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About The Dialog Lab

The Dialog Lab was founded in 2010 to provide senior-level communications strategy coupled with flawless execution to growth stage technology and innovation companies.

In Their Own Words: The Dialog Lab's Favorite Muck Rack Features

Media Research

In terms of researching journalists, Muck Rack is the best database I’ve worked with in recent years. When you run a search, you get a lot of results so you can feel confident you’re covering all your bases.

A few times, I’ve run a search in Muck Rack and then done my own research outside of the platform and rarely have I ever found anything externally that didn’t come up right in Muck Rack.

At The Dialog Lab, we have been fortunate to stay extremely busy during the COVID-19 pandemic, because we primarily work with e-commerce-focused clients, and that area of business was thriving. We also have one client focused on remote collaboration software and another in the cybersecurity business, and the stories on those topics have just been off the charts. Muck Rack has really helped us to stay on top of a constantly evolving media landscape for our clients.

With the global focus shifting directions, we knew we had to pivot our typical business stories to match what’s going on in the world. We were researching and pitching different journalists than the usual suspects on target lists and creating unique story angles that reflected an understanding of the bigger picture of what was happening in the world.

We are constantly monitoring who is covering what out there, and that is the heart of how we use Muck Rack. Muck Rack really helps us to dig in and get to know what these reporters care about and what they are following so we feel confident we’re bringing them something worth their while.

Media List Building

At The Dialog Lab, we’re very calculated about pitching. We personalize and customize each pitch for a specific journalist. For every pitch we send, we look at what that reporter has been covering or posting about on social media. We look at all of that current information every time we contact a journalist, and it’s all right there in their Muck Rack profile. We don’t have to jump around to their different social accounts or bylines -- Muck Rack’s profiles are thorough. This allows us to be customized and strategic, sending pitches that are relevant and interesting to the journalists we are targeting.

The fact that media lists automatically update within the Muck Rack platform has been invaluable, especially during a time of immense change. Reporters are switching to different outlets or covering different topics all the time. We try to stay on top of the changes as much as possible, but that’s a lot to keep up with individually. There’s no real centralized place out there that tracks all those movements. It’s great that Muck Rack automatically flags those changes for us.

Muck Rack has also been really responsive any time I’ve reached out to alert them to a change. It’s like a community, where I can just hop on the chat feature to ask questions or flag something that needs an update. If I notice a reporter is missing, that profile gets added very quickly.

Fast Questions with Jennifer Cadmus

1. In addition to results, what other benefits have you experienced from Muck Rack perhaps in terms of process or time-saving?

Without a doubt, Muck Rack is a huge time-saver for us. Not only is there a high quality of information available at our fingertips, we are also able to perform most of our job functions right within the platform. With other legacy platforms, you might need to visit multiple places to get the same information. Muck Rack saves me time that would be spent doing research every single day, because it provides all the information I need in one place.

Muck Rack also helps us to send customized, targeted pitches more efficiently. Doing personalized pitching can be a huge time investment for a small team, but is definitely a big key to success in this industry. With Muck Rack’s live media lists, in-platform pitching and collaborative nature, we can divide up the work and make the entire process much more seamless.

2. How would you describe your experience with Muck Rack in three words?

Robust, reliable, accurate.

3. What has your experience been like working with Muck Rack’s customer success team?

The Muck Rack team has always been great to work with and is constantly listening to customers about what we need and what we’re looking for. Any time we’ve had a question or made a suggestion for a feature we would like, they’ve been on top of it. When I use the chat feature, I’m talking to a real human who genuinely listens and responds by doing whatever they can.

I remember one instance where I couldn’t figure out why I was receiving an error message during an urgent search. I contacted the team on chat, and the representative asked me what I was trying to do. Not only did he work to chase down the technical issue, in the meantime he also pulled media lists for me on what I was trying to research. They are super helpful and go out of their way to see how they can immediately meet your needs or improve the platform and experience.

4. If you had to explain how you use Muck Rack to someone in a tweet, what would you say?

Once again, @muckrack made it so easy to get the data we needed to pitch the best story possible for our clients.

5. What would you tell other companies considering using Muck Rack?

To anyone on the fence, I would tell them Muck Rack is absolutely worth trying out. I’ve been doing PR and communications for 20 years and have worked with a lot of different platforms during my career—some that don’t even exist anymore. Muck Rack has consistently provided the best features and value, hands down. Where other platforms have given up on innovating, Muck Rack’s continued dedication to improvement is really important to me.