Lazy PR and the vital importance of well-targeted pitches

By: John Bowes, Senior Account Manager

Many years ago, on my way to work as a junior PR person, I would listen to the Radio X breakfast show, presented at the time by radio comedy stalwart Jon Holmes.

Every Friday the team ran a feature called Lazy PR, where they would mercilessly mock all of the badly targeted press releases they’d received in the past seven days, all of which were totally inappropriate for a rock music station.

The pitches would normally consist of an offer of an interview with a former Olympic ice skater, TV gardening celebrity or fly-fishing expert, pushing a new product or book totally unsuited to the listenership.

Sometimes B2B pitches would find their way into the inbox, and Jon would sarcastically agonize over whether he should invite a sewage treatment expert onto the air to discuss the latest decontamination systems in between indie bangers. 

How to avoid the ‘Lazy PR’ pile

As well as being highly amusing, it was also an eye-opener as to the volume of media pitches being carpet-bombed out to every imaginable media title, regardless of whether they had the slightest relevance to the target audience.

The lesson for PR people is clear. You might have crafted a perfectly-worded pitch, but it will be pointless if you haven’t consider who you’re sending it to.

99 times out of 100, the email will simply be deleted. Even if, by some chance, an ill-suited journalist decides to pick up your story, getting featured in a publication that isn’t seen by your target audience won’t achieve meaningful results anyway.

It’s crucial to do the research and be familiar with any given publication’s news values, style, tone, and perspective.

Crafting pitches that get noticed

Understanding what a journalist values in a story is key to crafting a pitch that grabs their attention. Keeping a laser focus on the elements that resonate most with the reporter’s interest will dramatically increase your chances of landing a successful placement.

By approaching pitching with a thoughtful, personalised strategy, you’ll not only avoid the ‘Lazy PR’ pile but also build stronger relationships with journalists and secure coverage that actually hits the mark.

So, if you’ve ever been tempted to throw a few more titles into the media list for a pitch thinking ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’ The answer is that you could risk doing more harm than good.

While you’d be very unlucky to be torn to shreds in front of the nation by a breakfast radio DJ, there’s a very good chance your pitches will go straight in the bin, and you might risk gaining a damaging reputation as a time waster that could prove hard to shake.