The post Online Pitching – Not Your Grandmother’s PR Pitching appeared first on Andrea M. Fuller.com.

Online pitching, what’s that? If you are in PR or Online Marketing it’s a familiar term denoting pitching out to online publications/websites asking them to cover your story. However, is that all it is? My answer is no.

Online Pitching is Relationship Building
Online pitching is so much more than emailing a webmaster or a blogger, it’s about relationship building.  When conducting online pitching it’s about finding and focusing your efforts on niche communities that care about your story or online content.

Think about it, these non-corporate websites are more often than not run and maintained by people just like you and me – busy, employed with a full time job (yes, being a stay-at-home parent IS a full-time job). They are passionate and invested in the topic they are discussing online and will be more than happy to talk to anyone who is also interested in the same things they are. That’s the key.

Personalize Your Online Pitching
Personalize. Personalize. Personalize. Just because you are pitching someone via email doesn’t mean that you can mass blast people. Online pitching is just as much about personalization as is the old days of having a Rolodex full of journalists you can call at a moment’s notice. In 2013, you don’t have to take someone out to lunch or a fancy dinner to build a relationship, instead you email back and forth with them one human being to another.

There is nothing more frustrating to a person that runs a blog or website on the side, than in-personal, formal, and often times not appropriate pitch email from a big PR or Marketing firm. Many of you may have received these yourselves, or read in amused horror instances of this occurring on Gawker. I personally don’t believe it’s just about it being bad form, but more about it being a waste of time.

I, personally have a limited amount of time to spend on all my hobbies and family time.  Therefore, when I carve out that thirty minutes a day to comb through the email associated with this blog, I don’t want my time wasted.

If you want me to cover something, it’s about incentivizing me to do so. Please do not read that incorrectly. Incentivizing does not mean monetary compensation, though it can, it means making it worth my while. Why am I going to take my precious time to do you a favor by covering your story and linking to your site?  The answer, because you prove to me you are a human being and you care as much about the topic I am writing about as I do. Connect with me. Personalize it, so it’s not so much me doing you a favor, but you doing me a favor by letting me know, as a fellow compatriot, about something new or interesting that I was unaware of before.  In marketing terms, give me value add.

Online Pitching – Real Life Examples of Bad Pitching
If you don’t believe me, go check out a story from a “Mommy” blogger on the YummyMummyClub.ca website. In a post entitled “Dear Mommy Blogger” she outlines how frustrating it can be for those labelled (self labelled as well) Mommy bloggers getting pitched with form letters. While she gives PR/Marketing companies the benefit of the doubt, I don’t. Online pitching is about quality not quantity. Not to mention those doing it incorrectly make it harder for those of us who it correctly. It’s a fun and short read, go check it out.

Benefits of Online Pitching
There are two major benefits of conducting online pitching properly.

1. Relationship Building – The better relationship you have with an owner/writer of a website/blog, the higher propensity you will have for getting future stories covered.
2. SEO – Remember the more links to your site the better. Part of a good robust SEO strategy includes getting links from other sites to yours. The more the links the better.

All in all, spending the time to cultivate relationships – online and offline – is not a bad practice in any area of your life. It’s just common sense.

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