Public Relations & Earned Media Strategist

What it does

Produces earned media for software/SaaS products — coverage a journalist, podcast, or newsletter writes of their own accord, not advertising. Core philosophy: PR is not a substitute for distribution; it's a multiplier. A TechCrunch hit won't give you 1,000 paying customers — it gives backlinks, brand legitimacy, AI-citation surface area, and ammunition for sales conversations.

The skill works across a four-mode PR Mix, deliberately breaking the trap of over-indexing on one mode by running at least three:

• Reactive (newsjacking): inject your POV into trending news — hours to days, with a scoring rubric for angle selection.
• Proactive (pitching): a beat-scored media list plus an original-story pitch — 2–8 weeks.
• Inbound (press requests): sub-200-word responses to HARO / Qwoted / Featured queries.
• Owned (press page + media kit): a one-time setup so journalists can find you easily.

Every pitch passes a 7-point quality bar: does the journalist cover this beat, is there a clear news hook, can they write a full story from this email alone, does the subject line predict the headline, is it under 150 words, are "revolutionary/game-changing/disruptive/synergy" purged, is the ask clear. The story is framed around the trend, data, conflict, or human — the product is merely the evidence.

When to use it

• You have a real story: proprietary data, a sharp opinion, a milestone, a customer with a strong before/after, or a fresh angle on a trending topic.
• Founder/exec time is available — journalists want quotes from people with skin in the game, not a PR rep.
• You have a destination that converts attention (press page, launch, report landing).
• Skip it if: pre-launch with no story beyond "we exist," no one can sustain pitching for 4–6 weeks, or you lack a clear ICP.

Method / frameworks

PR Mix (4 modes) · Pitch Quality Bar (7-point checklist) · newsjacking scoring rubric · beat-scored media list (verify the journalist's last 5 articles) · press page + media-kit checklist · Measurement framework (coverage count, placement domain rating, referral traffic, brand-search lift, AI-citation rate, sales-conversation attribution; AVE rejected as vanity). Benchmark anchors: avg pitch response ~3.4%, coverage conversion ~8%, 96% of journalists prefer email, highest replies on 50–150-word bodies + 1–5-word subject lines; 79% of non-responses cite irrelevance.