Finally Capturing the Unicorn

A few weeks ago, the perfect HARO (Help A Reporter Out, for those of you uninitiated) came through from a very high-level reporter who’s something of a Unicorn at the Buchanan PR offices. Many have pitched her; no one has ever gotten a response. This new HARO wasn’t for a client, but for Buchanan PR itself and I decided to take my chances.

So, off I went, drafting my pitch and rewriting it at least five times, mulling over the subject line for a solid 10 minutes and then hitting send with much hesitation. When I didn’t hear back, I thought, “Oh well, another one down the tubes.” Then, like magic about a week-and-a-half later, a reply appeared in my inbox that said, “Nicole, I’d love to speak with Anne. Can you set it up?” I immediately told my coworkers who were shocked and excited. When Anne was interviewing with the Unicorn, we learned a few things: She will only cover a company once, she gets between 50-100 HARO responses each time she posts one and she loved my pitch so much she had to tell Anne. Anne asked to see my pitch – I was a little nervous, I mean I liked my pitch, but I didn’t think it was Oscar-worthy or anything. Anne agreed with the Unicorn and asked me to share it with the team.

Fast forward to last week, when another HARO comes through from the Unicorn and this one is  a great fit for a client. Even though I have somewhat of a relationship with her now, I was still feeling the pressure to come up with a pitch that was worthy of her praise.  I went through the same routine of writing, rewriting, mulling and hitting send. Again, I didn’t hear from her until yesterday, a reply came through that said she’d like to speak with my client and she was glad I reached out again. I felt like I’d hit the jackpot…a second time!

So, why give you all of this background? Because I want to offer some tips on the way I pitched the Unicorn and why I think it worked:

1. I was completely on-target: This goes without saying, but when you’re responding to a HARO or ProfNet, you should never send something that’s not 100-percent what the reporter is requesting. When I see something that’s “kind-of” right, I’ll usually make a note to add that person to my future media lists, so he/she is receiving all of the appropriate client’s information.

2. The subject line: If the reporter is getting 50-100 responses to a query, your subject needs to stand out. I decided to go with witty in both cases. My subject lines pulled out what was most important about my ideas, but weren’t boring.

3. I let my personality shine through: When I tell stories, I inject a little humor and fun into them. I tried to do that in the first pitch (which was a more feature-y topic). The second pitch was more business-oriented, but I still kept it conversational. Reporters are people and I think sometimes we’re so focused on making sure they have the information that we forget to be human with them.

4. I kept it short: I’m a huge fan of brevity in pitches. In fact, my most successful pitch ever (until now) was only three sentences. So, in both cases, I kept it brief and to-the-point. I included only enough to interest her and have her request more information.

Now that I’ve established a relationship with the Unicorn, I feel confident that I can pitch her without a HARO, when appropriate. And, I’ll use the same style of pitching again.

Do you have a Unicorn? What’s worked for you when pitching high-level reporters?