Hayley Woodin's Tips to Entice Reporters

Hayley discusses some of the ins and outs of the news world today and how marketers can put together stories to pitch reporters that will entice them to take them on.

Hayley says there is a real-time tracker at Business in Vancouver and Glacier Media that allows reporters and staff to track which stories are being read the most at any given time. She says that stories need to be relevant and timely to catch a reporter’s attention and a good way to line up with what they want could be to check the most asked questions on Google at the time.

In order to pitch a business publication like BIV Hayley suggests that marketers can start by bringing consumer-facing stories (e.g. differences between vodka sodas) and look a little deeper into the business aspect behind those consumer stories. In other words, writing about the business that has created/affected the trend and what the business decisions or processes were behind the move.

With increased layoffs at news organizations, many reporters have been making their way themselves to the PR world. Haley says that former reporters can bring great value to PR as they have the knowledge on how to put together a story to bring value to the story and how to fact-check a story properly. She believes that former reporters would be very valuable to PR as content providers.

With regards to the advertorial-style (sponsored content) articles, Hayley thinks they are very valuable and there is a market for it but it should be clearly marked as being sponsored content. These days too many stories are quickly shared on social media and circulated quickly so sponsored content needs to be clearly identified to ensure readers can quickly know that the content is coming from an advertiser and not from an independent, unbiased reporter.

Written By Claudia Palomino