Great PR and quality backlinks are two key ingredients for boosting domain authority in the eyes of online users and in the competitive arena of organic search.
The road to PR and backlinks can be tough and treacherous, however. You need to build relationships with firms, influencers, media aggregators, and other industry-leading authority sites to get a seat at the table. It takes patience and tact to do it right.
What if there was an easier way to get the good word out about your brand while earning a valuable backlink at the same time? That’s an SEO home run.
Help a Reporter Out (HARO) changes the game by connecting journalists with sources and giving brands the chance to get a high-profile spotlight on major media websites.
HARO may not be the most intuitive platform out there, but there is a method to the madness. Let’s walk through the seven components of the perfect HARO pitch, so you can connect with the best journalists in the business and earn the top news spots for your brand.
1. Filter Your Emails
The best way to describe the HARO user experience is HIGH-VOLUME. We’re talking about thousands of posts popping up in your inbox daily, which means you need a way to sort through the chaos and find worthy pursuits.
When starting out, analyze each email to see what categories best apply to your business, and pinpoint the keywords most relevant to your campaigns.
Because you’ll be receiving a bare minimum of three emails a day from the platform, trimming the fat will be key. Set up filters based on keyword and topic to find the needles in the limitless haystack that is the HARO email thread.
2. Respond ASAP
The expression “time is money” applies perfectly to the HARO pitch process, where you can win or lose a great opportunity in a matter of seconds.
Your response time needs to be almost instantaneous to get replies from top-level journalists because their inboxes are constantly being flooded with messages just like yours.
Sometimes, it’s more about speed than quality, so don’t worry about finding the perfect words. Make sure your response meets your own core standards of presentation, then ship it!
If your message conveys the key information and shows up in time, your chances of success are way higher than spending hours editing and revising a flawless email.
3. Keep Things Brief
Short and sweet is the name of the game when pitching to journalists through HARO, and the last thing you want to do is transcribe your life story when trying to land a deal.
Not only will you save yourself valuable time by crafting concise pitches, but your emails will also be more palatable to the typical journalists who have to sort through thousands of messages daily. It’s simply good etiquette, and you’ll be rewarded for your brevity.
According to Cision, journalists prefer HARO pitches to be around 175 words, and give yourself a strict cutoff at 300 if you feel like you’ve gone overboard!
4. Flash Your Credentials
As a growing brand with traction in your industry, there’s no reason not to brag a little bit when pitching to journalists via HARO. It’s smart networking to show what you bring to the table.
Throw out some sales figures if you want, or simply talk about your favorite aspects of your brand in an authentic way. If you present your brand with clear, strong messaging, you’re more likely to connect with journalists who actually care.
It may be smart to write out a summary of your company beforehand and just copy/paste into every pitch to speed things up and get more emails out per day. According to Everything PR, your digital business card can be a make-or-break factor.
5. Address Relevant Topics
As mentioned earlier, your email filters should weed out all the HARO posts that don’t directly relate to your mission, but you still need to zero in on topics that suit your goals.
Be highly selective with the posts you decide to pursue because if you’re off the mark just a little bit, it will be unlikely to pan out in your favor.
Accept the fact that many emails will not contain posts worth your time. At first, send out messages just to get a feel for the platform, but eventually, you’ll want to use tunnel vision and ignore any threads that aren’t right on target.
6. Be Clear With Your Goals
Transparency is underrated when doing any kind of networking since everyone wants to present themselves in the best light and minimize their shortcomings.
That makes sense when shaking hands at a cocktail party, but in the rapid-fire arena of HARO, you need to get to the point fast and make your objectives crystal clear from the start. According to Buzzstream, goal-setting upfront is the only way to make HARO work for you.
Tell journalists exactly what’s on your mind for a particular job, and don’t hesitate to spell out an exact game plan for them to follow. This will not only land you more responses, but it will also make things easier when it comes time to get to work.
7. Make It Easy to Follow Up
Everyone operates a bit differently on HARO, so take all the guesswork out of communication by providing journalists with a clear way to reach you.
Offer your main email address, phone number, and even networking site info so that you can make connections faster and facilitate an agreement on a project.
Remember, everything happens fast on HARO, so it’s better to play by the rules of the journalist to get what you want out of the partnership.
Be relaxed, be amicable, but keep the pressure on to get moving in the right direction. You’ll learn the dance of HARO interactions soon, and it will be a huge asset to your digital marketing game plan.
Conclusion
As your HARO prowess improves, you’ll see the benefits more clearly than ever. The best journalists will make your products and services shine in the spotlight, which will attract clicks and help boost sales in short timeframes.
HARO is also an overlooked SEO hack since the backlinks you earn from each article will elevate your pages in organic search and become far more visible.
Learn to streamline and supercharge your HARO pitch process and all this will happen faster than you expect. These tips will certainly help out.
If you need the guidance of a freelancer or agency to accelerate your efforts, do that. Just don’t miss out on the big benefits of HARO in 2020 and beyond.
Sources: