How to Pitch Magazines & Blogs: Why We Built a PR Course that’s only $15
In the spirit of everything we do, we wanted to create something actionable and fluff-free. Wolf Craft was designed to be accessible PR. Everyone has to start somewhere, and we wanted to create a useful and super affordable guide that anyone could use to pitch their work, fast.
Each day you will dive into a different aspect of pitching. Who should I pitch? What are my story angles? What kind of images should I use? And more. Each day will also end with a homework assignment to be completed before the next lesson. We know that it’s one thing to hear or read something, but the learning really sticks when you do something.
At the end of the week you’ll have a pitch ready to go to a publication you’ll feel confident is a good fit for your work.
Below are a few more reasons we put this course together and what you can expect from it. We’re really proud of it and we can’t wait to see how it works for you!
Why did we launch a five day how to pitch mini PR course?
When putting together this mini course, we wanted to focus on two key things:
PR basics
Giving you the opportunity for a win
Press outreach and media strategy can be quite overwhelming, especially for business owners who are new to this world. PR has a lot of moving parts, and often it’s hard to know exactly where to start.
We created this course so that after one week you’ll have a concrete outcome — a pitch that’s ready to send. Along the way, you’ll learn PR basics on topics like publication research, story angles, and image selection.
Why are we giving our expertise away at such a low price?
There are a lot of free and in expensive resources already, but if you’re anything like us you’ve found yourself in the three-hour internet hole just searching for a straight forward how to.
So, we set out to create a useful, straight forward, no-fluff course specifically about how to pitch magazines and blogs.
We founded Wolf Craft because we wanted to work with creative businesses who haven’t been able to engage with a PR firm in the past. Often these small business owners know they want press, and should be going after it, but are unsure of how and more importantly, what gaps they need to fill for successful media outreach.
We built this course so as you complete it you’ll learn pitching basics while also identifying gaps you may need to fill, like more photography or an updated sales page.
Learn by doing. Until you do the work to send out your first pitch, you won’t know what you don’t know, and you won’t know exactly where you need improvement.
What you’ll learn in our PR course
1. How to choose the right publication for your work
Choosing the right outlets for your work is the most important first step of press outreach. It will guide the story angels you brainstorm and write, the types of images you take, and the pitches you ultimately send out.
While we would all like to be in the New York Times or Design Milk, these publications may not always be a great fit for the product or project you’re sending their way.
It is important to select publications that are appropriate outlets for your work. This means making sure a publication’s editor or influencer blogger knows that their audience will have an interest in your work.
2. How to understand what makes your work newsworthy
You have to know exactly what makes your work or project newsworthy before you start pitching. That is, you must be able to clearly identify the specific aspect that’s engaging, memorable, or relevant. This is the reason an editor will actually write about it.
What makes something *newsworthy* informs the ‘hook’ or unique story angle, the lens through which you talk about a project or product.
Take a look at the titles of articles about similar projects. The story angle is likely in the heading.
In the mini course we list out several tried and true story angles used in articles about creative fields. You can use these prompts to start brainstorming about your own work.
3. How to write an effective and clear pitch
We’re all busy. But few people’s busyness is as confined to their inbox as editors, many of whom get 100+ emails per day. That’s a lot of emails.
Think about what you wouldn’t even bother opening or reading if you spend 5+ hours a day, every day, sifting through emails.
What does this mean for you? Your pitch email should be short, concise, and to the point. Pitches are an exercise in editing and distilling only the most relevant aspects of your work so editors can *very quickly* glean why you are reaching out and what specifically you’re pitching.
On day three of the mini course we give you tried and true tips you can use to make sure you are putting your best foot forward when you send your first pitch out.
4. How to select the right images for your outreach email
If I had only one piece of advice for any designer, any maker, any company, and nearly any product, it would be to invest in photography.
Media-quality images of your projects, work, or products are truly the most essential tool to securing press placements. We as designers and creators, we work in a visual field, and at the end of the day magazines and blogs are like big picture books.
By day four of the mini course you’ll know the publications and editors you want to reach out to and the unique story angle you’ll be pitching. This lesson focuses on how to select the *right* images of your work that support the story you are pitching.
Want more support? We created three PDF guides all about photography for media outreach, to help you understand the seven different types of photography used in the media and what images work best for different media opportunities.
5. How to pitch & follow up without being annoying
By day five our mini PR course, you’ll have a pitch ready to send to a specific editor at a specific publication.
The course will also give you a much better understanding of how to research publications, find story angles, craft pitches, and assess what assets to include in your pitch.
Pitching your new project or collection can be one of the most important things you do to support new work.
If you comb through the pages of your favorite magazines and blogs you’ll find your peers and companies you admire getting recognized for their work. But how do you reach out and how do you know that your email will land in the right inbox? What is the best way to get your new work in front of editors? These common questions are why our very first mini course is all about how to pitch magazines and blogs.
Happy Pitching!
