With more than 26 years at leading national TV programs including TODAY, The View and currently The Wendy Williams Show, we spoke with Emmy Award Winning producer Jennifer Shepard-Brookman who shared her candid experiences.

We began with a simple question, What is the most infuriating type of mistake you commonly see in brand pitches?

Knowing that 99.5% of all pitches do not result in the desired outcome, the primary goal of the initial pitch is to receive a reply from your target. We have already qualified our audience and communicated the assets we can provide, now it's time for the media target to reply.

How do we break the mold and get a reply back from our media target?

The next hurdle in our journey is to clearly communicate the value proposition to media targets, delivering why the idea is valuable to share with their audience. Despite popular belief, the objective of the initial pitch is not to secure the placement; there are 2-3 more hurdles to clear first. If we use a puzzle analogy, the initial pitch is one of many pieces that combine to form the puzzle.

What is the direct goal of the initial pitch if it’s not to secure the placement?

The primary reason for why nearly 80% of all pitches that Media members receive daily are deleted is because they do not immediately communicate an understanding of the media member’s audience, outlet and/or how they prefer to be engaged. Media members describe their experiences with PR representatives using words like disconnected, scripted, unprepared, irrelevant, etc.  

Why can’t Brands expect Earned Media targets to read 80% or more of pitches?     

Why can’t Earned Media be predictable, tangible and scalable? This notion that Public Relations (PR) has to be intangible and unpredictable is at the core of the PR industry’s history. Why?

Innovative brands (and the successful Earned Media marketing minds driving their strategies) are disproving that characterization every day. Most refer to PR as “art,” but these brands show there is “science” that we all should consider.

Earned Media is formulaic (A + B =Third Party Endorsement), predictable and scalable.