How to find the right angle to pitch

No matter where you submit your press release, no one is going to publish what you say unless it is newsworthy. Before I explain what it means to be newsworthy or how you can become newsworthy, let me explain what is not newsworthy.

If your press release talks about a sale, that is not newsworthy. It is advertising. If your press release talks about how great your products or services are, that is not newsworthy. That is advertising. If your press release talks about the fact that you, your products or your services exist, that is not newsworthy either.

So what is newsworthy? The short answer is: Anything new to you or your business. The long answer is it depends on whose perspective you are considering. News editors and features editors will have a different view of what is newsworthy than a business editor will.

So how do you find the right angle to pitch in your press release? Well first consider your audience. If you are trying to get across how successful your company is by releasing your quarterly earnings report, then you are trying to reach maybe investors. You will likely submit your press release to business editors and so therefore, a press release announcing all the money you made in the last quarter is the right angle.

Your company isn’t limited to that angle however. Often times your company has more than one newsworthy angle. Now say that your company has made all of this money in the last quarter largely because of the popularity of a new product line that has moms everywhere clamouring to get their hands on one. Well now you’ve got a feature story about a hot new product trend.

So often the question becomes not really what is the right angle, but where to pitch that angle. Most businesses have several reasons why they are newsworthy. Write a press release for each angle you can think of and submit it to various outlets. Test your results.