Crafting successful media pitches can be challenging. Incorporating relevant data can substantially strengthen your story pitch, gain the attention of journalists, and improve the chances that the pitch leads to a favorable media mention.

Research papers and statistics are now readily available, thanks in a large part to Big Data. With just a little work, you can probably find relevant and attention-grabbing research data on your article topic no matter what the subject. Besides strengthening the story pitch, insights backed by statistics help journalists get an angle on the story, increasing the chances it will be published.

Sometimes a single statistic may be enough to prove your point. However, combining related statistics from different sources often helps develop a stronger story. When crafting a pitch remember to provide context and identify insights rather than simply including numbers. Sharing a full chart or other data visualization from your article can make the pitch even more compelling – especially to journalists at B2B publications.

Possible Uses for Numbers

Here are some ideas for using statistics and other data in media pitches. Data can be used to:

  • Compare your company’s performance, or performance of its clients, against industry benchmarks to demonstrate the value of its products or its robust recent growth.
  • Display a problem that your company’s product or services addresses.
  • Illustrate an unfulfilled desire of consumers or business the company meets.
  • Reveal a widespread lack of information your company addresses through its educational efforts.
  • Report data that reveals market conditions.

Consider your own company’s data. Some organizations have customer data that they can analyze to find industry trends and compare to industry benchmarks. Even relatively new companies can compare their customers to industry benchmarks.

Another option is to conduct your own research. You can survey customers and prospects about their opinions, lifestyles and other topics related to your organization.

What Else to Provide

To make the article pitch even more attractive to journalists, include:

• Contact information for a subject matter expert or top executive at your company who will be ready to be interviewed at the journalist’s convenience.

• Contact information for interview sources at other organizations, such as trade associations or nonprofits. Secure permission before including other contact sources.

• Links to third-party research completed by government agencies, business groups or others.

Including data isn’t the only way to enrich pitches. Good media pitches contain information that’s timely, relevant, useful or somehow interesting to journalists and their audiences. Focus on the benefits for readers – a solution to a problem, a trend or useful information — rather than your company.

Following PR pitching best practices improves the odds of capturing a journalist’s interest and of gaining positive media mentions. Keep each pitch as succinct as possible. Tailor pitches to journalists based on their beat and publication’s audience rather than taking a shotgun approach. In following up, avoid pestering that alienates journalists.

Better pitches – ones that focus on meeting the needs of the journalist and the readers – produce more and better placements. [Maybe I should look for some data that proves it!]

Bottom Line: Attention-getting data can be the tipping point in successful media pitches. Including statistics from surveys and other research can prove your point and vastly improve the attractiveness of your pitch. With so much information now available and easily accessible through online research, it’s now much easier for PR to uncover pertinent data for media pitches and stories. Framing the data to be relevant to the individual journalist and publication is key to attracting interest and getting placements.