View all case studies Tomorrow.io

In Their Own Words: tomorrow.io's Favorite Muck Rack Features

Media List Building

I first became aware of Muck Rack when I started running online searches for various journalists, and noticed their Muck Rack profiles were always the top result on Google. I loved the way each profile had a photo, provided that reporter’s beat, showed their bio from Twitter and had links right there to various articles they’ve written.

The capability to do research and media list building within Muck Rack as a whole is very user-friendly, and having access to such a wide variety of journalists in one platform has been extremely helpful to Tomorrow.io. Our targets really are across the board, and we have a lot of different campaigns going on at the same time.

Something unique about Tomorrow.io compared to other companies is that we don’t only want tier one press—the company really understands the value of trade publications. Being able to find those niche publications on Muck Rack is key.

I also like how easy it is to aggregate all of those media contacts into dynamic media lists. For example, I have one list called “Tomorrow.io General” where I save reporters that have written about us and those we already have a strong relationship with. We know we can be highly personalized with the pitches we send them.

From there, I create other lists dedicated to specific media campaigns. For example, when we launched our new offices in Australia, I searched Muck Rack for reporters there that write about weather or related industries, created a specific list for them and sent a press release. Now I have that list handy any time I have news specific to Australia.

In-Platform Pitching

Being able to send pitches directly through Muck Rack has been a huge timesaver, and helped us to improve our success rate by staying agile with trending topics and current events.

One of our most recent examples was around the SpaceX launch. During the first launch attempt, they ended up cancelling it about 16 minutes before launch due to the weather conditions. We saw that as a huge opportunity to talk about the weather conditions and what went wrong, as well as what we expected the weather to look like when they attempted to launch again two days later.

I quickly looked at who was writing about SpaceX within the last month, and thanks to Muck Rack, I was able to put that list together very quickly—probably in less than 30 minutes.

I sent a pitch through Muck Rack and almost immediately got a few responses from top tier media outlets. I had NBC in my inbox asking me specific questions about our technology and we ended up getting into The Washington Post and Fast Company as well.

After sending a pitch, I usually keep Muck Rack open on my computer and refresh it a few times to see who has opened it. Then I use that information to help guide my follow up emails.

Muck Rack Alerts

I set up Muck Rack Alerts for different terms I want to follow, such as our brand name or other terms related to the industry like “weather + forecasting.” Muck Rack Alerts are a lot better than Google Alerts, coming in much more quickly and accurately. You know the results you’re getting are coming from actual news sources, opposed to Reddit and things like that aren’t press related.

Fast Questions with Mira Marcus

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

Before I had Muck Rack, I would literally sit at my desk with an Excel spreadsheet open on one tab and Google open in another. I had been using a competitor tool, but it wasn’t good enough. I don’t have to do that with Muck Rack, I can completely trust it as my source for information.

After manually searching my Excel sheet for media contacts, I’d copy and paste them one by one into my pitch email, and I’d never know who opened it and when after that. It was definitely not a software-based or efficient process—it was a human process. Now, I have all these tools available at my fingertips to help me easily compile media lists and craft pitches.

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

Time-saving, user-friendly and helpful

3. How has your experience working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic changed with Muck Rack?

The very nature of my pitches has changed because of the pandemic. I feel sadly that everything is now COVID-related. It can make it frustrating because, on one hand you feel like those are the only pitches making it through the noise, but on the other hand, that’s all reporters are getting right now. It’s certainly hard to stand out.

One thing Muck Rack has helped me with is to be more creative with our story ideas to circumvent the restrictions a lot of PR pros are feeling with the coronavirus.

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

It’s been great! We have periodic calls to check in on how I’m doing and anything that might be bothering me. Those calls have been a great way to learn about new features, too.

I also obsessively use the chat box on the website.The team always gets back to me within minutes, sharing valuable information about journalists that I need to do my job. I feel like my experience has been so much better with Muck Rack.

5. What would your job be like if you didn’t have Muck Rack?

Without Muck Rack, my work would probably be slower and maybe a little bit less creative.

Tomorrow.io recently started working with the Chicago Cubs. Because there are no fans in the stadium right now, we’re providing our weather data to the broadcasters and thought that might be a good story. Without Muck Rack, I would have worked harder to pitch that type of story idea. By searching the platform for terms like “baseball” and “Cubs” and “Chicago sports,” we were able to find and land a story in an outlet called Cubs Insider. I’m not sure I would have known that outlet existed without Muck Rack.

The platform allows me to believe in and work on stories I otherwise might have thought were too much work in the past.