#SmallBizChat HARO pitch example

22 10 2009

Tonight, I’m participating in a tweet chat for small business owners. One question related to utilizing HARO (Help A Reporter Out) to generate coverage. I’ve used HARO for several years – I was somewhere in the neighborhood of the 2,000th subscriber. I think Peter is now up to more than 100,000! It’s a great resource to connect expert sources with reporters working on stories. And it’s free.

In the chat tonight, I pointed out that I thought a good pitch included solid information, two or three points speaking to the query itself and a legit source. Someone asked for an example. Here ’tis. In this case, the client did not have a working website at the time, so that’s not included in the pitch. In most cases, I would include a website link if it’s a useful resource for the reporter.

Hi, Shira.  For your consideration:  Joshua Rotenberg, M.D., is a board certified neurologist specializing in sleep disorders.  In private practice in San Antonio, Texas, Rotenberg is medical director for Academy Diagnostics LLC Sleep Center and a fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. He spent ten years in the U.S. Air Force studying the impact of sleep disorders on military personnel in high-demand occupations, such as pilots and astronauts.  According to Rotenberg, “curing sleep disorders will have the greatest effect of any public-health measure in terms of adding productive years to life.”

Each year, sleep disorders, sleep deprivation, and sleepiness add an estimated $15.9 billion to the national health care bill, according to the National Center of Sleep Disorders Research.

According to Rotenberg, among the detrimental effects of not sleeping enough are:
* difficulties in performing tasks
* impaired moral reasoning and judgment
* increased traffic accidents

Depending on the cause of the sleep deprivation, there can be additional effects, including an increased risk for heart attack and stroke, attentional lapses, reduced short-term memory capacity, impaired judgment and the occurrence of “microsleeps.”

Quick fact:  We sleep on average 90 minutes less than we did before the invention of the lightbulb!

Rotenberg would be happy to answer any of your questions.  I can either set something up by phone or email, if you are interested.

Have a great day and good luck with your story.


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