Our Six Must-Know Tips for Pitching Press Stories

As you may already know, before starting The Vintage Round Top, I had a 22-year career in the fashion industry working as the Vice President at Page Parkes Models and Smoot has owned and operated a variety of successful restaurants and night clubs. So, to say we were familiar with all things press related would be an understatement. However, we were newbies to the interior design industry when we first started this venture in 2011.

After we completed renovations on our first cottage, the No. 1450 cottage, we had Haylei Smith take gorgeous, professional photos. Initially, we were planning on just using the photos for our rental listing and (and eventually our website and social media). But then we had a spontaneous idea…

I had always loved Country Living Magazine, so I did a quick google search on the names of editors and important people at the magazine. We found emails for a few of the editors and we sent the photos. We didn’t know what to expect, and then, 15 minutes later, we received a response.

To our surprise and delight, the Deputy Style and Market Editor, Jami Supsic, replied and since then we’ve been featured in three Country Living articles.

Image by Max Kim-Bee from our Country Living feature

Over the past nine years, as we have worked hard to get press and as press has knocked at our door, we have learned a lot about the value of, not only press, but the right press. We have learned that sometimes a local or regional publication can be more valuable than a national one and that a print publication could sometimes not be as valuable as an online publication. But, overall, we have learned that the opportunity to have a reputable publication or source speaking on behalf of our business rather than us paying for ads brings more credibility and value than we could ever imagine (plus, it’s free!).

Pitching material and stories to press isn’t easy, though, and the steps aren’t always clear, so below you’ll find our must-know steps for pitching press stories!

Image by Max Kim-Bee from our Country Living feature

Good, professional images are a must. It literally can be the difference between an editor saying yes or no. It’s the first impression and the best investment you can make as the images will be used for everything in your business from social media to your website to your newsletters, flyers/rack card and so on.  Pro tip: for the interior design industry, send, both, full room shots and detailed vignette shots.  

Do your homework. Create a list of publications that you’d LOVE to see your work featured in. Search Google, LinkedIn, the company’s website, etc. to find out who the editors are. Then, if their email address does not automatically come up, google the name of the editor and try to find it that way. This is exactly what we did with Jami Supsic!

Pitch one publication at a time! The goal is to keep good relationships with the press, so we recommend pitching one publication at a time. If you pitch two at once and both come back with a yes, no one wants to be the person telling one publication never mind. It doesn’t look good for your company.

Image by Max Kim-Bee from our Country Living feature

Try to limit (if possible) sharing your whole project online. Publications like to be the first to share fresh content. It’s definitely hard in this day and age with social media, but publications normally want to know if it’s ever been published before as many will not share a story or feature that another publication has already covered.   

Tell your story briefly in the email! Be authentic, enthusiastic, engaging and brief. Start off with why you picked that particular publication, along with how you feel your project could fit into it. Give a few details about it, but don’t go overboard. They will ask you what they want to know once the communication process begins.    

Stay in touch. Lastly, we cannot say it enough: stay in touch and develop authentic relationships with the editors you’ve worked with. Jami, from Country Living, reached back out to us for several more stories over the years and has since moved to HGTV Magazine. Even though that magazine is not a good fit with our brand (color, color, color) we are still cheering her on and never know where she might be next.  

We’d love to hear from you with any questions or tips of your own!

xo,

Paige