How to Pitch the Media During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Real talk, these are scary and uncertain times. Things have changed so fast in the last few weeks that it has really made me step back and reexamine all areas of my life. I’ll get to the PR stuff, but first I want you to know that if you’re feeling this way too, that I’m right there with you. I’m looking at my personal life, my business, and what I used to consider “normal.” It’s all up in the air.
Are you craving normalcy like me?
I feel like there’s got to be a balance between business as usual and being sensitive to our current circumstances. If we can walk that very fine line, maybe things will feel a bit normal.
And that brings me back to PR. I use this blog to share PR tips (almost) every single week. This week, I’m going to continue by sharing a few changes I’ve made to accommodate both “business as usual” and COVID-19.
Acknowledge the Situation
Even though we all want some normalcy right now, I think it is very important to always acknowledge the situation in your pitches.
If I haven’t spoken with that media contact in a while, I try to ask them what kinds of stories they are currently looking for during this time. I have found that some people just want normal stories and some don’t, but at least you know.
Be Sensitive and Compassionate
I have definitely been second guessing all of my pitches and trying my best to make sure they are not too self promotional. This is a standard best practice in PR anyway, but the standard is much higher now.
Just make sure you are offering useful advice or information that can really help people.
This doesn’t mean that your story idea has to be about the pandemic—there are a million ways to help people. But know that everyone is worried, so a promotional pitch that will mostly benefit just you probably won’t land.
Experts Should Join the COVID-19 Conversation
If you are an expert, then it is okay to pitch topics related to COVID-19 if these topics are truly helpful and make sense.
All of last week, I was only really pitching my expert clients if they had something helpful to add to the conversation.
For example, I work with a lot of doctors, so I was pitching them as experts to talk about various medical topics. I also work with a lot of business owners and business authors, so I have been working on pitching them as experts that can talk about topics such as how to work from home or how to adapt business practices for social distancing. .
If You’re Pitching a Product, Don’t Make it About COVID-19
If you are trying to pitch a story about your product, I personally feel it is better to not pitch anything related to coronavirus. I just find for product-based businesses (for the most part, maybe not always) if you are pitching COVID-19 related topics it seems too promotional and that you are trying to benefit off a terrible situation.
I think in most of these cases, just pitch the normal story ideas that you would be pitching.
If you were going to pitch your product for Earth Day or Mother’s gift guides, go for it!
Of course, go back to my point above and acknowledge the situation in your pitch. It’s so much more human to ask if they are working on any of these topics during this time than to just pretend it’s not happening.
Follow Up Less
My PR superpower is following up. I preach it all the time. But during the last week or so, I have been trying to follow up less.
There have been some cases, where I need to follow up, but I have been trying to be more mindful of what media contacts are feeling. Things have been heavy to say the least, and dealing with that, we might not all be in the most productive mood right now.
The overall point here is that we can and probably should continue to do as much as we can without making the situation worse. That includes being sensitive to what the media needs from us, doing our best to benefit the public good right now, and remembering that we’re all in this together.