Why you can't shortcut a media relationship
Journalists complain about bad pitches, but spare a thought for the PR under pressure to announce…
Pillar 09 · Activation
Media CRM
Builds the relationships that get you heard, over time.
A relationship-first, long-game approach to the people who can reach your audiences, nurtured over time like a pipeline rather than worked one transactional pitch at a time.
Media CRM is the method’s last mile, and it starts from a simple idea: people are a channel, not the audience. The audiences you are trying to reach, the customers, investors, partners and hires, sit on the far side of the people who can carry your message to them.
Some of those people are journalists. Many are not. They are the analysts, podcasters, newsletter writers and well-connected voices who command an audience you need, or who can introduce you directly to the people who will help you grow. All of them belong in the CRM, tiered by influence and nurtured deliberately.
The way those relationships are built is by being useful: a reliable source, fast with a comment, generous with data. Bring people things between asks. Spreading effort evenly across a flat list wastes it, because influence is concentrated, and without a record of who has been contacted, what they have covered and what is next, outreach repeats itself and drops threads.
The most common error is treating these people as the audience rather than as the channel to it. At full maturity the spokespeople are known sources who are approached for comment, and coverage compounds.
Tiers and stages
- Premium
- Top-tier national press and flagship trade titles. Highest value, highest effort.
- Tier 1
- The most respected sector trade press. A brand most companies would be proud to be featured in.
- Tier 2
- Lesser-known sector trade or niche sub-vertical titles.
- SEO
- Publications that will publish most things. Useful for backlinks and share of voice, but they do not carry much influence.
- Awareness stages
- Every contact sits at one of four stages: Unaware, Contacted, Engaged, Covered.
Go deeper
Writing on media crm
- How to decide which journalists to pitchMatt Phillips PR ↗
- How to pitch a story to a journalistMatt Phillips PR ↗