How to use the HARO report to contact a reporter – step one

If you haven’t heard about the HARO report and you want free publicity, trust, and backlinks, you need to know that this email list service, which sends details on stories that journalists want help with to more than 130,000 people, is the biggest source of this type of information anywhere, and one of the fastest ways to get publicity.

When I first started using HARO (after creating an account and getting their daily emails) I sent this email to their support department:

I am fairly new to HARO. My team and I are tech savvy and somehow are confused on how to respond, but are going to start using it for our clients. My process:

1. I read the report for perfect matches for me or our clients where we could add real value
2. I email the query email address
3. I get an email back saying create a free account
4. I log in because I have an account and assume I don’t need to create a new one each time
5. At that point do I assume I am done and just have to wait?
6. So then I am totally lost because I have no idea if the reporter got my email or what to do next
7. Then I search Google for “How to use HARO report” and I find great, deep pitching ideas but not one single article on getting past step one
8. Should I be logging in and sending pitches through the super form on your site instead of doing it all through email?

You have a great service, but if my tech team is confused, my clients will be more confused and have been the few times that we sent them leads on relevant stories.

Just my 2 cents: Create a basic how-to page and link to it from the top and/or at least the bottom of each email?
Please send me some instructions for myself and my clients.
Much appreciated.
John

What HARO Recommended for Marketing

Here is the helpful response that HARO customer support gave:

Hi John,

Thank you for contacting us. My name is William and I will be assisting you with your inquiry today.

We appreciate your feedback. Here’s how HARO works:
HARO sends you requests from journalists who need sources like you, three times
per day.

You write a quick pitch about your brand, product, or expertise.
You get featured and become a trusted source for future stories.

Simple, effective and completely free. You help a reporter out; they help you;
publicity helps your business.

Once you create an account, you will need to confirm your account using the email that was sent to you. To assist you, I have manually confirmed your account.

To submit your pitch, you log in to your account, Click My Pitches, click Submit a New Pitch on the right, enter the necessary information, and click Submit.

For tips on how-to information on how to pitch to a reporter, please visit http://www.bloggingprweb.com/reporter-pitching-tips-helpareporterout.

Since 2008, HARO, a Vocus service, has published more than 75,000 journalist queries and facilitated nearly 7,500,000 media pitches.

Again, thank you for contacting HARO Support. Should you need additional assistance, feel free to contact us via email at support@helpareporter.com. We also have helpful information available on our site at www.helpareporter.com.

Sincerely, William

So it sounds like it’s best to use the HARO website to send pitches rather than right from the email provided in the daily blasts.

This screenshot should help you hone in on the key areas to focus on when submitting a pitch:

If the form is too small for you, keep in mind that you can expand it by grabbing the lower right corner of the form and dragging it to your desired size.

And after a short time, but not necessarily instantly, your pitches will appear under the “My Pitches” tab, so you can keep track of your activity.

We may be in the minority of people who got confused by that, but I wanted to make sure there was a HARO 101 basics type of post out there for anyone else that wants to get started using this amazing service to generate free publicity.

Thanks to Peter Shankman for inventing this great tool and to HARO for the great leads!

Has anyone else been confused by this and or have any other tips?