Have you joined my incredibly non-annoying, once-in-a-while email newsletter?
Updated with more info in bold! We didn’t know if this part would make it in time, but it will! Scroll down to the bold part!!
When I first launched HARO on the web in March of 2008, I never ever could have imagined that in under two years, we’d become the de-facto standard for how crowd-sourcing is done. I never imagined over 50,000 journalists would send queries out to over 150,000 sources – that people would wind up in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Oprah, Shark Tank, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Fortune, Forbes, the NY Daily News… You name it – Almost every media outlet in the country has used HARO – and here’s one of the best parts – 93% of all journalists that have used HARO, come back to use HARO again. We’ve really grown up.
Along the way, I brought on some wonderful brains to help me grow a little more – our Editor-in-Chief, Michael Griffin, his loyal partner in crime Laura Spaventa, and of course, the wonderful Meagan Walker, who offers me read-only access to my calendar, and for good reason. I’m so proud of what we’ve created, that it can only be surpassed by what’s coming next.
On Tuesday morning you’re going to receive the HARO as normal – But we also encourage you to head over to http://helpareporter.com and check out the fundamental changes we’ve made to HARO.
First off, you’ll create a password. This will allow you to do many things – You can determine what emails you want to get – See, on Tuesday, we’ll also be launching “Vertical HAROs” – Every section of the Master HARO you receive today will also be available as an individual list – It’s the number one request we’ve had – “Can I just get the tech queries?” “How about just feeding me lifestyle queries?” Now you can get them. From the feedback we’ve gotten, we know you won’t leave the master HARO list – but rather, will keep the Master HARO to look at when you have time – We know that the beauty of HARO is not only the queries you can answer for clients or your company, but also the ones you can forward to friends, colleagues, family, and the like. And we want you to keep doing that. So you’ll be able to subscribe to the individual HARO emails, as well as the master list.
You’ll also, if you desire, be able to answer queries directly from the website – which, if reporters choose to do, will allow them to rate your pitches – did they like them? What did you miss? How could you have improved your query? We hope this will become a valuable tool in helping you to learn how to pitch reporters.
And get this – Reporters who use us will no longer have to worry about SPAM – EVERY SINGLE QUERY WILL HAVE THE REPORTER EMAIL MASKED!! For reporters, this means that instead of joe@theoprahshow, sources will now send queries to [email protected], or something similar! AND, even MORE, reporter email addresses will SELF-DESTRUCT as soon as their query deadline is reached! No SPAM! No harvesting emails! We’ve officially created the largest SPAM FREE/HARVEST FREE source repository in the world! CAN I GET A WOOT!! Best part? Nothing here is mandatory – You can do nothing, and continue to get the Master HARO, three times per day. These are all added features we’re building in, for you.
Finally – Are you, or do you want to be an advertiser? Now, instead of going through me to book an ad, you can sign up, see a specific calendar for your list (want tech only? Master and lifestyle, etc.) and see what’s available, when. Pick a date, choose how many you want (with discounts for multiple buys) and simply enter your credit card. It honestly doesn’t get any easier to reach a large, listening audience, ready to buy! And hey, let’s not forget about targeting! Only want tech sources? Only lifestyle? Done!
One final thing – Every single upgrade we’ve made to HARO has come from you – You told us what you wanted – So we listened.
Check us out on Tuesday morning, January 19th – Let us know what you think – either here, or at http://getsatisfaction.com/HARO – And thank you. We can’t WAIT to share the second phase of our HARO lives with you.
Much love, happiness, and of course, blue skies,
