The next time you’re searching for an angle for your story pitch, consider using history.
For example:
—If you’re sponsoring an event that’s been held for 50 years, offer the media a sidebar that highlights the most significant aspects of your event during the last five decades.
—Pitching a profile story of your new CEO? How about telling editors you can provide some old photos that show the boss in his high school football uniform, or on his first job?
—Is your office located in a 100-year-old building? If you paid special attention to the historical significance when you remodeled, let the media know. And provide a list of all the painstaking historically correct details you included during renovation.
—Introducing an updated version of a product? Give the media a short timeline that shows how the product has changed over the years. If you can offer photos of what each product looked like, all the better. Trade journals, in particular, love these kinds of features.
—If you’ve been lobbying for a local ordinance but, after years of squabbling, your local town council finally approved a watered-down version, give the media a before-and-after-list showing key elements of the law you wanted approved, and how lawmakers removed the teeth from the final version.
—Is your nonprofit celebrating its 60th anniversary? Share with reporters what your organization was like when it first opened its doors. How many people worked there? Where was it located? How big was the budget?
Rix Quinn, former editor at Outdoor Power Equipment and Bicycle Business Journal, wrote an article for Sept/Oct issue of The Publicity Hound subscription newsletter in which he says that history is one of 11 ways to get an editor’s attention for your story.