2. Get the journalists’ contact details.

Next, it’s time to find some contact information for the targets on your press release distribution list.

This could be as simple as clicking on an author’s bio on their publication’s site.

… and making a note of their email address:

But, just like anything else in the world of PR, it’s not always that easy.

You’ll often have to do a little digging to find the contact details — starting with a simple Google search such as “[journalist’s name + email]”.

If that doesn’t do the trick, you could also use a media database like Muckrack^[5]:

Don’t have the budget for paid databases? Harness the power of social media.

LinkedIn is an excellent place to discover contact information for professional contacts (AKA, your journalists). Simply search for “journalist” and filter the results by selecting your target publication as “company”, then plug their name into Hunter^[6] to find their email address:

Twitter can also be a quick and easy way to get in touch with your target journalists, too — especially considering 46% of journalists are open to receiving pitches via Twitter^[7].

3. Craft a killer pitch.

Email is the most effective way to send your press release quickly.

Don’t believe me? Cision’s 2017 State of the Media report found an overwhelming majority of journalists prefer to receive press releases via email^[8]:

However, there’s another obstacle you’ll need to overcome here — many journalists receive up to 200 pitches a day^[9].

There are two factors you’ll want to consider when crafting a pitch. First — keep it brief.

Don’t waste the journalist’s time with a long-winded, self-absorbed introduction to yourself or your business. They probably don’t care.

Instead, get straight into the purpose of your email: The story, and why they should cover it in their publication.

Journalists are time-poor, so they’ll appreciate a nice, succinct message that sells your story in a few words—like this:

Image courtesy of Janet Murray^[10].

As you can see in the example above, the entire story is sold in the first sentence, with a direct question asking if the journalist is interested — rather than just assuming so.