While it’s almost time for school to begin in many parts of the country, there’s still a bit of time left in baseball season. And since the topic of today’s post is media pitching, our baseball-addled mind, or what’s left of it, thinks of relating media pitching to baseball pitching. It's also a chance to, er, throw in a bunch of baseball references.
When it comes to media pitching, one of the industry’s great pitching coaches is the appropriately named Michael Smart. Below are tips from Coach Smart that will help you pitch like the legendary Denton True "Cy" Young (1867-1955), whose name is synonymous with pitching excellence and like Michael was smart, having coached at Harvard for a time.
Smart’s first tip to media pitchers is “to narrow your focus to a manageable number of” reporters, bloggers and media influencers. “Just like they can’t keep up with every person trying to get their attention, you can’t be all things to all journalists.” In short, it’s addition by subtraction: Instead of shooting out a pitch to hundreds, pick your targets and personalize your pitch to a few. As Smart puts it, “spend 80% of your time reaching out to the top 20% of your media list.” He adds, “just pick the top 20%. For most, that’s about 10 influencers. Come to know them and their work almost intimately…When you focus on fewer influencers, the depth and substance of your outreach to them increases. And so does their likelihood of response.”
This tip is akin to baseball pitcher Bartolo Colon of the NY Mets, who in his late 30s reinvented himself by eschewing several pitches and relying on one, the fastball. Most pitchers have a repertoire of at least three pitches. Many have four and five pitches. Colon, 43, ancient for baseball, is doing some of his best pitching these days. And he's taking Smart's 80% tip. He's relying on his fastball about 80% of the time. Colon, who also became the oldest player to hit his first home run of his career earlier this season, was selected for the All-Star team in July.
Smart’s next tip addresses a question he fields frequently at conferences. How do I come off as genuine and not a pest to a journalist? His answer: “You easily can come off as pesky to a journalist no matter which channel you use. The best way to come off as genuine is actually to be genuine. Once you’re sure you understand what’s useful and relevant for your specific media targets, you’ll feel very natural and comfortable reaching out to them.” Instead of sending the usual form-letter pitch to a journalist, contrast it to this suggestion from Smart: “Hi Jennifer, I know that one of the 'Obsessions' you cover at Quartz is Digital Money, and I saw your tweet about your personal hesitations with online payments. I can relate: I got ripped off like that, too. Have you heard of Plaid Mango? It’s a cash-sending platform with a new type of security...”
Being genuine, relating to media honestly, to me describes another All-Star, Steven Wright of the Boston Red Sox. The game’s top knuckleball pitcher, Wright lacks the arm strength to make it as a conventional pitcher, so he throws a much slower pitch. He grips the ball with his fingernails (the term knuckleball is a misnomer) and attempts to deaden the ball’s rotation as it approaches the hitter. While deadening the ball's spin is not easy, when it's done well air currents overtake the sphere, causing it to dance unpredictably. (Yes, I know, that's akin to the pitch-and-pray strategy many PR practitioners continue to use.)
When a knuckleball pitcher is on his game, hitting the seemingly tantalizingly slow pitch can be extremely difficult. But relating Wright's pitching style to Smart’s tip is easy. The batter knows Wright is genuine, honest—his only consistent pitch is the knuckleball. Batters are going to see it 90% of the time. There’s little guesswork involved in facing Wright. The batter knows what's coming, as does everyone in the ballpark. The issue is hitting (i.e. engaging with) it. Engagement. Now there's something communicators know a thing or two about.
Media pitching coach Michael Smart writes regularly for PR News Pro. For subscription information click here.
Follow Seth Arenstein: @skarenstein