Nothing Is Too Small to Pitch

    We can't all get placements in big papers on the front page or even buried inside, but that doesn't mean for a second that you shouldn't try. Naturally, there's that time to effort ratio to think about, because the minutes we spend strategizing and pitching are a PR pro's currency. But if you can figure out how to spend as little possible on certain pitches it's not all that difficult to dream big and work smart at the same time.
    The problem, I think, starts with evaluating the piece of news you want to promote. Sometimes people decide outright that the news is too small and discount any possibilities that it will get noticed anywhere. But that's just an excuse I think. In many cases, we have to work harder for what, on the surface, is minor information. But let's take a friend of mine recently who asked me help out with a press release. She's a cabaret singer among other things (talent runs big in this individual's life).
    So when I got the draft she'd written for an upcoming concert at a club in Chicago the first thing I thought of was, how can I make this sound bigger than she has? Well, first of all, I have that thing called perspective; it's often easier for someone else to make a big deal about us than it is for us to sing (pardon the pun) our own praises. Then I thought about the reporter, news assignment editor, and all the other people who might actually see her press release. Why would they care? That is the essential heartless-sounding question we must ask ourselves every time we consider the best way to pitch a story.
    But just like that old saying about the fact that you can't love yourself until you love others (okay, you can stop smirking and rolling your eyes now) you've got to be the absolute champion of the pitch. That's right: the pitch needs to be your new best friend. If you don't believe in it, why should anyone else?
So it's actually not that difficult. I've had the good fortune to see and hear my friend on stage. Of course it was in darkened junior high school auditorium in the middle of a summer day, but she was able to transform that institutional environment into a club-like atmosphere. So that's what I thought about when I was editing and tweaking the release she sent over for review.
Years ago when I started in PR and corporate communication I wondered just what it was going to take for me to get excited about telecommunications and phone companies and antitrust stuff. But it didn’t take me long to figure it out. I just had to think about the human connection and there's plenty of that to go around.