How to sell a nose bidet
This week I became acquainted with with the BadPitch blog, and I’m loving it. As a former journalist, I experienced more bad pitches than I can count, many of them from nonprofits. I had a very large circular file at my desk.
Let me share with you the ways to really irritate a reporter:
1. Call simply to ask if someone got your press release. This is the #1 pet peeve of most journalists. Don’t do it.
2. Pitch something that shows you did absolutely no homework on the reporter or their media outlet—ie, pitching a story they’d never cover or one they just did.
3. Fail to get their attention and interest in the first five seconds/words of your contact with them.
I could go on like the cranky journalist I once was, but instead, let me share the following mold-breaking pitch of a bizarre product, courtesy of BadPitch.
What, you may ask, is this thing?
It’s a nose bidet – or nose douche. Yep, it is.
Now, imagine your job is to pitch this product to media. Do you feel a rush of gratitude that it’s not? OK but imagine it is. What would you do?
Now check out the pitch job that was done and the coverage that resulted. And that’s not counting Oprah. Or USA Today. Or NPR. Wow. The pitch (which has the word sh*t in it, just warning you) actually became the story. And that wasn’t all that bad an outcome, considering. Wow. Now that’s creatively engaging a jaded member of the media.
Syndicate
But do they have anything for pedic perspiration?