How to Garner Media Coverage as a Growing Food, Beverage, and Hospitality Business

For anyone in the marketing and communications field--or looking to get their business’ name out there--media pitching is that inevitable piece of work that can feel either connected and creative or like thankless task. When approached correctly, it can also be a pathway to building meaningful, long-lasting relationships with key players in your industry, especially if you are a growing business without a bank of resources. How? Firstly, you need to understand not only who to target, but with what. So…

What Makes a Great Pitch? 

When crafting a pitch, the first thing you should do is try to get inside of the editor’s mindset. How is your pitch satisfying what they need? There are essentially three questions you should be asking yourself: 

• What problem does my pitch solve for the reader?

• Is my pitch specific?

• Is my pitch relevant/timely?

What are some of the most common mistakes when pitching a story and how to avoid them:

Try not to get stuck in the same pitching routine, especially when pitching different outlets. Pitching, like job interviews, should be tailored to the outlets you have in mind to show your timeliness and relevance. 

• Targeting The Audience 

  • Research the editors/writers that best fit your pitch

  • Half of the battle of pitching is making sure it lands in the right lap 

• Information Overload 

  • Editors have less and less time these days to read paragraphs of information 

  • Craft a succinct, straight to the point pitch and offer additional information for them if they are interested

  • Ask yourself: Could I understand this in 30 seconds someone was pitching this to me

Promoting vs. Pitching 

• When pitching client products, pitch a larger idea rather than focusing on promoting one specific product 

• Relevancy is key: How does this pitch fit into a story the editor/writer is working on?

What are some good follow-up practices after I’ve sent my pitch?

Follow-ups are a great practice to show editors/writers that you still have them in mind. Don’t get bogged down if they don’t get back to you, they may come back to your pitch at a later point in time. 

Feeling like you don’t have the bandwidth, or team, to make time to pitch media? Leave it to us. We incorporate meaningful, relationship-driven pitching within the integrated communications strategies we develop and execute for our clients. What’s the story you have to tell through media? Let us know here.

Written by Sean Taylor, TJC NYC account executive.