My guest today is a true media ninja. Jess Todtfeld is going to share with us the techniques he used to break the Guinness World Record for doing the most radio interviews in a 24 hour period. In addition to being an amazing public speaker Jess Todtfeld brings with him 13 years of experience as a TV producer for NBC, ABC and FOX. He’s booked and produced over 5,000 segments. His producing credits include being part of the team that launched the O’Reilly factor and Fox and Friends.
Reach out to the boss: In radio the boss is the program director so Jess made a list of program directors for talk radio around the U.S and just worked that list. He would send out emails with different angles, or hooks, on the story. You have to be smart about this though.
The most important part of an email pitch: Writing the subject line is the most important thing you can do in the process of pitching. It has to be a headline that grabs people, lets them know it’s not junk, and compels them to open the email.
One extra layer: The headline needs to be in the email big and bold and should look like a newspaper headline.
Avoid “spray and pray”: In the PR industry “spray and pray” refers to sending junk emails out all over without even knowing who you’re sending it to and without putting your name in it. This rarely works and if you do it you’re setting yourself up for it to be terrible.
Pro tip: Make your emails look like you literally wrote it to one person. Jess will copy and paste his email signature from his personal email so it looks like he’s sent out just one email.
The importance of using an email service provider with tracking:
· Allows you to see whether someone has opened your email, how many times they’ve opened it, and any links they’ve clicked on. Gmail, and other personal emails, do not allow this.
· Use a system to keep track of who clicked. These are your top people who have some level of interest. You can then take the extra step of picking up the phone or sending a one on one email. For those who never opened the email you can try sending out another email with a different subject line or angle.
Pro tip: Never tell someone that you know whether or not they clicked on your email!
Jess’s ninja tips for getting press: Have your list of media contacts queued and ready to go so if something happens in the news or in your business you can jump on it. Be like Nike and just do it. In the beginning of the email say “Hi (First name)” followed by “Does the story below work for your show?”
One of Jess’s secrets to success with the media: Help them and do as much of the work for the media person as you can. Be a resource to them. Ask what you can do to help whether it’s providing pictures or video or even suggesting other interview subjects.
More ninja tips:
· Put pictures in the body of the email. A newspaper without pictures is boring. Your email without pictures is also boring!
· If you know someone who would be a great fit for a show suggest them to the producer.
· Jess’s advice to get out of the baby pool and into the ocean: Play big, be dedicated to your process and figure out who your target market is.
· Find the shortcut to getting your email opened by the producer of your dreams with the 58-headline template pack!
· For a special limited time offer on Jess’s media list visit prmarketinginsider.com and use promo code “baby”. When you sign up write Jess a note telling him something you liked about the show today and he will respond to you personally.
· Listen to this episode!