. So for illustration purpose, you want to target Gen Z. Which media do they use to consume information? Use LinkedIn or other tools to find the contacts at those media outlets. It's a tedious but targeted approach. Alternatively, you can disseminate your press release through newswires and hope someone picks up the story and run with it. There are paid and free services available.
Kayode Odeleye
@stephen_vocol this is great advice Worked for us when we launched last year and I'm in the process of drafting our press release for this upcoming PH launch I'll add that in addition to a press release you need a full press-kit. Google for common contents of full press kit We used a service called Prowly which automated some of the process but it's similar to pitching investors. It's gruelling and it really helps when you refine your pitch and targets All the best
Leena Chitnis
IT'S EXTREMELY HARD WORK but I've quintupled my domain rank in 8 months from doing the following. Instructions: 1) Find articles related to the tech you're developing, or those that talk about the problems your tech is solving. 2) Click on the journalist's name; often that will give you some sort of contact -- usually Twitter, which doesn't help b/c they never answer their direct messages or ats in Twitter. But try to holler at them anyway with a very short pitch that starts out with why writing about you would be of value to them. Do NOT say, "Hey, I read your article on blah blah" -- they hate that opener. They know people use these openers to fluff their ego or to endear them to you. Just jump into your value prop. 3) If that doesn't work (and it 99% won't), go to Muck Rack. I've figured out a hack to finding out journalist's information for free (so you don't have to sign up and pay for it). Just type into google the journalist's name, then comma, then the words, "muck rack" -- that will take you directly to the journalist's page where there is usually contact information 4) Out of 100 reachouts, you'll get 10 responses, and out of those 10 responses, 1-2 journalists will work with you. NOW... In tandem with that, sign up for 1. Qwoted 2. HARO 3. You will get 20 emails per day in your inbox and it will take roughly 1-2 hours to get through them and write to the journalists who are actually looking for your subject matter. Most of my backlinks and press mentions have come from this method. It's not a direct shout-out to your business, but backlinks are massive for SEO. MASSIVE. They take around a year or longer (don't listen to the people who say they take 6-8 months) to convert, but when they do, they'll keep performing for you. It's time well spent developing them. AS FOR PRESS RELEASES They are a giant waste of money. The best company to go to however, if you want to waste this money, is PR Cision Newswire. They are the gold standard in PR and most publicists use this company. I spent $2k on a presser which I drafted myself, and each photo attached cost me a small fortune. In the end, I got very good coverage (over 600 pickups, some from notable names like Yahoo, Business Insider, etc.), but the vast majority was from random local papers in Tulsa or low-value PR cities like that (no offense, Tulsa). I got zero ROI. I was so incensed that I actually asked for my money back and they gave it to me. My press release is still out there and perfoming at a zero rate LOL. Just draft your own, release them through a smaller company, and post it up in the Press section of your website. Go to timberdog.com's footer to see examples of how I did mine. If you want the html for insertion, let me know -- it's very easy to do and never pay a developer to do this for you. Hope this helped. Overall, you will be spending 1-2 hours per day developing backlinks and reaching out to journos.
Matthew
It's fairly easy to get on podcasts by speaking to people on linkedin and there's a few journo sourcing sites that posts requests daily - HARO does quite well
Tanjir Rahman
I was also wondering Daniel