Our TOP Tips from 2022 (spoiler: they ALL still apply in the new year!)

Kicking off 2023 by bringing you some of last year's most popular tips for landing clients in top-tier publications

Happy new year, Top Tier Community!

Holiday vacation is over and it’s time to dive back in full force. We know everyone is currently sitting at their desks plotting world domination for 2023, or at least thinking about how they can take their coverage to the next level in this brand new shiny year. As some of you know, we (Jill Schildhouse and Nicole Pajer) teamed up to create Top Tier Consulting last year to help publicists and brands do just that— continue to do what they do by landing their clients in top-tier publications.

We’ve been in this industry for a combined 39 years, have written for nearly every major publication out there between the two of us, and our inboxes are filled day in and day out with publicists asking us questions about this very topic. So we decided to put our heads together to offer consulting sessions on everything from workshopping pitches to networking, to forming relationships with new journalists, standing out in a writer’s inbox and taking your pitches to the next level, putting together the perfect press trips and mailers, rocking virtual and in person events, etc.

We also started this Substack newsletter where we team up and write WEEKLY in depth articles on topics like how to stand out in a writer’s inbox, how to best prep your clients for interviews for their best chance of inclusion in an article, how to follow up with a writer, what pitches best catch our eye, etc.

We had a great year and received SO MUCH wonderful feedback on how our sessions and Substack has been making a true difference in both publicist and brands’ lives (which keeps us doing what we do). So in the spirit of January and it being a brand new year, we decided to share this post that features some of our most popular excerpts from past Substack newsletter.

For many, it will be your first time seeing these, and for others, it’ll hopefully serve as a great reminder.

We also wanted to remind our Substack subscribers that each month, we do a one hour Top Tier Talk where we answer questions that people submit and talk about trending topics. We’ve had some great past ones, which have discussions on the state of the industry in 2023 and how to navigate a changing media landscape, what to know about affiliate programs if your client isn’t already on them, is there a best time to send a pitch, what writers do and don’t want to see in a pitch, common things that make writers delete an email without responding, topics that we’re finding our editors are asking for these days that are trending, and more. The next Top Tier Talk will be December 24th at 10AM PT/1 ET and we will be sending the Zoom information out soon. So mark your calendars!

Now onto the good stuff. Here are our Top Tips of 2022 for Publicists and Brands:

1. How to Help Your Clients Rock an Email Interview

Do not let them plagiarize (from themselves or another source). Ever. Ever. Ever. This sounds super obvious but unfortunately we see it happen all the time.

If we send out email questions, please make sure that your client knows that in order for us to run them, writers need 100% original quotes. That means they cannot pull quotes from other websites or submit anything that has been published in the past. We get a lot of submissions where people copy and paste excerpts from their own blogs or take quotes verbatim from other websites, like the Mayo Clinic or American Cancer Society. Using published material, even on their own sites, is still plagiarizing!

Using quotes that are plagiarized can result in a writer getting let go from a publication. And then there goes your contact to pitch for that outlet and also your relationship with that writer.

Even if you are sending some quick thoughts back to questions you see in an initial HARO, Substack or Qwoted request, please make sure it is original content. And if it’s not and you’re just trying to give a writer an idea of what your source could talk about in an initial reach out and want to just pull blurbs from the client’s website to showcase the type of information they could provide, make that clear up front — “This is the type of content they could talk about and I pulled this from their website to give you an idea. Do not use this. These are not original quotes but we will provide some once you send questions.”

2. How to Perfect Your Pitches So Editors/Writers Say YES!

Beginning with the subject line, every detail of your pitch matters. Those details are what make it a yes or a no, as busy writers cull through hundreds of pitches a day. A new year means a new chance to approach your clients’ pitches differently. And what better way to freshen up your pitching than with a set of fresh eyes? Top Tier Consulting offers Pitch Perfecting Workshops that do just that!

To tease out a few of our tips: The #1 issue we probably see with pitching is that people pigeonhole themselves into a small niche or don’t nail the timeliness angle. If you pitch a writer a product or client, the first thing we’ll try to figure out is what makes this client relevant right now? How can they fit into a story that we are working on now? We see people pitching products around very obscure overseas holidays that mainstream outlets won’t be aware of instead of tying a pitch to something bigger like Valentine’s Day or summer BBQ season, which could help them land more coverage. We see people pitching stories tied to holidays that they are sending one week before the event when we’re already months ahead working on things tied to holidays far out into the future. And we see people pitching things with zero timeliness angles attached, which makes it tough for us to figure out what to do with it.

Including talking points for experts is such a huge help, as it helps us make the connection between “Hey I have this dermatologist who can be available to an interview” to “Here is something cool happening in the skincare world you should know about and write about.” “I have a realtor available for interviews” to “My realtor can talk about all these interesting things happening in the home buying space.”

Subject lines also make a big difference. There is an art to nailing those and many people decide on very obscure subject lines that simply get lost in a writer’s inbox or may inspire the recipient to read the pitch with an angle that may miss the mark.

Ready to take your pitches to the next level? Or are you wondering why certain pitches aren’t getting much response? Learn how to take your emails from, “Here’s a client I represent,” to “Here’s a story idea you can’t possibly turn down.” Between the two of us, we receive thousands of pitches per week, so we have many tips — and examples — of what works and what doesn’t. We have loads of ideas about talking points for sources, timely/seasonal angles, and outlets you may have overlooked that could be the perfect fit. From coming up with the perfect email subject line to improve your open rates to sealing the deal with your closing remarks, your word choices matter throughout the entire pitch. We’ll help you perfect them; just click the button below!

3. How to Help Your Clients Rock an Interview

Make sure they have a point of view and inject some personality into the conversation. Sure, they’re an expert. But do they have a unique point of view? Do they have something INTERESTING to say on the topic that hasn’t been said before? Writers are always looking from new and interesting soundbites from sources and novel information that will make their story stand out from others on the topic. Having a point of view and being able to articulate it lends credibility to the source and increases their chances of getting included in the piece.

Also, nobody wants to talk to a robot spewing generic answers. Your source should be able to inject a little personality into the experience, like sharing some anecdotes or using an amusing or shocking analogy … you know, speaking like a human being instead of sounding like a Wikipedia page on the topic. Again, fun soundbites that will catch the reader’s attention is the goal here. New studies that aren’t widely publicized, new talking points = a win for a writer, which means a win for their editor!

4. When to Contact an Editor/Writer About Requesting a Change to a Published Story

An actual ERROR is something we definitely want to be alerted to. If we spelled your client’s name wrong (unfortunately it happens from time to time), included an incorrect pronoun, used a wrong date or statistic, etc please tell us … we’re happy to alert our editors that those corrections need to be made ASAP.

But if you just don’t love the words we chose or would have phrased it differently yourself, then that’s not an error and there’s no need to notify us, as there is nothing that an editor will do about that. You only get the exact wording you want when you buy an ad. We also cannot update stories once they went live to add a new product or quote or study or survey in there. Once a story goes live (with the exception of some e-commerce stories that editors may ask us to update from time to time), consider it locked.

5. How to Stay Top of Mind with a Writer/Editor

Following us on Twitter, interacting with our posts on Instagram, adding us on Linkedin, commenting on our Substack, attending things like Top Tier Talk sessions — these are all great ways to keep in contact with a writer. While none of this is mandatory, it can certainly help with name recognition and in developing a rapport that turns into a long-term relationship (versus a one-off transaction). If you took the time to email a writer to tell them that you liked a story that they wrote or commented on an Instagram post about someone’s dog, then email the writer in response to a source request, they will probably go into the email thinking “Oh this is from Marie. I know that name.” It’s not preferential treatment, it’s all about name recognition.

6. How to Stand Out from the Crowd When Replying to HARO Queries

Don’t delay in answering. One HARO query could earn us 400 email responses in our inboxes. When we sit down to sift through them, we’ll probably pay a lot of attention to the ones that come in the day of or day after we posted the call for sources. But if we post on a Friday and our deadline is Wednesday and you’re responding Tuesday at night or Wednesday, hours before the deadline, we’ve likely already picked the people we’re going to work with by then. Occasionally someone who sends in a submission later will be considered if they have a really good source that makes a lot of sense for the story. But in general, the earlier, the better.

Also, really talk up your sources. If you are answering a call for sources for a writer looking for an anxiety expert, our inboxes are going to be PACKED with HARO responses with people saying “I have a therapist, psychologist, social worker, etc.” But if you can talk your source up a bit and their relevance to the story, that makes them extra appealing. Think: “I talked to my client and since the pandemic her clientele has shifted and is about 95% anxiety patients.” “You’re writing about postpartum? My client went through it herself and also helps patients through it professional so they can talk about both ends of the spectrum?” “My client did a TED Talk on this topic…” Talking points that your client can talk about, sample quotes, etc. are all things that can make a writer select your source vs. the hundreds of others that may answer a query.

7. How to Discover What Assignments Writers Are Working on Right Now

We often get emails from publicists (got a few today already), asking us “Hey what are you working on?” We can’t take the time to answer all these or we’d be doing it all day AND things move so fast that we could answer on a Monday and what we are working on is different by the time you get back to us on a Wednesday. To keep up on what writers are working on, watch for these hashtags on Twitter: #journorequest and #PRrequest

Ok, we know Twitter is a touchy subject these days … but it’s still an amazing (and often under-utilized) resource for media/publicists. If you aren’t already following these hashtags on Twitter, you might be missing out on many great coverage opportunities with it. The #journorequest and #PRRequest hashtags are what writers use on Twitter to alert everyone that they are searching for products, experts, destinations, and anything else they need for their immediate assignments.

If you find these quickly, there’s a good chance you’ll be first in line for a story … especially if you catch them before they cross-post to Quoted, HARO or their Substacks and get bombarded with pitches. There’s even an account associated with this hashtag and it’s a way to find these leads all in one place! As a bonus, you’ll also be more aware of which journalists are currently working — and for which outlets and in which niches.

8. If your source is attached to a brand, be up front about that

There have been many times where we’ve had multiple email exchanges with a publicist, secured a source, ran them by our editors, and THEN after the interview, been told that we have to work in a brand or it’s a dealbreaker.

Some publications will allow journalists to cite experts as “an RD and nutritional advisor to XYZ brand” or “a cardiologist who founded the XYZ line of omega-3 supplements.” But many outlets will absolutely NOT include a source that has any mention of a brand — especially if there’s a chance for bias due to the source’s financial benefits from mentioning that brand. It’s a case-by-case basis and it’s best to skim through some articles that an outlet has published to get an idea of how they handle this before pitching. If you’re still unsure, simply ask!

If you need certain branding worked in, you absolutely should mention that up front. It might be a dealbreaker for some publications but nobody is going to even consider working that branding in there unless you ask!

Writers and editors ultimately use the best sources for their stories. If you have someone with a great knowledge of the subject at hand and a solid title, we want to make it work. Sometimes we can go to our editors and say, “Hey this person has a great story but need this mentioned. Is that doable?” Let us know what you need and we’ll see what we can do. No promises of course, but it doesn’t hurt to ask (unless the call for pitches specifically states that the source must be unaffiliated).

Thanks all!

Jill & Nicole