#AskJon: What are some common mistakes people make when pitching the media?

So the first question is, “how do you pitch?” Are you emailing them, are you leaving phone messages, are you using social media? That usually sets you down a particular path. The first mistake people do when they do any of those is, they are too long-winded — they leave too-long messages, their emails are way too long and they wait too long to get to the point. Make sure in your first interaction with the media, whether it’s a subject line or the first things that come out of your mouth, that the main part of the pitch is fit into those areas. And then after that, get very clear on what you’re asking for and ask them for a quick decision. They will usually decide pretty quickly because they will know if your pitch is fitting in to what they’re looking to do now or maybe looking to do down the road.

Jon Newman

In 2002 Jon cofounded The Hodges Partnership and has helped to grow it into one of the country’s largest public relations firms (based on O’Dwyer’s annual rankings). Jon has taught communications as an adjunct professor at VCU, speaks regularly at conferences and meetings and blogs and tweets about public relations and marketing issues.

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