Carly Martinetti

I run a PR agency that lands our clients in TechCrunch, CNBC, & other world class publications on a consistent basis. My superpower? I can make anything sound newsworthy to the journalist I'm pitching. These are the 2 golden rules I follow that 10x my placement rate: 👇 1/8 🧵

A reporter pushed an exclusive TechCrunch story due to "a personal emergency." The client asked if we should shop the story elsewhere. I get what they were thinking. They were a brand-new VC fund, and this story had a big job to do: proof for investors during their raise, and credibility with the founders they wanted to back. The reporter needed three weeks. And when you’re a startup, three weeks feels like three (or thirty) years. Their worry was simple: “What if the reporter drops the ball?” Totally fair. And the easy move was right there… quietly offer it to another outlet and hedge our bets. But I told them that was a bad idea. Reporters are people first. Someone had just told us they were going through something hard. Answering that by shopping their story would feel wrong, even if nobody ever found out. In my experience, reporters are refreshingly straightforward. If they’d lost interest, they’d have told us. A three-week delay was just a delay. We drafted a response: “Extremely sorry and hope everything turns out OK. Please take all the time you need—we’ll be waiting.” And to our client’s credit, they trusted us. That’s the part of this job nobody sees. Not the pitch, but being the calm voice when everyone understandably wants to see some activity. Three weeks later, the reporter was back. The story ran. And the client got exactly what they needed from it: credible, third-party proof to put in front of investors and founders. PR is a long game. The wins come from the stories. The longevity comes from how you got them.

I have a philosophy when it comes to co-founders: they need to be like peanut butter and jelly. Let me explain, since I’m now officially the Co-founder of @medialyst. The peanut butter is the stickiness, and that PB person is the one that keeps the product getting better and better over time through (sometimes harsh) feedback. Elvis is my peanut butter (with a great sense of humor, I might add). And I’m his jelly. I bring the gooey goodness of PR that has the sweet dopamine-enhancing effect every time a media list gets built that lands the New York Times, WSJ, or other “holy sh*t, look what I did!!” moment for you. You might remember I initially came on as a Founding Strategic Advisor, grading the output of Medialyst every Thursday publicly with a Carly Score. We’ve gone from an F in July (sorry, Elvis) to a B today. It was during these weekly sessions we spent together that we realized we were meant for something greater. Not just peanut butter, not just jelly, but the full blown sandwich. (But, don’t worry. I’m not going to grade it any easier now that I’m officially a co-founder, pinky promise.) We both have a much grander vision for what Medialyst will become (and we’re building it while having to wrangle our two young kids around the same age, so we appreciate your patience haha). I have never felt so energized around a product since starting @notablypr with my OG co-founder (and mom!), @carinwarner. Seriously, something especially delicious is unfolding right now and I’m so excited to have you all along for the ride. So, here’s to sweet (and sometimes crunchy) days ahead. 🥪

Every pitch I send uses 1 of 7 psychological triggers to increase my chances of grabbing a reporter's attention for a few MINUTES. For each one, here’s the reaction I want the reporter to have when they read my first line, and the question I ask myself to make sure it’ll land before I hit send. In a VERY particular order: Momentum Reporter thinks: “Everyone is suddenly talking about this.” I ask myself: What’s already in the news that this story moves forward? Identity Reporter thinks: “My readers will see themselves in this.” I ask myself: Who exactly is this about? (Hint: “everyone” isn’t a who.) Novelty Reporter thinks: “I’ve never heard that before.” I ask myself: Is this a first, or something nobody has named yet? Urgency Reporter thinks: “My readers need to know this now.” I ask myself: What does this cost, risk, or change for people… and why today? Tension Reporter thinks: “Wait, how can both of those be true?!” I ask myself: What two facts shouldn’t sit together, but do? Exclusivity Reporter thinks: “Nobody else has this.” I ask myself: What can I give ONE reporter first? Surprise Reporter thinks: “That’s not what I expected.” I ask myself: What do readers believe that this flips? (Readers. Not my client.) Sooooo yes, it spells MINUTES. And yes, I’m pleased with that. But more importantly, here’s how to use it next time you have a story to pitch: - Condense your story into a sentence or two. (If you can’t, that’s your first problem.) - Run it through the 7 questions above. - The one with the strongest answer is your trigger. - Lead with that trigger in your subject line. And if you can’t find one, don’t send it. It’s not a story yet, and no amount of pitching will fix that.

Landed a client in the NYT 2 weeks ago even though the reporter never actually replied to my pitch. Somewhat unusual, I know. Here's what happened, though. Trump filed a trademark for "Trump TV” and my client, @JoshGerben, is a trademark attorney with subject matter expertise. Pitch drafted. Pitch sent. Crickets. But then Josh emailed me to say the NYT reached out to him (“Give your PR firm credit”, they said) to quote him on an article. Turned out the reporter had sent my pitch around to colleagues and they decided it would be easier to just ping Josh directly. Fine with me. But it reaffirms something I’ve been saying here for a while: a pitch is not dead just because no one responds to it. In the past, I’ve said that in the context of “inbox SEO”, the notion that if you make your pitch easily searchable, a reporter might reach out months later (e.g. because they need an expert on that topic for a new article), something that’s happened to me various times. Except now there’s another reason— They just might reach out to your client directly. And, well, earned media is earned media, whether today, tomorrow, in a few months… and irrespective of whether the publication responds or reaches out to your client directly. There’s no ego on my end as long as the story happens, that’s for sure!

I’m building custom AI tools for clients, and not only is it blowing them away, it’s completely transforming the way I’m thinking about PR. Let me give you an example. A client gave us a wish list of publications. Instead of just saying “awesome, we’ll see what we can do!” I spent 3 days building a dashboard that: - Maps every publication with opportunities that might be a fit for my client - Surfaces details from the client’s knowledge base meaningful to that opportunity - Shows who runs each section, what pieces tend to get published, and who we’d need to pitch The research is re-run every week so the list never gets stale. Let me give you another example. Another client takes… let’s just say, extra time, to approve quotes because of compliance, and we don’t want to lose any opportunities. So I built a calendar that: - Scans for launches, rollouts, partnerships, and announcements at companies they want as clients - Pulls the conversation around each event from X and Polymarket - Cross-references public sentiment with what the client can contribute to the conversation Then, it drafts quotes (which we use as starting points and completely rewrite HUMANLY) before giving them to the client to pre-approve. Boom. Here’s my take: Clients want to see you using AI to get more work done (without sacrificing quality). That’s the status quo. But if you can actually build powerful, exciting tools, that’s a massive differentiator, because hardly anyone is doing that yet in PR. Ergo, I’m shipping 🚢 P.S. Lmk in the comments if you’re curious how I built these tools ⤵️

When I read about a company that fired its entire PR team, I knew that management would celebrate their “savings” while the real second-order consequences might take months, even years, to materialize. No more earned media, executives getting quoted, and trade mentions. The company’s reasoning? “Marketing can handle it.” But the kind of pain point-oriented messaging that works on B2B buyers is not the storytelling and substantive expertise reporters want to see. The sad part is that marketing’s job is easier when they can back their claims with the WSJ’s validation. Worse, the long-tail third-party validations that feed AI-powered B2B discovery (we have a client who’s the #1 result in dozens of chatbots thanks to earned media) will completely die off. And catching up while the competition cements its AI citability will only get harder and harder.

PR has a white-knuckle, the-stakes-are-heart-attackingly-high, life-or-death reputation. Never forget that it’s ok to have FUN while you earn media for your clients. Not that I don’t appreciate the gravity of being responsible for a company’s public perception… but the more stress you feel, the LESS creative you’ll be. And good PR is all about being creative. So here are 4 things I do to keep things light: - Team-wise, it’s memes, memes, and more memes (on Slack). I’d give memes the same importance as caffeine. The more ridiculous and funny, the better. - And of course we love family and pets. No, I haven’t seen enough photos of your dog in that tutu. Yes, I do want to see that video of your kid killing that dance recital. - Clients-wise, you might catch me swearing on calls. I don’t code-switch. If I want our clients to be comfortable and casual, it’s up to me to let my guard down and silly out first. - Example: one client started out all formal-speak and several weeks later cracked a dark humor joke that had us in tears - We put whimsy in our brand. I just redesigned our website from PR-serious to fire-breathing dragons. Everyone loves how whimsical it is. Life’s short. Let’s have some fun on the way. Remember, it’s PR, not ER. (also lmk in the comments what you do to keep things less existentially gray!!!)

Then a marketer, growth hacker, PR person, business opps person and the list goes on and on and on ♾️

a Gen S, if you will

Paranoia is what the P in PR really stands for 😅 Half kidding. Anyways, I do think the PR people who do this have the wrong mindset entirely. They act as if they are going to be replaced because this is the only value they bring. If that’s the case, then… well, maybe they should be. I even give my clients’ cells (when appropriate) so reporters can call them directly. If they end up using them again and again (bypassing me) then we both count that as a win. I’m here to help facilitate conversations, not block them from happening.

Same. Never been busier (or more fulfilled!) in my life. Loving this era for us PR and content folks ✨

storytelling is truly a GOATed skill

Okay @Poshmarkapp need your customer service team stat. Customer got the wrong package and she said it’s the second time this has happened to her with another purchase. Shipping labels must have a problem… let’s chat since I know this isn’t a good PR look.

Love this. For "best" queries the AI wants a third party vouching for you, which makes it a PR problem now. Analysts, reviews, press. Who it trusts tells you who to pitch.

This but closing all the open tabs after the pitch took 10 years to research before feeling confident enough to send it

100% this. Put the newsroom on the inventory too. Old releases and departed exec bios read like current fact to an LLM doing site: searches.

PR folks, I'm literally BEGGING YOU to check this out. SO good.