Should I Use Help a Reporter Out (HARO)?

The question I probably get asked the most at my DIY PR workshops is: Should I Use HARO? I know a lot of small business owners do use HARO to look for media opportunities. If you don’t know what HARO is, it is an e-mail that is sent out 3 times a day where journalists can post what they are looking for in terms of the stories they are working on.

In my workshops, I always answer this question the same way. HARO is a useful tool, but it is so oversaturated. So many people seem to be answering the inquires that it is hard to get your response noticed. I still think it is better to individually pitch people.

Anyways, it has been a while since I have paid attention consistently to HARO. I decided to challenge myself this past week and look at the e-mails every day and pitch the appropriate clients. I was curious to see how many responses or placements I would get back. I pitched about 33 inquiries, and I got 3 responses for more information from my clients. Out of those 3 responses, I would say only 1 of them seems like it is going to become a placement.

Overall, I definitely still stand by my answer that I have given before. It seems to be a lot more effective to individually pitch media contacts that are relevant for your business. This way hopefully they will think of you as a resource before they even post to HARO. That being said, I think I will briefly check out HARO every day just to see if there is anything super relevant for my clients…I mean, why not?

If you have already been pitching HARO inquires, you should keep doing it; in addition to, individualized pitching. Here are some things I have learned over the last week:

Have a pitch ready to go.

This way a major time-saving tool for me. I created a few sentences for each of my clients, talking about why they would be the best expert to be in the story. I would just copy and paste this each time I saw an inquiry that would be a good fit for them. If you answer each inquiry individually, it can take hours! I would first send over the biographical information about my client, and then if the media contact responded and showed some interested. We would ask the questions that they were specifically looking for.

Pitch the small publications too.

There are a lot of big national publications on HARO, and obviously, those are the ones you want to take the time to pitch. However, smaller publications are good too. The reality is getting placements in large national publications is harder, and obviously more competitive. If you are wanting to get placements regularly, then also pitch the small publications. You can still share these on social media and use them to build your credibility.

Use HARO to build your media list.

This to me is one of the best things about HARO. While I was looking at it over the past week, there were so many times I saw a publication and thought “oh this publication would be so good for one client or another”. Then, I would find contact info and pitch that publication for my clients. As you are looking through HARO, you can add these publications to your lists. It is definitely a good way to expand the horizons to publications you might not have thought of.

Those are just my thoughts on HARO. As always, I am interested to hear what has worked for you and what hasn’t. Let me know if you have gotten any major placements from an HARO inquiry.