5 pitches that journalists don’t care about

PR pros shouldn’t expect success every time they pitch a story—having three out of 10 pitches result in a placement is considered a good average—but a good communicator will want to increase his or her chances of success in every way possible.

Building those relationships is fruitless, however, if you send a journalist a pitch they couldn’t care less about.

Here are five types of pitches reporters don’t want to receive:

1. New hires, expansions and mergers. Your PR firm has hired two all-star account directors and is expanding into a new office. Congratulations, but how is this news for reporters?

Instead of crafting a press release about the state of your firm (which will assuredly end up in the trash), consider having the new hire write down his or her insights in a company blog post, which you can then share across social media or submit to online publications as a guest post.

2. Irrelevant products and services. Reporters know you think your new product or service is the best thing since sliced bread, but that doesn’t make them care about your pitch over the bountiful supply of others clogging their inboxes.