In 2015 I was running a dating blog and I wanted press.
So I did what most people do. I found the contact page on every news site I could think of, wrote a generic press release, and submitted it through the form. Over and over. For months.
Nobody responded. Not once.
Then my friend Michael showed me what he was doing differently. He had a spreadsheet. Names. Direct emails. What beat each journalist covered. He was not sending press releases to general inboxes. He was pitching specific reporters who already covered his space.
I took what he showed me and started doing it my own way. Over three years I sent thousands of pitches. I tested every angle, every subject line, every approach. I built a system that actually worked.
200+ features later. New York Times three times. BBC twice. Forbes. TechCrunch. Bloomberg. Good Morning America. All without an agency. Zero dollars on outside help.
Here is what I figured out.
The pitch is not about your product. It is about the angle. And the angle changes depending on what is happening in the world, what the journalist covers, and what makes YOUR story interesting to THEIR audience.
When COVID hit, everyone was sheltering in place. I had a video dating app called Filteroff. That is a story. Singles going on dates from their couch while the world shuts down. I pitched BBC journalists who cover new tech products. This was not a product pitch. It was news. Something innovative happening during a moment everyone was living through. BBC ran it. The piece aired in London while I was asleep in New York. Our servers crashed from the traffic.
Later I wanted TechCrunch coverage. I did not pitch a dating app. I had a story about catching scammers. We built a system that detected scammers on our app and dropped them into a fake dating pool with AI bots. We published the conversations. "Nurse and Teacher." "Male or Female?" We called it the Bot Anger series.
I found reporters who covered online fraud and creative tech. Pitched them the scammer story. TechCrunch covered it. Gizmodo covered it. Not because Filteroff was groundbreaking technology. Because the angle was weird and interesting and it fit their beat.
Same system both times. Start with the angle. Find journalists who cover that beat. Pitch the story, not the product.
Here are the angles that work over and over:
- Newsjacking: attach your story to something already in the news
- The stunt: do something unusual enough that it becomes the story
- Subject matter expertise: position yourself as the source on a topic a journalist already covers
- The cultural moment: tie your product to a trend people are already talking about
- The data angle: share numbers or insights journalists can build a piece around
- The big name launch: attach a notable investor, a celebrity, or a major partner to your story
One business can use 20 or 30 different angles over the course of a year. I pitched Filteroff from dozens of angles across 3 years. Every event was a new story. Every partnership was a new angle. Every cultural moment was a new pitch.
I built PressPitch AI to make this process faster. It helps you find the right journalists who cover your beat, craft the angle, and make sure your email actually lands in their inbox. If you want to try it: https://presspitchai.com
What is an angle you have been sitting on but have not pitched yet? Hit reply and tell me. I read every one.
Talk soon,
Zach
P.S. If you are working on your press strategy and want to brainstorm angles together, I open up a few calls each month. Head to zachschleien.com and book a time.
…as an aside I partnered with tvScientific below. Give them a try.
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