Secure earned media coverage and pitch journalists

Helps get software products covered by journalists, podcasts, and newsletters, working from a core philosophy that PR is a multiplier for distribution, not a substitute for it - a big press hit gives backlinks, brand legitimacy, AI-citation surface area, and sales ammunition, not 1,000 paying customers directly. It first checks for existing product-marketing context to avoid re-asking already-answered questions, then assesses whether PR is worth pursuing right now: a real story is needed (proprietary data, a strong opinion, a milestone, a sharp customer before/after, or a fresh angle on a trend), founder/exec time for quotes (journalists want people with skin in the game, not a PR rep), and a destination that converts attention (a press page, blog post, or launch) - versus skipping PR when there's no story beyond "we exist," no one can sustain pitching for 4-6 weeks, or the ICP isn't clear enough to answer "who reads this piece because of it." It recommends running at least three of four PR modes rather than over-indexing on one: reactive newsjacking (injecting a POV into trending news, low-medium effort, hours-to-days to coverage), proactive pitching (building a media list and pitching original stories, high effort, 2-8 weeks), inbound press requests (responding to journalist queries on HARO/Qwoted/Featured, low effort, days-to-weeks), and owned assets (a press page and media kit, one-time setup). The owned press page - the cheapest PR investment with the highest ROI on every future story - should include a copy-paste company description, downloadable high-res founder headshots and bios, a logo pack (SVG/PNG, light/dark, with usage guidelines), product screenshots, a recent-coverage list as social proof, founding date/headcount/funding if disclosed, and a press contact email (never a contact form) with a stated 24-hour response commitment that's actually honored. Before sending any pitch, a seven-item quality bar must all be yes: does this journalist actually cover this beat (checked against their last 5 articles), is there a clear news hook, could they write the full story from this email alone (data, quotes, customer name, contact), is the subject line specific enough to predict the headline, is the pitch under 150 words, does it avoid words like "revolutionary"/"game-changing"/"disruptive"/"synergy," and is the ask (interview, embargo, exclusive, quote) clear - if any answer is no, the pitch doesn't go out. Measurement tracks coverage count, the domain rating of placements, referral traffic from coverage, brand search lift, AI citation rate (whether ChatGPT or Perplexity quote the brand - called out as the new metric that matters), and sales conversations citing an article - explicitly ignoring AVE (advertising value equivalency), described as a vanity metric PR firms invented.

Use it when someone wants help with public relations, earned media, press coverage, journalist outreach, or media strategy. Do NOT use it pre-launch with no story beyond existing, when no one can sustain a multi-week pitching effort, or when the ICP isn't clear enough to know who the coverage is even for. For startup/SaaS/AI directory submissions specifically, that's a separate directory-submissions skill with different intent and a different target list.

Input is a trending story to newsjack, a beat or outlet to pitch, a HARO/press-platform query to respond to, or a press page to build. Output is a scored pitch angle or drafted pitch passing the quality bar, a researched and scored journalist list, a press-platform response, or a complete press page checklist.

Reads existing product-marketing context before asking questions, and references separate materials for newsjacking, journalist pitching, press platforms, and media outlets; defers to the directory-submissions skill for startup/SaaS/AI directory listings specifically.

Founders and marketers pursuing earned media who want a structured way to decide if and how to pursue PR right now, run the right mix of reactive/proactive/inbound/owned tactics, and measure what actually matters (AI citations, sales conversations) rather than vanity ad-equivalency numbers.