Personal experience has shown me that in order to get your startup featured on mainstream news sites, you have to reach out and pitch the writer.
This can be a difficult process if they are not receptive or interested in what you’re doing.
However, it is worth spending time trying because there is always someone who will be genuinely interested- those people are your target audience.
I’ll provide a few tips on how to make the process of pitching easier and more effective:
Don’t try to pitch your idea in the first email
Instead, send a short informational email that introduces who you are and what you do without any mention of why they should care or anything about your product/service.
Include links to resources
Include links to good resources for them if possible so it’s easy for them to learn more once they’re interested.
These can be blog posts discussing current problems or challenges related to their field; articles from reputable publications (not just those published by your company) with valid information on the topic at hand; videos created by other startups doing something similar but which may be garnering media interest.
These will help reduce some of the work involved in researching relevant content themselves while also demonstrating that you’ve done due diligence before approaching them.
Personalize the email as much as possible
The email should be personalized and tailored to each person you’re contacting about the story.
This means it also needs to include a brief introduction of your company as well as what problem or challenge you want them to cover in their article or interview.
Send several emails over a course of a few days
If possible, try not only sending one but several emails over the course of a few days (or even weeks) if they don’t respond after receiving an initial outreach email.
Just make sure you keep track of when you’ve sent these subsequent follow-ups so that they know why there are multiple messages from different people asking for coverage.
Have someone to work with them
Another tip is to make sure you have someone else in your company who can respond to their requests for more context on what the article they’re writing is about.
What happens after?
Once you’ve secured a spot, be aware that there are two types of coverage: One-time and ongoing.
Sometimes an outlet will ask if they can write one or more articles from it, while other times all journalists want to do is just get some quotes because they need them for something else (e.g., publication date).
It’s up to you how much time and energy you want to put into pitching these outlets again periodically as well as whether this relationship should remain exclusive or not; either way, most mainstream media has a policy where only one person within the organization is allowed contact with you.
In conclusion, get out there and find an audience for your startup!
Be creative in the ways you go about doing this: It can happen organically or through more traditional means of pitching yourself to reporters.
In either case, it’s important that you are able to identify who will be most interested in what you’re working on before diving into a pitch; otherwise, they may not care at all when they realize how different your startup is from their publication’s focus.
Remember also that getting featured doesn’t just mean one article – sometimes these outlets want to write about your company over time as events unfold with updates here and there.
We hope these tips have made it easier than ever for startups like yours to navigate the media game.