Pitch vs Press Release; Which Do I Send?

Consider this: at the crossroads of your business, you get an opportunity of marketing your product and are presented with two choices; pitch vs press release. At first glance, both of these terms and methods will come across as similar and with equal usability. However, as it turns out, pitches and press releases are poles apart and have dissimilar usage patterns and efficiency. How so? Let’s get right into it.

Pitch vs Press Release: What’s The Difference

First things first. Your product needs marketing like we need oxygen. It’s for our survival and your product can only survive in the competitive market if backed by a rigorous marketing campaign. Be it free samples or a full-on advertisement campaign, people need to know about the product and what you intend to market it as.
Therefore, as a sneak peek, you need to let the market know about the product, but just enough to pique their interest. Enter the medium: press release or a media pitch? Let’s get to know them both;

• • • Media pitch: A media pitch is basically an episode of Shark Tank, televised but instead of the usual panel with Mark Cuban on it, the audience is literally the audience. Get it? It’s like you’re Cuban and basically, the judge to what the product is about. A media pitch is like an advert that, while shorter than a full-blown advertisement, banks most on the fact that it propagates the best of what your product has to offer; no details other than that whatsoever.

• • • Press release: As the name implies, a press release is a multi-pager document or article about a certain event or product that’s about to be launched. It includes pretty much the whole deal; the roots of the company, the founder’s vision, the product, its history, launch and a whole menagerie of other things that the writer feels compelled to connect with the product. To get a much clearer idea about press releases and how to write one for your business, read this press release writing guide on the intricacies of writing a killer press release.

So what’s the big difference?

Now that we’ve got the basics aside, lets talk about the difference. Which would be the better choice? For one, lets address the elephant in the room. Both have their pros, both also come with their sets of cons. Your business outreach, type and product is the sole determinant of what path your marketing campaign ought to take. Different approaches are required for different products and it is upto the product and eventually the marketer to understand which stands a better chance in promoting the product; pitch or press release?

The main difference and the most discernable one is of

1. Size
2. Content

Size Difference of Pitch and Press Release:

In this context, size is meant to denote the size of the article. Artistically speaking, both press releases and pitches need the same amount of creativity, but the difference counts in at the size of the content.

Simply put, a pitch will always be to-the-point, filled to the brim with creativity and concise enough to be relatively small. Much like Shark Tank itself, the irrelevant details are spared and only the product and main message is shown. A pitch is basically the good parts of your product or service glorified, excluding the irrelevant and the ‘other’ side of your product.

On the other hand, press releases are supposed to be much more detailed, lengthy and written in a language that does not burden the reader. While a pitch is supposed to grab interest by its nifty little package, the press release’s bulk actually discourages people from reading it all together; the tricky part is creativity and compelling the reader to push through the whole text.

In short, pitches are concise and concentrate on features while press releases dabble around in the whole confetti of details and formalities any other sort of marketing campaign would not bother with.

Content Difference of Pitch and Press Release:

The distinguishable features of both are their contents. As it is with their sizes, press releases and pitches differ with quite some variability. Pitches, again, are pretty concise and concentrated (in terms of information crammed into a single document). Therefore, content found in a typical media pitch would be

1. Chock-full of clever phrases and pithy statements
2. Bold, brash statements that attract the reader
3. Highly visible fonts, colors and punchlines.

As opposed to a pitch’s compact package, a press release can be characterized by

1. Lengthy, vocab-extensive statements
2. Professional, formal language
3. Business-like fonts with the limited color palette.
4. Information may be spliced from the bulk of the text (for convenient visibility)

As it might have become obvious to you with the passage of this article, the difference is extensive and can be noticed by the untrained eye. Unlike the misconception that both are similar, it is important to note here that while their features may differ, they do, in fact, play a common role in marketing; that is, product propagation.

Press releases:

From an aesthetic viewpoint, press releases may seem outdated and obnoxious. However, presented with the right amount of creativity and information, they are actually a significant part of advertising, from local mom-and-pop stores to multi-national giants like Coca-Cola, releases make up a significant part of advertisement budgets and have a track record of excellent exposure to people.

All press releases require for the viewer are somewhat similar pointers that make a media pitch irresistible; creativity and a good play on words. However, its general size and bulk of words is generally considered a disadvantage; especially in non-formal situations or products aimed at a younger demographic.

Learn more about the efficiency and how you can be more productive at press release marketing.

Pitch vs press release: which should you send?

As the article goes, one thing becomes quite obvious. Despite their vast differences, pitches and press releases have the same end and promise the same outcome; general exposure of a product. And as so, it is perfectly fine to utilise either of these, as long as your product garners its fair share of views.

And so, we arrive on the main point of the discussion; which should be your choice? Do you want the media pitch with its flashy language and fast-paced visuals or is a slow and steady press release more your type? Whatever the answer may be, you’ve got three determinants in total for the path your marketing plan takes.

• • Your product

• • Your target audience 

• • Your establishment

If we were to give you a crash course on Marketing 101, it’d go something like this. If all three of the aforementioned points end in snazzy,hip statements and your target audience is hip, young and trendy, a general rule of thumb would suggest a vigorous media pitch, that resonates with the people. Similarly, if the target audience and your product is old and grey, maybe bright colours and flashy statements won’t help. What your marketing campaign might need would be an honest-to-God press release marketing.