Pitching the media your stories is a great way to get press and publicity for your business. But how do you find a journalist’s email address?
There are a number of ways to do it but no matter what you use it is all about doing the research. You need to find the journalists who are the right fit for you, your business and your story. Sure you can pay to get media contacts but you need to curate a list that works for you. NEVER, and I mean NEVER, fire off an email pitch to any old journalist and hope for a response. Also, NEVER fire off a bulk email pitch. What’s a bulk email pitch? Well, what I mean is never send off the same email to a dozen or more journalists all at the same time. You want to make your pitches specific and targetted. Send your email pitches one at a time and make sure you are addressing the journalist by name and sending story pitches that are the right fit for the journalist.
Take the time to do the research to find the right journalist. Then comes the work of finding their email address. There are lots of tools to help you do that. I love using good old Google to search for names and contact information. Many journalists have their contact information listed on the station or show website. LinkedIn is a favourite of mine too since it is easy to search people by title and media outlet. When it comes to social media, don’t discount the power of Twitter, not only for finding journalists but also for finding their contact information and for building a relationship. Once you connect with a journalist on Twitter sometimes getting their email is as easy as asking. Tell them you have a story you would like to pitch and if it hits the mark many will swap their email address with you.
Need a few other tools and tips to help you find an email address?
I have listed a few articles that go over a bunch of them, including tools like Rapportive . Take a few minutes to check out the articles I listed below, there are some really great tools and tips listed.
Great resources to help you make contact:
http://life-longlearner.com/find-email-addresses/
http://www.yesware.com/blog/find-email-addresses/
https://moz.com/ugc/14-easy-ways-to-find-any-email-address-in-10-minutes-or-less
http://www.growhack.com/2013/02/12/how-to-get-anyones-email-address/
All this will help you create a media list of journalists. You want to create a spreadsheet for yourself of all the key media contacts that you can pitch to so when you do have a story worth pitching the contact information is right at your fingertips. Spend a few hours a month building your media list of contacts, updating your list and adding new contacts. You want to be constantly building your list of email address and building those relationships with journalists.
