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Let it bleed!
All the way out.
Yep, when it comes to PR, you never want to bandaid a good pitch!
Quite often when we develop, and execute, a campaign for a client, it's done so with a particular media outlet (or collection of media outlets) in mind - and that's fine!
It's even better when that media outlet picks up on your pitch and runs it to the full extent.
That always equals happy clients.
But this is my point, why stop there?
The work has been done! The product (that is, the pitch) is there on the shelf so why not at least try to sell it to someone else.
And that's what I mean by "bleeding it out".
Bleed it out to less obvious media outlets - it's all bonus coverage at this stage.
For example, we recently targeted the major local newspaper for a client to do with his involvement in a drone light show in Sydney.
The paper loved it: ran a full piece, a shot of the light show AND one of our client for good measure!
Pitch nailed (and fortunately, that piece was syndicated all the way around that paper's network so the full return was a dozen articles for the price of one)!
We could've banked that result, then and there but I decided to fling it at some niche drone websites to see if they'd interested.
Of course, they were.
And then some broader tech outlets with only a slight interest in drones!
They were keen too.
Then they asked if they could feature our client on their podcast, not just talking about the light show itself, but all things drones.
Then they decided to run a feature article on him - unsolicited.
In the end, we probably doubled our return ... and it only took me an extra hour or so to "bleed it out".
Now, I have two approaches with this: bleeding up and bleeding down.
I bleed up when I'm not overly confident in a campaign.
By that I mean, I've built out a pitch with a client and if I'm realistic with myself, I only think it'll hit with a lower tier media outlet so that's what I target first.
If it gets picked up then I bleed up and see if a higher tier outlet like it too - it's all additional coverage, and in that instance, I'd rather be proven wrong than right about where it could be placed.
If I know it's a good campaign and will almost certainly get a run in a major media outlet, there it goes.
And if and when that comes to fruition, then I bleed down - like with the light show pitch - to smaller outlets who'll still take it anyway.
In theory, you could blast your pitch out to everyone first and whoever takes it, takes it ... but I'm not a huge fan of that strategy.
I like to carefully construct a campaign (almost tailor make it) for a particular media outlet and get some runs on the board first.
It's only then I like to hit it out of the park; but to date, it's only resulted in great, sustained coverage for my clients.
In my opinion, the worst strategy is to not pitch it out at all.
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