How do you approach bloggers or media to cover your startup stories?

It is really difficult task. Sometimes it is possible to find some good bloggers on fiveer. They write and publish about you for 15-30 $

(x-post from my comments on /r/androiddev. This was about an Android app)

If you have an interesting app, no need to hurry and ask for paid reviews. Just go ahead and pitch it to editors via the standard form — you may get their attention for free.

My biggest advice would be to stay sincere and not try too hard to sell.

Here's what I did.

First, I assembled a press kit (a zip with a doc+pdf description of the app, some screenshots, videos/gifs, marketing assets etc — you can check it out here).

Then, I put together a list of media I wanted to reach out (niche ones like Lifehacker, leading ones like The Verge and Techcrunch, Android apps oriented like Android Authority and Android Police).

Then I started writing out messages. These websites usually have a submission form (labeled as "tip us", "suggest an article" etc) or editor contacts, in which case you'd want to research which editor usually writes about what and then choose one to pitch to.

What I did was typing each message manually instead of just sending the same one — in retrospective that might've been excessive, but it gave my messages character. I heard that the best time to pitch to media was ~lunch time in SF, which was late night in my time zone. So as I was typing my messages, I was getting more and more sleepy, and those letters were getting more and more trashy. Last one was Android Police, where I wrote something along the lines of "I've made an app that will BLOW YOUR MIND! It's a reminder app (WAT?)". Funnily, it's the only one that worked, and the AP journalist wrote me back.

That said, don't take this as an advice to write dank trashy letters. Your mileage may vary. But also avoid writing boring, bland letters — as I learned from one tech journalist at a conference who spoke about getting media attention, boring letters and press releases are the worst.

Also, don't worry if out of 10 sent letters you'll only get 1 or 2 replies. That would still be an awesome result. Getting featured on AP ultimately resulted in my app being picked by some other smaller media as well.

Good luck!

P.S. As for those pitch letters, keep them short and with only one call-to-action (link to your website or app, you can highlight it with a 👉 emoji for example) and a link to your press-kit. Just explain the bare minimum what your app is about, e.g. what is unique about it.

Hi @sumanjung - if you haven't already done so, start by hiring someone experienced to write a proper press release which can then be pitched to media outlets and bloggers via email. If possible, budget $200+ for professional results. Here's a good read if you're interested https://500.co/pr-for-startups-the-art-of-the-press-release-in-7-steps/ Good luck!

I've spent 3 years pitching startups to bloggers and media. These startups have been a bottled water company (the water is black) and a consumer tech startup (I was the country manager and basically I just focused on PR).

One thing you do not want to do is pitch anyone and everyone. Media and bloggers all follow trends both globally and within their industry/niches. Therefore you always need to find relevance between you, your startup and what you are doing and how it correlates to the trending news today, again based on industry/niche etc.

This can be tricky and time consuming but if you want to get genuine coverage and not just spam the crap out of writers then find out about editorial/features calendars and generally just engage with your desired writers. Understand what they write about and see if you can figure out when they will write etc.

Then there is the pitch itself. Remember journalists/writers are not buying anything. They will 100% definitely not include your press release if you use sales/marketing language. Instead, be factual, provide data, learning points and comment on the latest trends.

Honestly, it's a tough one but it's like sales. The journalists you pitch needs to buy-in to your story. Most of the time these writers are compensated based on traffic to each article they write - they need to think about that first over your story.

Plus, do all of the leg work. Media ready images, PDFs to a press kit, quotes, data and links. Wrap it up and send it over to your media contacts The rest is up to them.

Very interesting. I would love to hear ideas anyone has, too! Will be very useful as folyoz.net launches.