“I’d like to meet the team” is one of the most important requests you can make when hiring a tech PR agency. The typical agency response is a slide of senior-level executive bios with impressive client experience, meant to wow you into signing a contract. Too many times after signing, you’ll find that the large team presented at the pitch has disappeared, along with their experience, relationships and knowledge of the media. Not only is the bait & switch misleading, but there is no way to scale to the level of outreach your brand needs without the full support of a team.
Tech journalists can receive 100+ pitches a day and with increased inbounds via messaging on platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, that number is sure to rise over the next few years. In addition to a relevant and impactful pitch, you need to have your story delivered with the right assets, at the right time, and through the right channel to ensure you land that coveted piece of coverage.
The key to combating the increasingly cluttered media landscape is a crowdsourced approach we call ’crosspitching.’ It’s a simple team approach to media relations that gives your brand an army of PR professionals pitching your story versus a one man show. Each client still has their core team with a Vice President, Director, and Account Executive level each present, but we also leverage the power and experience of the entire agency for every brand we work with. Here’s some of the keys to how we scale outreach and effectively bridge our media relationships from the agency to your brand:
More Media Conversations:
It’s insane to think one account manager can be knowledgeable on all the media opportunities available for your brand. It’s even crazier to think they will be reaching out to each of them at the right time. We have 25+ PR pros talking to hundreds of media on any given day. They are talking to journalists and identifying opportunities for your brand at a scale a single account manager just can’t match. We arm all of them with the knowledge and assets they need to crosspitch your story, whether they are on your core team or not. One person isn’t responsible for your success, the agency is and everyone chips in.
One-Stop Shop For Media:
Media come to us. A media member writing a “Top 20 Holiday Gifts for Millennials” guide might sift through 100+ emails from 100+ different agencies to write that piece. Our deep roster of brands in the consumer tech space allows MBA to provide multiple solutions to the media in one interaction. In many cases they come to us and fill their guides, saving them time and easily meeting their editor’s deadline.
Steady Drumbeat of Media Interaction
Being a standalone brand, you might only have one or two times a year to tell media your story. Sporadic, hurried interactions once a year is not the way to build a trusted relationship between your brand and the media. We have a plethora of relevant storylines across multiple brands, that allow us a steady drumbeat of valuable interactions with top tier media throughout the year. We don’t depend on a single product launch or company announcement to get in front of an outlet.
Make Their Life Easier
We are constantly on a mission to serve the media. We act as a media concierge and hold fact-finding meetings like “Meet The Press” in our office weekly. We take the tidbits and insight media so graciously share with us and we put it into practice for you. Ask any of our 25+ team members how to pitch a specific media member and you’ll receive more detail than you ever asked for. Everything from image style, pitch format, ideal time and assets needed, to kid’s names and favorite travel destination. We use this insight to deliver assets and pitches custom to each journalist, making it easy for them to tell your story.
Crowdsourcing our approach to media relations allows us to engage a full team to be working for our clients all the time. What takes a single PR pro weeks or months to execute, we can do in a fraction of the time. By allowing our entire PR team to work every brand, we ensure the best media relationships across the agency (not just your team) are all leveraged for your brand on a daily basis.
To learn more about our PR programs, and how we can leverage the entire agency’s expertise to land your brand top tier coverage, reach out to bizdev@maxborgesagency.com today.
