The Next Web – Martin Bryant
Sponsors
Are you developing a mobile app? Get anything from icons and buttons to your entire mobile app designed at 99designs! You can start your next graphic design project for as low as $199. Visit 99designs.com/Chat and get a $99 Power Pack of services for free.
B7DEV.com is the one-stop shop for all your app development needs. They can help you with design, development and even marketing. Plus, they are offering an exclusive 20% off just for the App Masters community.
Subscribe to the Show
Subscribe via iTunes
Subscribe via Stitcher
Subscribe via RSS
About the Episode
You know how I’ve been blogging, podcasting and webinaring on how to pitch the press, well I brought on The Editor-at-Large at The Next Web to see if my strategies are just plain baloney. If you ever wanted to know how to pitch, then stop all distractions, because this is the episode for you.
Martin Bryant is Editor-at-Large at The Next Web.
Show Notes
How Early Should You Start
Making contact as early as possible doesn’t necessarily work because they get a lot of pitch for apps in the Kick Starter phase that the tendency is to delete the email. Get in touch a week or two before launch, no longer than that or else you get forgotten. This lead time is early enough for the press to have time to take a look and try the app, to chat with you and to write the article in time for your launch. They tend to write quite close to the publication date, it is rare for them to do this 24 hours before publish.
Picking the Right Person/Publication to Contact
Emails and Subject Lines
Subject lines are difficult to master and there is no absolute winning formula on what works 100% of the time. But aim for intrigue to compel the journalist to open your email and avoid certain phrases that make their eyes gloss over. Example is mentioning words like crowdfunding, Kickstarter andIndiegogo because chances are, they’ll have 10 of those in a day and there are so many issues, in their experience, that go with projects done using these channels that they lose interest. Make your email standout, don’t make it too wordy and avoid buzz words. Your emails should be short, direct and to the point, states what your app does, who you are, when you are launching, your platform, and just place in a statement to contact you if they need to know more. Don’t write your whole life story,keep it within 2-3 paragraphs.
To Go Exclusive or Not
If journalists get offered exclusives, Martin shares that they definitely give it a bit more attention. The problem is though, from his experience, the PR companies would sometimes take clients which aren’t as good as other clients and they will try to get some coverage for something which is not as good as their best clients. So what you end up with is something that, even if it’s an exclusive, it is not worth covering. It becomes more for the PR person’s benefit than for the journalist. It can be useful but if you want to get better coverage for your app, pitch it to a bunch of people and tell them to write about it if they want. Then, at a later time, if you want to give someone an exclusive for relationship-building purposes, you can give one to time featuring an update or such.