Bloggers Are Hard to Please and Hard to Pitch: Some Mistakes in Pitches from Startups

I am sure that every blogger has a rather extensive list of his or her preferences about how they want to be pitched by startups looking for the blogosphere coverage. And from time to time we all discuss the most funny or atrocious cases right in our blogs - probably hoping that startups will finally learn that we don’t want some things or we do want very different things. So I have decided to compile my own list of the most common mistakes that startups make when pitching bloggers (or at least what I consider mistakes myself).

But let me start with a small disclosure: unlike some other bloggers I do welcome pitches in my inbox because they simplify search for new information and interesting products to cover. What’s more, I believe that if someone has decided to go an extra step and send their pitch my way, they at least deserve a second look at the product itself. And even if I am not impressed, the chances of actually reviewing them are higher than when I simply bump into a review of this very product on some other blog. But even though I do like receiving pitches, I constantly notice some inexplicable mistakes startups make. Hopefully these mistakes are only obvious to us, the bloggers, and we simply have not communicated our preferences to startups clearly and this is exactly what this lengthy post is intended for.

So the mistakes as I view them are below:

Absence of a compelling summary in the first two sentences

I think it is evident that even the relatively well-known bloggers get quite a number of pitches in their inbox every day and we actually make the decision if this or that startup will get the coverage based on the first few sentences. The entire press release will be actually read only if the summary is compelling and gives me an idea of why this one is a unique product worth reviewing. This is why sending the press release without a sentence or two to introduce the product will rarely work.

Lack of details

While the introduction is crucial for the blogger to make a decision if the product is worth time and energy for coverage, if the decision is made, it is much more convenient when in addition to the short and catching summary we also have all the details we may need about the product or the company (like when the company was founded and how it is financed, what technologies are behind the product, etc.). If such details are readily available, it will really make writing the review much an easier thing to do.

Sure, we can always contact you for more information should we need it. And we can also browse your site looking for the information we are interested in. But in the blogosphere it is often important to be the first to write the review instead of waiting for some extra information while others publish their less informative posts. So do consider making our lives easier and don’t forget to provide all the information that you typically see in a startup review about your product and your business.

Failing to state where your product is unique

I believe that you think that your product is unique simply because you have come up with this extraordinary idea. I also hope that before starting the real coding you have done some research to make sure that the market is not 100% saturated and you do have something unique to offer to your potential users. But if you do know what makes your product unique, don’t forget to share this information with bloggers as well as it will certainly help.

Of course you can rely on me doing the research myself and making sure that I find out what it is that separates your product from competitors. But if I don’t see you mentioning this information yourself, I may very well come to a conclusion that it is just another clone that is not worth taking a look at. While a distinct sentence “Unlike products a, b, and c our product has the unique approach of…” will certainly help since everyone is already tired of writing about clones that completely duplicate the functionality of those products that they try to copy.

No mentioning of a monetization model

It is generally considered to be a good practice to describe monetization model of a startup when writing its initial review so bloggers do need this information. Sure, it may be enough for your potential users to know that “the service is 100% free” but we the bloggers need to know why it is so. It is very rare these days to see posts ending with “and the best part is that … is absolutely free to use” - it does not sound very professional and leaves questions to be asked.

Sure, for many startups (hopefully not for the majority) there may be absolutely no monetization model in place or even in plans. And while it is not good and may frowned upon by some grumblers among us, it is better to tell that honestly instead of making us speculate on what exactly it is.

But if you do have plans for how exactly you are going to monetize the application you are pitching, describe the plans at least in a few words if you want to prevent us from the wildest guesses.

The recent example here was my review of Social Call! by Arzoola. The email I received simply pointed that the service was free - without any additional details. So I made my guess and thought that the service was either going to monetize our phone numbers by selling them to local advertisers or it simply aimed to be acquired by Craigslist, the site that this service was initially developed for. But my guess was very far from the truth which I later found out from a post on Inquisitr and then from an email from the company’s CEO as well. The planned monetization model included both advertising (audio ads played while you are on hold) and some paid services as well.

This example proves that since we are fascinated with monetization models, it is better to give us some real information than making us guess. Sure, our guesses may show you some potential revenue stream for your product but we really want to provide our readers with some real information instead of some speculation so if such information exists, do bother to make it known to us.

Using previous coverage as a reason for us to your startup as well

Sure, I do realize that you are happy that you’ve made it to TechCrunch or The New York Times. What’s more, I am even willing to congratulate you on the fact that you got this coverage from prominent media outlets. But you fail to realize one thing: when you contact me with “We have already been covered on TechCrunch and I thought I’d contact you to see if you may be interested in reviewing our application as well” chances are I have already read about your application and I chose not to cover it myself - for whatever reason I had at the time.

True, not all the bloggers try to cover only the hot news items - we may choose to write about your startup even if you launched months ago (better if you have some news to announce but not required). So it is absolutely possible to get a review from other bloggers days or weeks after your initial launch date - if you contact us with a nice pitch explaining why you think our readers may be interested in your particular application. But you know how your pitch with references to your previous coverage sounds to me? It is:

“Hey guys, small and not all that important bloggers! We launched our application months ago and we were picked by TechCrunch for coverage back then. So we got a number of initial users who happened to be interested in trying our app out. But unfortunately only a handful of them stayed and I am looking for more users to adopt and actually use our application. So I started looking for various sources to see where I could get some additional coverage. You were not on our initial mailing list because we thought that making it to Techcrunch would certainly ensure success for our application and it would be enough. But now that we do need some help I thought I’d contact you and ask if you may be interested. Unfortunately we don’t have any news for your readers to find the piece interesting but I’m sure they don’t care - even if they all read about our application on Techcrunch, they can simply skip your post while I will at least get a link.”

This is exactly what it sounds like to me (and to editors of other medium-sized blogs, judging by my conversations with some of them) and this won’t get you any coverage. The only thing you will get (if I am in a particularly peaceful state of mind) is “Contact us when you have some news and we will consider your application for coverage”.

Not mentioning when exactly your application was launched

Chances are you have found yourself in the same position that is described in the previous item and decided that you need some extra coverage, even though you don’t have any news or achievements to brag about. So the best thing that you have come up with was a pitch describing your product as “recently launched” trying to pretend it’s newsworthy. But even if I have never heard of your product (or I have already forgotten mentions elsewhere), I do know how to use Google Blog Search - and this is what I do first thing after getting a pitch, I always check who said what about this application to make my decision as well.

So a better option here would be to tell exactly when the application was launched and explain why you are pitching it now. Even if your application is not new, a blogger can always consider some insights to be interesting and worth coverage (like the growth rate of your user base or the interesting ways that your customers use your application). Just try to be creative and come up with something that a blogger would be able to consider as an interesting piece of information.

Using the word “revolutionary” in your pitch

I think all the bloggers have seen this word used in pitches too often and they simply tend not to notice any revolution in every startup that chooses to claim it offers one. The number of buzzwords in your pitch should be reasonable and definitely should not exceed the number of normal words in it. It is not absolutely necessary to use buzzwords to describe the nature and goal of any application that has some real-life value to it. And if you can describe the application using normal language, chances are we will see the value ourselves and pick your particular application for coverage.

Sending your press release exactly on the launch date

This is the most common mistake that startups make: you tend to think that we sit and wait for your application to be launched so that we could immediately cover it. But we probably have other plans for this particular day and will not want to do it the next day. I personally prefer to have an announcement in my inbox a day or two in advance with a question “Would you be interested?” and a description of how I could take an early look along with the exact time and date when you plan to make the proper announcement and open the doors to the general public.

This approach will give me some time to write a review in advance and also contact you for additional information should I need it.

Besides, I don’t really see any reason for you not to do so. Are you afraid of someone breaking the embargo? For a new unknown product that is in stealth mode where our readers won’t be able to take a look themselves chances of us breaking an embargo to only send our readers to error 404 on your site does not really sound reasonable.

Launching on Tuesday

I believe that all the startups when looking for some tips and advice on how they should prepare for their launch invariably get advice that it is best to have the public opening from Tuesday through Thursday since these are the most active days in the blogosphere. But the startups seem to fail to realize that these are also the busiest days for the blogosphere with everyone launching on these 3 days of the week and not only will attention be scattered among all the products launched, you will also face the difficulty of even grabbing attention from bloggers when you most need it (unless you have provided the information a few days in advance).

Moreover, I have a feeling that all the startups now deem it a necessity and all of them choose Tuesday for launch, failing to realize that we have dozens of pitches in our inboxes this very day. In fact, I believe that a startup launched over the weekend may have even better chances of getting significant coverage with no news from big companies and almost nothing to write about. And if you do reach out in advance to announce that your product will go live on Saturday or Sunday, you will most certainly find your product in the publishing schedules for a few bloggers.

Well, these are a few tips that I have come up with myself. I am sure that they are not universal but hopefully they will show you the general direction of how you should approach and pitch bloggers even after your major launch announcement is made. Share your real-life experience as a blogger or as a startup owner in the comments, it will be interesting to get some extra proof for my words or know where failing to follow some (or all) of them actually turned to be a huge success.