A comprehensive guide for Public Relations professionals on how to get to know media contacts better, pitch them more effectively and get more coverage for stories.

1. MEDIA
RELATIONS
Fly
VISUAL
GUIDE

2. This is the main mistake
in media relations
Machine gun
Fly

3. Most brands use outdated tactics to
reach out to media.
This is does more harm than good,
giving the profession a bad reputation.
Machine gun
Fly

4. In this presentation:
Ban spray & pray media relations
Get to know your contacts
Create a rich story
Send multimedia pitches
Measure results
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Why to:
How to:

5. Why do I care?
I’m a fulltime designer of tools
for PR professionals
Follow fritsbits
Follow my company prezly

6. My clients are PR agencies
prezly

7. And external communication teams at brands
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8. And external communication teams at brands
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Check a recent case study

9. Many brands are facing the same challenges
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There’s an increasing imbalance in media relations

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Many journalists are leaving newsrooms to work
in corporate communications roles at brands.

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News writers now are outnumbered five to one
by PR people trying to get media attention.
source 〉

13. They get pitched over twenty times
per day about brands.
source 〉

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Email has made it simple for PR pro’s to pitch many
news writers at once, hoping that something sticks.

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Although writers are flooded with pitches, only
one in ten often write a story based on a pitch.
source 〉

16. In other words:
most pitches are spam.

17. This is the S.O.S approach

18. Sending Out … Stuff

19. What do news writers say about it?

20. “Make sure it’s relevant.
I get so many that I have to
be ruthless.
Mail Online
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21. “Die in a fire
TechCrunch
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22. How not to do it
Real example, keeping brand confidential
Subject:
Press release: Airline brand opens a base in Location
!
Dear journalist,
Attached you’ll find a press release about the arrival of airline
brand in Location.
If you’d like more info feel free to contact me.

23. How not to do it
Real example, keeping brand confidential
Noooooooooo!

24. How not to do it
Real example, keeping brand confidential
Irrelevant for journalist that received it
No personalisation
No clear value proposition for the journalist
All recipients in CC
Press release in heavy PDF attachment (1.5MB)
Media assets via Dropbox link at end of 5-page press release

25. It’s time to stop this
spray & pray approach

26. There are more effective ways
with less collateral damage

27. 1
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Here’s a 4-step approach
Get to know your contacts
Create a visual social media story
Send multimedia pitches
Measure results

28. 1
Get to know
your contacts
A rolodex
prezly

29. This is how 70% of media lists look like
Not much different from a rolodex
Oftentimes it’s just an email address with a beat

30. It’s called media
relations for a reason
Turn your email addresses into people

31. Do it as you go:
Inbox profiles via Rapportive
prezly

32. Follow them on social media.
Read their updates every day.
prezly

33. Enrich your Excel list automatically with
social media accounts with Prezly
Now you can add them to a Twitter list.
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34. Also read the articles of your contacts
prezly
subscribe to updates of digital articles in Feedly

35. Now you can keep tabs on your media
contacts in 10 minutes per day

36. 2
Create a visual social
media story
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37. Think visually.
Enrich your stories with images
and videos to increase interest
and engagement.
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38. Press releases with multimedia
get viewed a lot more
+ 7.4x
+ +
4.3x
1.8x
= Attachments, soundbites, charts, interactive,…
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9.7x

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9.7x
!
79% of journalists say news releases
accompanied by a good image are more likely
to be picked up than those without photos.
source 〉

40. The more you can give journalists what
they need to be successful, the more
coverage you’ll get.
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41. Read our
complete guide to visual press releases
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Creating visuals can be daunting

42. Think beyond journalists.
Tell stories, not just for the
traditional press, but for
consumers, bloggers, social media
influencers, and anyone who’s
interested.
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43. email
pitch
+
social
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+
web
Publish stories on your
online newsroom.
Having social media press
releases makes it easy for
people to share your stories
and for people to find them
via search engines.
Traffic distribution on
social media newsroom

44. An example social media press release
prezly
✔ High resolution photos
✔ Infographics
✔ Low resolution image previews
✔ One-click visual downloads
view
✔ Easy to share on social,
A PR CRM like Prezly automatically including detects visuals
the
social profiles of your media contacts.
✔ Works well on mobile devices
✔ Optimised for search engines

45. Don’t reinvent the wheel
get a free mobile
social media
news template
Download

46. 3
Send
multimedia pitches
prezly

47. Publishing a your story online
is just the first step.
You should still pitch to relevant influencers
to make sure they know about it.

48. Use a pitching tool that integrates
with your newsroom
This way you can
easily share your stories in multimedia
and get integrated analytics
Try my PR pitching tool Prezly

49. An example multimedia pitch
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A PR CRM like Prezly automatically detects the
✔ Personalised intro ✔ Multimedia previews

50. 4%
59%
37%
2-3 sentences 2-3 paragraphs
500 words 1,000 words
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The perfect media pitch
according to 25k journalists
What is your ideal pitch length?

51. Lack of personalization
Too lengthy
Bad timing
Confusing subject line
Large attachments 2,9
10,4
15,4
21,9
28,7
Aside from irrelevant subject matter, what factor is
most likely to make you immediately reject a pitch?
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source 〉

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Keep it short and personalise.
Include media assets.

53. 6 prezly
more tips for sending
better email pitches

54. From:
1
A specific ‘from line’
Frederik from Prezly
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This tells you who the email is coming from, as well as which
company I work for… all before you even open my email.

55. Subject:
2
A short and clear subject line
Relevant, timely & inspire curiosity
33% open email based on subject line alone.
Keep it to 50 characters or less.
list of best practices drawn from analysing 200 million emails
prezly

56. Body:
3
A brief & relevant introduction
I saw your tweet about Gen Y
employees and thought you might like
to learn the surprising results of a new
study.
Who you are and why you’re reaching out.
Tie it to something personal.
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57. Body:
4
A value proposition
Your latest article about Gen Y got a lot
of buzz. Sharing the results of this
study could be a great follow-up for
your readers.
What’s in it for them?
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58. Body:
5
Multimedia previews
News with multimedia gets viewed up to 10 times more
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source 〉

59. Body:
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A clear next step
I’d love to answer any questions you
have about the study. Can we talk for
15 minutes sometime next week?
frederik@prezly.com
+320472656889
All contact info
prezly

60. There’s more:
Read our
5-part email course on pitching
prezly

61. 4
Measure results
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62. Email usually is a black box: you hit send and
don’t know what happens next.
Or do you?

63. Stop emailing in the dark
Track your email pitches to see
who’s interested in your stories.
prezly

64. There are many services that let
you track your emails
Sales tool for Gmail
All-purpose newsletter service
PR pitching tool

65. Measure to get better at media
relations in two ways
Learn which content works
Learn which contacts like your content

66. Learn which contacts like your pitch

67. Learn which content your contacts like

68. Use these insights to get to know your
contacts better.
Make it a habit to review the email behaviour of
your contacts regularly. If your contacts aren’t
opening and clicking on your pitches anymore,
please, stop spamming them.

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There’s more:
4 PR metrics you can start using now

70. Ban spray & pray media relations
Get to know your contacts
Create a rich story
Send multimedia pitches
Measure results
2
3
4
5
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Recap
1

71. prezly
Get the full PDF
Tweet to download

72. twitter.com/prezly
prezly.com/blog
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