HARO(Help A Reporter Out) is one of the best resources for any PR professional. It is also used by journalists as it lets journalists mention directly the specific kinds of pitches that they are soliciting. For PR professionals it is beneficial for pitching relevant stories to the journalists. While working for HARO, you must remember that it can get extremely competitive with the booming number of subscribers. You can consider a few HARO alternatives as it has a few limitations that you should be aware of. In this article, we will walk you through a few limitations of using HARO, and also we will offer you a few best alternatives for HARO.
A few limitations of using HARO are as follows:
The subscribers at HARO are increasing incredibly. HARO has a million subscribers approximately and competing against so many replies to the same journalists can be really tough.
HARO is a platform for the email newsletter. You start receiving the journalist requests and you can start pitching only from the day that you subscribe. You won’t be able to access any previously sent emails.
In HARO, you have the liberty to choose topics on which you want to receive emails such as technology, marketing, business, finance, and so on. These topics are quite broad. Hence every time you have to scan the mail that you have received to filter out the topics that are related to your expertise, experience, and industry. At times the mail might not have any queries that you can answer at all.
HARO Alternatives: The best PR platforms:
Besides replying to query of journalists, it’s essential; to pitch to journalists, bloggers and podcasters proactively that are relevant to your topic or industry. Here is a list of a few HARO alternatives that can help you do that massively and help you reach your goals.
Just Reach Out:
You can use Just Reach Out as a PR platform for finding journalists, podcast hosts as well as bloggers who have written articles and gotten published in your industry. There is a team that verifies the contact information of the journalists and you can even customize various proven templates to pitch these journalists. There is a feature that’s in-built in JustReachOut that helps you track the pitches that you have already sent. You can also see if the journalist has opened the mail or not. JustReachOut is a platform that offers PR strategy calls, brainstorms, pitch reviews, email support, and so on. Besides all of these, it also offers lessons that help you finetune your keyword search terms, improve pitch angles as well as get replies from reporters.
Key features:
You can search for bloggers and journalists that have written articles or blogs in the related industry. JustReachOut makes it easier to find important people relevant to your industry.
You can pitch yourself and get interviewed as you can search for the relevant podcasts.
You can also search for journalists who are finding a source for their stories.
You can get a hold of all the relevant websites that allow guest postings
Search for blogs and articles that have broken links. You can reach out to them. Suggest them to change it and offer them a link to relevant content from your website.
Access to human-verified contact information of several journalists
You can send tracked pitches from the platform.
MuckRack:
It is a PR platform that helps you reach out to journalists and influencers and pitch to them. You can get a clear review of the articles, beats, and interests of the reporters and journalists that are relevant to your industry or company. This helps in crafting the kind of pitch angle that will be the best fit. You can also create alerts for your keywords. Whenever there is a new story related to your search keyword, it flashes up on your monitor. Using MuckRack gives you a notification each time there’s an update on the beat or the job of any of the reporters that you have added to your media list. It gets even more creative with features such as creating reports, newsletters, graphics as well as article snippets. You can also share your PR campaigns as well as your pitching progress with our company or client.
Key benefits:
Scan and skim through a database of journalists and reporters. Find out relevant influencers
Avail the contact info about all the journalists and reporters
Track and analyze the impact of the campaigns and influencer press releases
Create newsletters, graphics, and articles and share your PR campaigns with your clients and colleagues.
Meltwater Media Intelligence:
Meltwater is a platform that lets you search for publications as well as journalists by using various keywords that are relevant to your company or industry. You can also track all your mentions in the media across various mediums such as online news, print, broadcast, and social media. You can analyze and monitor your overall brand awareness. There are a lot of features that can cater to large companies for tracking all the press coverages. You can set up dashboards and also track data points that are useful for your PR campaigns. You can also monitor data points that are essential for your content marketing such as audience insights and sentiment coverage. Meltwater media intelligence is also used for creating newsletters and share your media mentions with your company and client. You can use this software to monitor all your social media accounts on the same platform and also reply to comments. Besides journalists, you can also reach out to various influencers for collaborations and partnerships through this platform.
Key Features:
Search through a database of various journalists and influencers
Monitor social media performance and analyze customer sentiments
Create dashboards and also make reports on the metrics to track your digital marketing and social media performance
You can schedule your content for various social media platforms.
Cision Communications Cloud:
It’s an all-in-one integrated PR platform that can be used for searching journalists and influencers from various verticals that are more relevant to you. You can build a media list from here for pitching. Track all of the mentions of your company or brand across all the traditional as well as digital platforms. Cision has the world’s largest distribution network of Press Releases. Here is a list of various other things that you can do with Cision:
Connect your social media accounts and schedule your content on social media. You can receive insight into your brand engagement.
You can reach out and build more connections with influencers in your niche
Create PR performance reports across social media, digital publications, and traditional platforms. You can also measure the metrics of the financial impact of your earned media.
Key benefits:
You can search through the database for finding journalists and influencers
Keep a track of the social media of your competitors
Insights on followers and their demographics, location, and intent of buying
Analyze the impacts of PR as well as influencer campaigns
Create custom reports that can be shared with clients and colleagues.
Qwoted:
Qwoted is a HARO alternative where journalists can find credible and reliable sources for tier articles. In Qwoted, there’s no direct contact information provided by the journalists. You have to apply to be a source and get approved. Only then you can answer journalists but directly on Qwoted. The competition for replying to the same query is really less due to the approval system. Qwoted allows journalists to filter their reply sources according to gender and geography. Journalists can also reach out to you on Qwoted if all your credentials meet tier requisites.
Key benefits:
Request for approval as a source and pitch journalists who are seeking insights and answers from experts
Make a profile that has all your credentials. Mention your areas of expertise and receive some questions and inquiries from journalists.
Conclusion:
It is extremely important to figure out the best PR platform for yourself. It is extremely important for gaining the best media coverage. The most important features that you need for proactive PR outreach.
The PR platform must offer you the ability of searching journalists, influencers and bloggers from the relevant niche or category. Make sure that the write-ups by these journalists and influencers must have all the specific keywords that are related to your industry or company.
The platform should have verified contact information of these journalists, influencers and bloggers.