Pitching (Coco Ang, W14)

After doing lots of research on pitching, these are the sources that I have deemed reliable and useful.

1. How to Perfect your Pitch

I think that this source is reliable because it seems professionally created and has over 78,000 readers. Although this website was intended to give career advice, this specific website provides excellent tips on creating an elevator pitch that can be applied to our pitch presentations. A great tip from this website was that our pitch should be conversational in nature and not like a robot!

2. How to Pitch an Idea

I found this source to be reliable because of its author's (Scott Berkun) credentials. This article was actually extrapolated from one of Scott's 5 books that he has written. Just to list a few of his many credentials: he is an experienced speaker, blogger for Harvard Business, taught at University of Washington, and appeared on CNN.

This article discussed the importance of knowing your audience members and to formulate your pitch around their perspectives in order to keep their interests! Another great tip was to practice, practice, practice! Do so in front of many different people to get as much feedback (positive or negative) as possible.

3. Radio Pitch Guide (CBC)

This is a guide from CBC discussing some tips and guidelines if you wanted to pitch an idea to CBC. As a national news station, I feel that its credentials speaks for itself. A great tip from this guide was to listen to other shows from CBC. Although we are not pitching to CBC, we can use this tip based on the podcast that we are trying to emulate. In order to impress the producers at our aimed podcast, we need to present our ideas in a way that reflects their general theme.

Based on all the advice I have gathered, I need to do more research about my podcast (Everyday Einstein) and their target audience. Researching Everyday Einstein will allow me to tailor my pitch in a way that will appeal to the producers of Everyday Einstein. For example, I have noticed that the general tone of this podcast is quite light and comedic, which is exactly the tone I will use for my pitch. By researching their target audience, I can further refine my podcast pitch such that the producers will notice that my episode will not only capture the attention of their current viewers, but attract more listeners. For instance, the topic I have chosen for my podcast is, “What should we really do after being stung by a jellyfish?” After learning more about Everyday Einstein and their target audience, I will need to incorporate scientific explanations in my podcast. This is because the target audience of Everyday Einstein enjoys learning about science.

My plan is to then practice presenting my pitch in front of as many people as possible! This will allow me to get lots of feedback and constructive criticism as well as better familiarizing myself with my script. By doing so, my pitch will come across as conversational, helping me keep the attention of my audience.