A press release contains a good headline and a lead sentence with a significant quote, information, contact information, and a boilerplate. In contrast, a pitch must include some details about the service/product or about the person for whom you are writing. One can also use a pitch for commenting on the news industry or new trends.
Both press releases and pitches have advantages and must be included in marketing. A PR Company must offer media pitches and press releases from time to time as per the current trend to promote its brand to the public. Here, we will analyze various dissimilarities between a press release and a media pitch.
What is a press release?
A press release is defined as the written announcement of some events which are newsworthy in an organization. Its primary purpose is to gain the media's interest to rebroadcast the message to a larger audience.
Must follow while writing a press release:
- Communicate the primary message very quickly and clearly
Journalists will never go to spend unnecessary time reading about you. The press release should be crisp and should contain all the necessary information about you in brief.
- The announcement should be placed in a narrative context.
The context should include information about the new product and an increase in the market share. In this way, the announcement will be more enjoyable. Make the story be understood by the journalists easily.
- Links to other quotes, stats, material, and contact information must be included.
To keep the interest of the journalist on you, the access to the background information must be provided in the press release.
What is a media pitch?
A media pitch is a way of reaching the journalist to make them use your press release for media coverage. Media pitches focus on telling the importance of the information for the media.
A good media pitch must:
- Be direct and concise.
The pitch provided by a PR Agency should be to the point so that the journalist must take an interest in reading it and decide to publish it.
- The content should be personalized.
You must provide a high-standard context. For that, you can use practical online tools. The message should have an excellent structure.
- The subject line of messages and emails must be crisp.
You must keep an excellent subject to convince people to open the message.
List some differences between a press release and a media pitch.
●Through a press release, you are asking someone to have a look at your media pitch. Both the things are direct towards each other. The press release is like a message, while the pitch displays an attempt to make other people visit and read your message.
● There is always confusion between a media pitch and a press release, as both contain some elements which look the same. The pitch provided by a PR Company always refers to the information which the press release contains. The press release and media pitch are there to make some efforts to get coverage from the media.
● They are different in terms of purposes, strategies, and constructions.
Should your media pitch include your press release?
The press release cannot be attached to the pitch mail because:
● It is a challenging task to convince the journalist to open the mail. You cannot ask them to download another attachment; it will increase your chance of rejection.
● Downloading often comes with the doubt of computer safety or virus. Problems contained in the merging of press release content in the pitch mail are:
● Pasting the content in the pitch mail will increase the weight of the mail, which will increase the chances of a red flag for spam filters.
● Including the media pitch and press release together might degrade the power of both of them.
Conclusion
A media pitch and a press release are different from each other. Their structure, purpose, and meaning are different. You cannot attach the press release in the mail of the pitch. But sometimes, you can copy the content of the press release and paste it into a pitch to make the message more relevant and the same. But a PR digital marketing must keep them aside from each other. Both have many benefits, and a company should know them well.
