Podcast PR: Who Should You Pitch?

Fuzz Martin: 00:00

Good Morning Podcasters. So you want to pitch some news about your podcast to journalists. But to whom do you pitch? That's a great question. Let's explore.

Fuzz Martin: 00:15

Hello, friends. Hello. My name is Fuzz Martin, and this is Good Morning Podcasters, a show about marketing, social media, public relations, and advertising, and how those topics can be used to promote your podcast. And today, we're focusing on public relations, particularly to whom do you pitch your story? It might be daunting thinking about which publications, which journalists? How do you get their emails? And oh, my gosh, how do I do all of this. But really what we're talking about is making a list. And PR list building takes some time, but it's not super hard, you just need to start with a plan. You want this to be strategic.

Fuzz Martin: 01:02

I've mentioned this on other episodes where I've discussed PR topics. But you don't want to spam journalists. So you want to make your list nice and tight. If you spam journalists, they'll block you faster than Lane Johnson, right tackle for the Philadelphia Eagles. And I totally didn't just look that up on Google.

Fuzz Martin: 01:21

What you want to do is determine who is the right audience for your news. And then make a list of journalists, reporters, podcasters, bloggers, et cetera, who cover news or create content for that audience. If you have a strong niche, you likely already have an idea of who those journalists are, at least what those publications and outlets are, because you're already creating in that space. So let's create an example quick to walk through. Let's say your podcasts are in the hold on, let's go to Chat GPT. All right. Pick a topic that I can use as an example. The server's busy. Here we go. Chat GPT says, let's look at renewable energy. And now it's writing a bunch of other stuff. But we just needed a topic renewable energy it is. So let's say you're a podcaster focused on solar energy. And your news is that your podcast recently held a fundraiser, and raised $100,000 to put a solar roof on a school in an underprivileged neighborhood. That sounds newsworthy enough, right?

Fuzz Martin: 02:36

So who do you think would write or talk about that news? Particularly Who do you think would write or talk about that news that would actually benefit your listenership? Well, obviously for this scenario, local TV stations, radio stations, newspapers, blogs, podcasts would be an easy target for publicity. In this random scenario, it probably wouldn't be worth it. For the publicity, even though most of the people consuming that local news wouldn't be listeners to your podcast, because the majority of them aren't solar energy aficionados. But it'll definitely create some local news stories, because that's a big substantial number, and you're helping an underprivileged school. So those news articles that you can almost certainly pick up would create credibility for you on your website, on your podcast to other people who are interested in solar energy. They'll say, hey, this person is legit. Look at what they've done.

Fuzz Martin: 03:32

Okay, so who then do you reach out to at those local news outlets? And how do you get their contact information? Well, at TV stations, you want to reach the news desk. That's what it's called the news desk. Make a list of all the local TV stations that are local to that school, and then go to each stations website, look at their station directory, and then find the email addresses for the news desk, it actually should be pretty easy. Most of that stuff is pretty public. And if it's not, it is well within your rights to call the news station, and ask them either for the email address of the news desk, or ask them for the phone number for the news desk. And they will likely give that to you. By the way outside of this example with the solar panel for a school. If you're trying to contact a TV station about a specialty like sports, weather investigative news, some sort of internal piece of that news station, it's best to reach out to that specific reporter instead of the news desk. But if it's general news, hit the news desk.

Fuzz Martin: 04:35

At radio stations, you'll either want to reach the news director, a morning show producer or if it's a small local station, you can reach out directly to the radio personality. Again, their contact information should be available on the websites but always try to start with a news director if it's news or a show producer if it's either a talk show or a morning show something like that. And then if again, if the station is really small and they don't have a producer, then you can reach out directly to the radio personality.

Fuzz Martin: 05:05

For newspapers, you want to find the reporter that is right for the topic you're covering, and our $100,000 solar roof for an underprivileged School Story, that would likely be an education reporter in a bigger city, or general news or something specific to local neighborhoods, in a smaller paper, or blogs, simply look for a story similar to your topic, and reach out to the writer listed in the story. Again, in this local example, you'll want to find somebody that writes about schools, or solar energy in that blog in that local area. And then for podcasts, you know, reach out to the podcaster, or if it's a bigger podcast, reach out to the producer.

Fuzz Martin: 05:47

But that's not the end. This story goes beyond just a local story, you raised $100,000, to put a solar roof on a school for underprivileged kids, there's, there's a lot of different places you can go with this. But we want to focus on the people who will likely be listening to your podcast in this example. So you want to create a separate list of journalists in the solar space. And also in the broader renewable energy space. Some of that might have crossover. Make a list of the appropriate magazines, industry websites, and podcasts in those categories, as well. For magazines, you want to pitch the editor, you don't want to pitch the editor in chief, you don't want to pitch the publisher, you don't want to pitch the deputy editor or anything like that you want to pitch the editor in charge of the topic that you're trying to cover. Again, the contact info will either be on the website, or the digital version of the magazine, which is again, usually linked on the website, it will also likely be on the paper version of the magazine. If you hate trees. Again, on websites look for the people who wrote the articles in the space that you're in. They might be reporters, they might be communists, it might be freelance writers who are hired for that particular story. But you will likely have success if you have real news.

Fuzz Martin: 07:08

And you're pitching to people who have written about those kinds of news topics. Don't send a renewable energy story to a sports reporter, or to somebody who covers fossil fuels, they're not going to help you. That's not what they write about.

Fuzz Martin: 07:24

By the way, if you can't find their email addresses online, you can consider going to their social media handles. I'm not usually a fan of pitching via social media. Some journalists like it, your mileage may vary. Read the journalists bio before DMing them. Okay. And there's one more audience in this scenario. So if you're a podcaster, and you did something truly great, like raising $100,000 for an underprivileged school, you can also tell the podcasting industry about that. Again, these might not convert to listeners though, so I don't want to waste too much energy on this. But people like James Cridland from Pod News Daily would certainly cover a story about a podcaster who did something great.

Fuzz Martin: 08:06

Again, this is all going back to do that spam journalists, I'll say this one last time, do not be spammy, it will not help you. It will only hurt you.

Fuzz Martin: 08:17

Creating a good list of journalists to pitch to is like writing a concise paragraph, it's much easier to put a whole bunch of stuff in there than it is to call it down and make it good, but you want to call it down and make it good. Even if you're using expensive software like scission there's still a lot of work in determining who you should be pitching to and where to find their information. But if you spend an afternoon, compiling a good list, you're likely going to be rewarded.

Fuzz Martin: 08:47

If you ever want to bounce questions off me about this, please feel free to do so you can email me Fuzz at Good morning pod.com That is fu ZZ at Good morning. pod.com New episodes of Good Morning Podcasters come out every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. And since today is Thursday, the next one will be on Monday. In the meantime, if you're a first time listener, we've got 44 other episodes you can listen to. Click the follow button in your podcast player. And check out more a good morning pod.com And I'll talk to you again on Monday. Right here on Good Morning Podcasters.