PR agencies are pretty bad at pitching.

Most PR agencies are bad at pitching. Not all of them, but enough that journalists have stopped opening the emails.

Why? Here are a few thoughts …

They pitch a product, not a story. It’s not a journalist’s job to sell cheese-flavoured beer. It’s their job to tell stories that matter to their audience.

They haven't done the homework. If a pitch goes to fifty publications unchanged, then it’s just spam.

They bury the news. The email runs to six paragraphs, and somewhere in the fourth there's a fact worth writing about. There’s a better than even chance the journalist never read that far.

They don't deliver what they promised. The CEO interview turns out to be a "written Q&A subject to approval". The exclusive was shopped to three other outlets. The spokesperson is nowhere to be found.

They confuse persistence with strategy. Three follow-ups a day isn't diligence. It's annoying.

None of this is complicated. But it does require agencies think differently.

Start with a story worth telling. Then find the person who might help you tell it.