At today’s Marketers Making a Difference meeting I learned about a great resource called Help A Reporter Out (HARO). It’s a service that reporters can use to find sources and you can use to find reporters who are looking for experts in your knowledge areas.
This is the kind of service that used to only be available to PR professionals through expensive subscriptions to services like Cision. HARO is advertising supported and therefore free to users. I can’t speak to the relative quality of the leads, but it seems to me that this part of the ongoing democratization of information made possible by the internet.
The good news is, this makes it easier for you to get media contacts. The bad news is, it makes it easier for everyone else to get access too. Maybe that’s not bad news after all. It means that instead of putting resources into getting access, you should be putting into having something to say.
For more cool marketing-related resources, check out our Delicious resource list: http://delicious.com/mmdboston
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2 comments:
As a PR professional, and avid HARO user, I do have several live-by recommendations for nonprofits using HARO.
1. Make sure the information you are providing is relevant to the reporter's query - if the reporter is looking for families with recently adopted pets, don't reach out about a new line of dog collars.
2. Provide full name, title, company name when sending your response - often reporters using HARO will not even reach back out to you, but will instead just pull text from your email and plug it right into their article. Make it as easy as possible for them to cite you correctly.
3. Respond as soon as you see a relevant query - reporter's inboxes often get flooded by HARO email responses, improve your chances of coverage by replying early.
Happy pitching!
Good tips. Thanks Ariel!
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