My husband Keith, a PHOENIX TV reporter, received a mass email pitch about a FLORIDA home for sale. Or maybe the angle was about the real estate firm now using social media? Either way, the email was off on many levels:
- There was nothing personal about it. The pitch could just have been a junk email sent to my mom. No salutation, not directed at Keith. Wrong reporter period.
- We live in the desert. Across the country. Why would anyone here care? Besides, Floridians seem to be migrating to the Valley of the Sun to escape hurricanes and the high cost of home insurance.
- The real estate firm is now using social media! Woo-hoo! That’s good news. For them.
So, what could this real estate firm have done differently?
- Find a Phoenix connection. Localize their pitch so viewers here would care.
- Focus on people, not products. See our earlier blog post about building your story around people not products.
- Personalize their pitch. Find out whom to direct it to.
- Don’t dilute the pitch with too many angles. Zero in on one great pitch at a time.
- Don’t send anything at all. It was a far stretch to call their “story” news.
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