In previous blog posts, we’ve touched on the importance of having a good relationship with crypto journalists and crypto media as a whole. They can help to keep your business at the forefront of consumers’ minds and are a much-needed asset for any crypto project seeking longevity.
One major part of developing this relationship is pitching to crypto journalists. But how do you go about pitching in the first place? What’s more, how do you make sure that your pitches get accepted and you get the exposure you want? We break it down in this article:
Choose Your Publication
There are dozens of publications in the crypto space, and not every one will be a good fit for your business. This is why your first step should be to find the publications that are most suited to you. Try to narrow these down by niche; if you are an NFT project, look for publications that feature a lot of NFT-related stories, for example. You also want to consider leadership as you want as much exposure as possible. A look through Google will show the most popular sites and ideally, you want to target those. You can also apply a tiered system where you approach both bigger and smaller publications to give yourself the best chance.
Choose Your Crypto Journalists
After you’ve narrowed down your list of publications, you want to choose your journalists. As tempting as it is to reach out to a general email associated with the publication, you’re better off reaching out to an actual person for this purpose. First, you want to find out who is the most likely to respond to you. Search for your niche on the site and find out which journalists publish content related to it the most. Alternatively, you can search terms like ‘crypto journalist’ on Google and see the top names that come up. These are the people you should be targeting.
Find Contact Information
Of course, it would be pretty difficult to pitch to a journalist if you don’t know how to contact them in the first place. You’ll need to find out their contact info if you want to have a shot at publication and this can be easier said than done. The first place to try is the website they write for. Sometimes, their email address is posted for all to see and you can simply take it from there. Other times, you’ll have to dig a bit deeper. Search their name online and look for their LinkedIn, Twitter, or any other social media handle. If you see their email, you can go from there and if not, you might have to message them on social media.
Craft a Winning Email Title
Journalists for top projects already get several messages each day so you’ll have to get a bit creative to stand out from the others. Don’t put something in your email title like ‘new crypto project’ but instead, think of it as your first pitch. Let’s say your new crypto wallet can store a million different tokens. Craft an email title like ‘The Most Prolific Crypto Wallet on the Planet’. If you have a connection to a big name in the industry, make sure to mention it. ‘Binance-backed crypto wallet maker’ will grab more attention than just ‘crypto wallet maker’.
Frame Your Project
It’s not enough to simply reach out to a crypto journalist, even if you have a catchy email title to go along with it. Your project has to be framed as something that they benefit from talking about and not a favour you are asking them to do for you. If they cover a lot of exchange-related news, tell them that they can be the first to report on your exchange’s cutting-edge technology, for example. They have to be convinced that your project is newsworthy and this means highlighting its most interesting parts.
Be Timely
Sometimes, getting featured by crypto journalists boils down to the right timing. Essentially, you have to anticipate the type of story they will be looking to write and offer to make it easier for them. If a new law has been passed that affects crypto taxation and your business operates in that field, reach out to them and offer commentary. ‘Crypto tax expert comments on XYZ law’ would not only be a good email heading but would be the kind of content they would be looking for anyway. Taking advantage of the right timing is a skill you should not neglect.
Offer Perks and Exclusives
As we said in our post about developing a relationship with crypto media, offering perks and pitches to journalists is a way to build a relationship. Sometimes, your email shouldn’t be asking them to feature your business. Sometimes, it should be free tickets to an event or the offer of free merchandise/product. By doing this, you can get your foot in the door and the journalist might feel compelled to write about your business in an organic way.
Outsource
Sometimes, the process of pitching and dealing with rejections and being ignored isn’t for every business. You might not have the time to wait around for a feature, which is where the option to outsource or bypass pitching comes in. If you opt for our press release packages here at BTCWire, you’ll be guaranteed to have your news published on crypto sites of your choice, even some of the biggest in the industry. This can save you valuable time and effort to focus on other things.
Conclusion
Features from crypto journalists can be a way to generate visibility, sales, and other benefits for your business. But getting their attention, much less getting them to feature you, can be an uphill task. In this article, we’ve broken down the process of finding both the publications and the journalists that will most benefit you, as well as how to approach them for features. With persistence and luck, your business can get all the features you want.