Pitching Tips (Part 1)

By Raleigh Pinskey June 4, 2004
Pitching Tips: Hooking for a Booking (Part 1) 'If you can't hook a reporter with your pitch within 30 seconds OR LESS, don't bother trying.' This quote is straight from a reporter's mouth. In fact, most reporters feel this way. 'And if your pitch is by email or letter, make it LESS than 50 words.'

The hook they are looking for in the first 15 seconds or 15 words has two components.

1) WITFM. Translation, What's In It For Me. The “me” refers to The journalist.

2) WITFT, Translation, What's In It For Them. The “them” refers to the audience.

In both cases the “W', or the 'what” translates to “what benefits do you have that will make a great story, or a great story greater.”

Why do the media look for and want a GREAT story?

  • A great story attracts a bigger audience

  • A great story makes for a satisfied audience

  • A bigger audience makes for increased sales or viewers

  • Increased sales or viewers make for more advertisers

  • More advertisers make for higher ad revenue

  • Higher ad revenue makes the owners more money

  • Happy owners don’t fire the person who delivers

    • For the audience, benefits take the form of

  • Education, something they didn't already know

  • Entertainment, a way to forget the day's troubles

  • Emotional involvement, a laugh, a cry, a heart tug

  • Enlightenment, a clue to the problem and/or solution

    • Two critical elements of your pitch
    1) A head's up to a problem
    2) A head’s up to a solution to the problem
    Often times the pitch will contain both the solution and the problem. This is known as implied value.

    Examples:
    Headaches (the problem) can warn you of other health problems. (the solution)

    Retirement (sometimes the problem and the solution) doesn't have to mean boring. (the solution) Here's one version of my pitch that I use for radio and TV that I use to sell myself, based on my book 101 Ways to Promote Yourself (close to 100,000 sold)

    Hello, I'm the author of 101 Ways to Promote Yourself. Tricks of the Trade To Take Charge of Your Own Success. The book is published by Harper Collins/ Quill and has sold close to 100,000 copies. (This gives substantial credibility)

    (It's usually here that the producer will say, and this is # 102? This usually means they're hooked.)

    I guarantee your audience how they get more than just those “15 minutes of fame”, plus money making tips, and ways they can be a household name, Online and Offline locally or globally. (Benefits)

    I've been helping business people to fame & fortune for 25 years. I've worked with Sting, McCartney, Blondie, KISS, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Fit For Life Solution, and hundreds of mouse and mortar businesses.

    My name is Raleigh Pinskey and I would love to be a guest on your show so both of us can help take the members of your audience to their next level of success.

    (I wait until the end to say my name because it’s not important until they want to book me. Why take the chance of losing their interest in the beginning with unimportant information and small talk. I go right to the chase.)

    Examples of Pitching with Email subject lines:

  • New Statistics: Hypnosis and Smoking, Audience Benefits

  • Revealing Relationship Regrets, Author is provocative guest

  • Critical Retirement infor for Baby Boomers in your audience

  • 5 tips to more meaningful sex after 65

  • 5 tips to clean him out in a divorce and get even

    • Raleigh Pinskey, is a Media Consultant, speaker, and author of 101 Ways to Promote Yourself (close to 100,000 in print) 101 Ways to Get on Talk Shows , 101 Ways to Write Foolproof Media Releases 101 Ways to Market Your Business on the Internet , 101 Ways to Promote Your Books and Info Products on the Internet, 101 Ways to Promote Your Book Live, The Zen of Hype, and You Can Hype Anything All are available at http://promoteyourself.com/store/index.html raleigh@promoteyourself.com 480-488-4840

    Category: Publishing
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