Newcomer Founder Eric Newcomer was in Clubhouse today giving tips on pitching stories to journalists. Newcomer is a subscription based newsletter that covers startups and venture capital.
Newcomer wrote about tech for Bloomberg for six years breaking news on IPOs, fundraising rounds, and mergers and acquisitions. Being the Uber beat reporter got him a lot of attention. His image is boosted by his philosophy degree from Harvard College. (I view philosophy and mathematics as typical “genius majors.” Yeah, my son is a math major and tutor at UC Berkeley so I’m biased: I keep telling him to take a philosophy class because I think he’ll love it.)
Mr. Newcomer gave some tips for public relations professionals on how to work with him. This can apply to working with most journalists.
1) When asked about how best to set up get-to-know interviews, which means there is no hard news to convey, he said that journalists do like to meet important people. He recommended that first it’s wise for the PR person to brief the writer about the person they want him to meet.
My advice is that sometimes a background chat does result in a story because something interesting is said. And if it doesn’t, be patient. A big news announcement will get more thoughtful attention after the get-to-know.
2) On sending an email pitch, Newcomer said that it’s not practical to be able to answer everybody. My feedback on this and for new PR people is that if the pitch content is valuable a journalist will answer. What Eric Newcomer means is don’t get offended if he doesn’t have the time to send a reply email.
3) Consider participating in stories outside the strategic plan. What he means is pitch a media outlet that is not on the typical “founder request list.” For example, it seems most founders want to get into the likes of TechCrunch, Forbes, and VentureBeat. But what if Newcomer.co site is a better target? Would it make sense for you as the PR professional to subscribe or even your founder? Mr. Newcomer did say he was up to 1,000 paid subscribers. Due to his background, the list is probably an influential and savvy bunch.
In summary, consider subscribing to one or more of these trendy newsletters. Many rock star tech journalists are starting them and reporting decent subscription results. Why not be innovative and shake up the standard tech startup target media list strategy?
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Michelle McIntyre.
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