24hourhomepage.com — Week 18—Pitching local TV
tl;dr: Last week I emailed and called all the TV newsrooms in Los Angeles. Heard “…that does sound like an interesting story”. More organic growth this week.
# Overview
Last week — in my effort to make 24hourhomepage.com the best 24-hour “movie” on the internet and get better at sales and marketing along the way — I reached out to all local TV newsrooms in LA to pitch my story. I did so by sharing a Press Release in Q&A form and also by calling each newsroom to chat with the reporters.
# Pitching local newsrooms
People love local news. Sure, we have all sorts of other channels to get our news fix but local news still has a hold on our attention.
That’s why last week I focused on engaging with local TV stations. I spoke to LA newsroom journalists about how to get a local story published and they all suggested I email them my pitch.
“What’s the turnaround time?” I asked
“Impossible to say. They might publish your story without talking to you too”
Exciting. So we’re working in the dark! 🔦
Los Angeles has a ton of TV stations. I reached out to 16 that I felt would like to hear the story. I emailed them, then called the newsroom to see if I could chat with any reporter, then emailed again.
Some marketing professionals I spoke with recommended I send the pitch as a “Press Release” in Q&A form.
Why Q&A? Because a reporter who picks up the story could then craft the narrative as they see fit based on the quotes provided. Here’s the press release I sent out.
The story of growing 24hourhomepage changes each week so you can bet I’ll be sending more press releases as the story evolves!
# Organic growth 🌱
As you know, my recent focus has been more on “spreading the word” than on direct sales. This has meant more of my weekly sales have come from “organic” traffic: people who have found the website by some means other than my explicit marketing.
Just wanted to note that organic sales are amazing! Part of me feels great because “the product sells itself” and the analytical part of me wants to find more of these customers and put more efforts there!
# This week
I’m reaching out to the rest of my podcast list, continue distributing the press release to various outlets, build up my karma on Reddit and dream up a few new marketing stunts…
# How you can help
Question for you: If you had to cut out all social media and could only get your digital news from one source, what would it be?
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Email: justin@24hourhomepage.com
Twitter: @justinprojects
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/higginsjustin/
Newsletter: https://tinyletter.com/higgins
Cell: (510) 393–6888
