Minisode: What to Do With Pitches That Don’t Land – Podcast Transcript

Lexie Smith  00:03

Okay, guys, many so time, I was sitting here this morning in agency land with my team. And we were going through pitches that landed and didn’t land as you know, name of the game. And I was inspired to hop on and record this minisode specifically to talk about four different things you can do with your pitches that do not land. Do not the ones that were likely brilliant, but didn’t land. Okay. So first things first, you need to make sure that whatever article you pitched for, let’s say it was a source there quoted or HARO, what have you hasn’t been published, right? What we don’t want to do is miss that it was published and that they didn’t use our pitch and then essentially steal the content, right?  So if you are positive that your pitch did not land, and you are confident that it was gold, whether it was collected quotes that you had from a client, or just a really, really great angle that you had compiled with data, what do you do? Do you just let it go to die in your email inbox? I am here with a PSA today on it’s so awkward to say no, no, no, no, there is something that we can do with all of that hard work. So first things first, save them, save them. whatever system you use, save your pitches. So for my team, we use clickup. And we attach docs to each of our pitches. We also use Google Docs from time to time. So all of our pitches are stored and saved in both clickup and Google Docs. Okay, so it almost becomes a searchable catalog that we can go through. I have other clients on the coaching side who use notion, notion is another great system. If you have a paid platform like surgeon or muck rack, you know, there’s elements within there, but regardless of what system you use, save the pitches. And I have a couple of different suggestions here on how to save them effectively. So yes, you can save the entire pitch as is verbatim. But also, if there were data points that you found, or quotables, pull those out and have them on its own on its own document. So let’s say you have a client, I’ll just talk about my client, for example, I have a client right now, on the agency side, they are a travel technology company. And there is a lot of data that we are using in our pitching process. So all the data that we’re finding and the way that we’re phrasing and integrating that data into our pitches, we are saving on a singular document for reference if we want to use them again. Similarly, if our client provides a great quote, We are saving the quotes on a quote document in clickup. Right? So we are basically working smarter, not harder. So step number one is to save them. Number two, repurpose. Now there’s a lot of different ways you can repurpose a missed picture pitch that in that land. Depends you have to be objective once again, like really consider why didn’t it land and make sure that it’s good content, but if it is good content, first and foremost, you can pull that content and create something owned for your client or for yourself. Something owned could be a blog post, something owned could be a social media post or a series of social media posts. If your client or you put together for example, five tips for a quoted or Haro query that didn’t get picked up, boom, you know how you now have a carousel or a reel or a great LinkedIn post right. You can also expand upon it and go long form blog content. So again, repurpose those pitches. Furthermore, on the repurpose note number three is to repurpose some of that content. For additional or future pitches, again, let’s say you used some really, really great data points and you put on your word wizard hat in the way you worded it and tied it into the angle was really, really gold. You don’t know why the journalists didn’t pick it up. But there’s no reason if they didn’t use it, that you can’t take that wording and integrate it into another pitch, if relevant, it’s something we do all the time, again, why we save our pitches so that we don’t always have to reinvent the wheel if we don’t have to. So yes, you can repurpose for content, like blogs and social media, but you can also reuse some of that in future pitching. And then the last one I wanted to talk about is dependent on the type of content or the type of pitch, go for the byline. Meaning, if they didn’t pick it up, if they’re not going to write about it, you can write about it, your client can write about it, right. So while posting on your blog is great. Depending on the goals of the client and their credentials, there might be an opportunity to take let’s say that those five tips and turn it into a byline which as a quick reminder, a byline is where you’re the author or your clients, the author written by them themselves in a publication, so you could pitch a byline for well and good. You could pitch a byline for Harvard Business Review. Again, make sure it’s relevant. But if your pitches it landing someone else to write about it. There’s no reason you can’t take charge put on that thought leader hat and go for the byline yourself. So quick one today just wanted to hop on and talk about four things that you can do with your pitches that do not land. If you have any questions for always, you can reach me on Instagram I hang out there quite frequently at the PR bar inc.com Reach out and until next time on the pigeon and sipping podcast. Hey guys, if you are enjoying the pigeon and sipping podcast, please do me a huge favor and leave a review wherever you are listening. If you want to connect with me to learn more about the PR bar Inc. You can do so on Instagram Act, the PR bar underscore inc or you can check out my website at the PR bar inc.com Cheers