HARO Writer Onboarding
Thanks for your interest in freelancing as a HARO outreach specialist at Contentellect. We're excited to have you onboard!
HARO stands for Help A Reporter Out, and is a platform that connects journalists looking for expert insight with sources looking to share their knowledge.
Our clients engage us to ghostwrite HARO pitches to journalists on their behalf, with the aim of scoring brand mentions and backlinks.
Below is everything you need to know to deliver our HARO outreach service.
Step 1: Read our case study
Step 2: Always Follow These Guidelines
1. Pitch quickly.
HARO notifications are sent three times per day - morning, afternoon, and evening EST (Monday-Friday).
EST is 6 hours behind SA time. This means the morning edition arrives around 11:35 am, the afternoon edition around 18:35 pm and the evening edition around 00:35 am (all SA time). This can vary by an hour or so.
We expect you to respond to the morning and afternoon editions immediately.
The evening edition can be responded to the following morning.
Please note: the Friday evening edition needs to be responded to on Saturday morning.
2. Think laterally to find angles. Creative licence is fine, but be tasteful.
You don't need to find the perfect match between your client and the journalist request to effectively pitch.
You will typically be pitching on behalf of the founder/owner/marketing director of a business.
You will need to get up to speed with a client's business, their brand and product, and services, but as you will be ghostwriting as the founder/owner, it's possible to broadly comment on any topic related to business, finance, marketing, sales, recruitment, management, technology, entrepreneurship, etc.
Good pitches should consist of two elements: theory and personal experience/opinion/anecdotes.
You can use creative licence to come up with personal experience/opinion/anecdotes (i.e. they don't need to be true, they just need to be believable). They also need to be tasteful. Don't make the client look bad. Avoid statistics unless they can be backed up.
For example, if a journalist is looking for insight on the best accounting software for SMEs, you might not know what accounting software the client uses, or whether they even use one, but as a business, you can assume they do, so you might pitch as follows...
"I'm [name of the person we're writing for], the founder of [your brand]. We process 1000s of online transactions every month and rely heavily on accounting software, Xero. Here's why we like it... [insert theory]"
A theory element: This is some factually accurate information that illustrates your point. For example, the pros and cons of Xero accounting software.
A personal experience/opinion/anecdote that shows you have actually used the software and can therefore comment authoritatively.
The key is to find an angle. Then make yourself relevant (step 3), and pitch with an insightful idea or two that builds in personal experience or opinion (step 4).
3. Establish expertise and relevance in the first sentence of your pitch.
Establishing your expertise and relevance in the first sentence is critical. You need to capture the journalist's attention immediately.
The best way to do this is to match the journalist's specific request to your first sentence.
Here are some examples...
Journalist request: Looking for software developers who are addicted to coffee to talk about their morning brew routine.
Pitch: Hi X, I run a SaaS company called ABC, where I manage a team of developers, many of which are coffee addicts, including myself. A few of our developers are just standard coffee drinkers, but as for me and two others, we take things to another level...
Journalist request: What tactics have you used to drive down customer acquisition cost at your eCommerce company?
Pitch: Hi X, I run an eCommerce website called ABC. As the founder, I'm always looking for clever ways to reduce our customer acquisition cost (CAC) and achieve higher returns on our advertising dollars. Here's a unique tactic we recently implemented that helped decrease CAC, whilst also increasing our average shopping cart value...
Journalist request: Looking to hear from digital marketers who use Active Campaign to manage their email marketing automation. What are the pros and cons?
Pitch: Hi X, I run digital marketing at our company, ABC. We've been using Active Campaign for a few years now, so I've got a really good sense of the good, the bad, and the ugly of the software (fortunately there is not much of the latter)...
4. Keep insight to one idea, a maximum of two. Expand on insight with anecdotal information or personal experience.
Once you've established expertise and relevance, you then need to give an insightful nugget.
Stick to one idea, or if you must, two ideas (unless the journalist has asked for a shopping list). If you try to cover too many ideas, the depth of insight will usually be lacking.
Avoid obvious or boring ideas that can easily be found with a quick Google search. Try to make your idea unique or contrarian, but always make sure that it addresses the journalist's requirements. The best way to do this is to imagine you're the journalist and think how your idea might fit into their article as a soundbite.
If you have no idea about a topic area don't fret. For example, take the request about Active Campaign or Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) above. You may know nothing about either but you can easily Google: Pros and Cons of Active Campaign or how to reduce CAC, and get lots of ideas.
To really shine through, try blend in anecdotal information into your pitch. The best way to do this is to mention the theory of your insightful idea/point and then illustrate how you've applied the idea or point in your business.
A great place to get anecdotal information is Quora . Just use their search function with your topic to get lots of insight.
5. Provide sufficient depth (200-300 words). Don't waffle, no fluff. Make the journalist's life easy.
Pitches should be around 200-300 words in length. This is long enough to provide enough insight without overburdening the journalist.
Ask yourself:
Am I answering the journalist's query clearly?
Can I be more concise?
Do I sound like an expert on the topic?
Is my insight unique and interesting?
Would you use the insight if you were the journalist?
6. Assume a 3% conversion rate.
We will tell you how many links each client is looking for. But for example, if a client is looking to get one link per month, you will need to send around 30 pitches or 1-2 per weekday.
You may have 3-5 clients, each with different link demands. The maximum number of links we will ask you to get in a month is 6, which is around 200 pitches @ a 3% conversion rate.
As you get better at pitching your conversion rate should improve. We have freelancers who achieve closer to a 10% conversion rate, and therefore they earn more bonuses and can take on much more work.
Step 3: Follow these five steps to pitch
1. Login to the client's email around the time that notifications are sent. Review the list of requests and note down the ones that you think you can find an angle for.
2. Read the detailed requests of the one's you have shortlisted. Check the domain ratings via Ahrefs to qualify that they are greater than 60. Do not pitch to publications that are less than 60. We will not pay for pitches to publications with DRs < 60. You can pitch to anonymous publications.
3. Check that there aren't any specific requirements in the request that disqualify you from pitching (specific expertise or requests that require interviews etc.).
4. Click the request email link and use our templated email response format to pitch.
5. Open the client's tracker, which we will provide, and insert the details of the pitch.
Step 4: How to invoice and get paid
We pay R50 per pitch.
For every pitch that results in a qualified link (i.e. a link from a site with a Domain Rating greater than 60) we pay a R500 bonus.
Please read our invoicing guidelines for detailed information here . For HARO, itemize each client and the total number of pitches sent, as well as successful pitches.
HARO Payment Terms:
We won't pay for pitches to sites with DRs less than 60, unless they are anonymous publications.
We won't pay bonuses for links on anonymous publications that turn out to have a DR less than 60.
Bonuses are paid up to the package amount. Stop pitching when you have confirmation of the required number of links.
Once the package is complete we cannot pay for links gained after this as these are freebies to our clients.
If articles are syndicated, we can only pay for the main article as it came from one pitch. But, syndicated articles will count towards the client’s links.
Mentions published on the same website for a client will only count for one link. If you get a link from a website for a client, don’t continue to pitch to this site for this client.
Questions?
If you have any questions, please contact us at info@contentellect.com . We'd be happy to run through any of the above if it's unclear.