by Leo Wiles
11 February 2015
I’m so sick of pitching editors and not hearing back, and now I’m wondering if it’s ever okay to do a mass pitch to editors of the same genre with a ‘first-in-best-dressed’ type of pitch, when the story’s good and time sensitive. Would you? HT
Short answer? Not really. We’ve written previously about the need to add a personal touch to your pitches – from using the right email address, name, title and commissioning contact to the very important angle (tailor-made to the particular title you’re pitching to). Which is why I would not recommend mass mail outs, as the main game is to prove with your pitch that you understand the title and what their readers are looking for.
Choosing a generic pitch that anybody could bite on is lazy journalism and so is contacting 10, 20 or 40 editors with the same email, especially if you’re sending it as one email and do not use a bcc address. In fact, it’s a sure fire way to be deleted and blocked from further missives, or at the very least not be taken seriously. (The same goes for PRs. If you work in PR and you really want an editor to interview your client, pick up your brand, run a story on the new product or service you’re touting then the outlet needs to feel that they’re special. So decide if you want a meaty piece or an odd spot mention – because the effort you put in is what you’ll get out.)
How to go about pitching successfully? Make a list of the publications you really want your piece to appear in, and cherry pick. Sure, it takes longer to hear back from, say, Woman’s Weekly before you submit to Woman’s Day, but that way you don’t piss anyone off and you’ll be acting professionally. If a story is time sensitive then you may need to pursue simultaneous submissions – but rather than a mass mail out, think about how this one interview or product has multiple angles or benefits. I’d then write a list of story ideas and match them, again to non-rival publications who you then email with their very own angle. For example, by choosing different women’s titles you can give one a family angle and another a younger female perspective, effectively enabling you to pitch both titles.
If you’d like to know more about pitching, check out our previous post, How to successfully pitch an editor.
Mass pitching: agree or disagree? We’d love to hear your perspective…
