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Before Muck Rack: Wasting valuable time on a hard-to-use interface

We have a relatively small team of about 12 people, including writers, graphic designers and a video editor, and I primarily manage all our media relations efforts. Having a tool that works quickly and intuitively, with online support when I need it, is really important to me.

Prior to Muck Rack, the university as a whole had been using another big service, which wasn’t nearly as user-friendly or intuitive. And when I’d reach out for help, it was never quick and easy to get support in the moment. I would sometimes have to wait a day or two just to get an email response back. I just can’t spare that kind of time, because we’re constantly on deadline.

To help us achieve our goals, we wanted an all-in-one tool: a service that could quickly build accurate media lists, send a pitch directly from the platform, and evaluate the effectiveness of our pitches using key metrics afterwards.

Some of my colleagues at other USC schools had heard about Muck Rack and had good things to say about it. They encouraged the central university to consider it as an option since we often partner with other schools at USC or the central university because of the advantages that come when we all use the same platform.

With Muck Rack: Easily researching journalists, pitching, measuring and reporting all in one intuitive platform

Media Research & List Building

The simplicity with which we’re able to build media lists within Muck Rack is one of the things I love most about the platform.

My role is a little unique because we are such a hugely diverse college—we encompass everything from gender studies to political science to astrophysics and more. I’m very rarely pitching the same reporters over and over, and often need to find totally different people from different subject areas.

There are so many ways to find the information you need quickly within Muck Rack. You can search for journalists by the publication they work for, by their beat or job title, or even the content they share on Twitter. Being able to see stories they’ve published recently and other essential information makes my job so much easier. I love how it’s all integrated together and super easy to use.

One of Muck Rack’s hidden gems is the job updates feature. Not only are journalist profiles automatically updated when they change jobs, I also get notified via email when there’s been a job update for someone on one of my media lists. Being able to go in and see that change flagged right within my list whenever I need to use it again is fantastic.

Pitching

Muck Rack takes the guesswork out of sending pitches, making it simple to take a core message and customize it for specific journalists. There is no more fear of cutting and pasting the wrong greeting into an Outlook email when sending pitches in bulk, and I love that.

I call Muck Rack the “invisible product” because to a journalist the pitch looks completely normal, like it was customized by hand and sent directly from my email address, complete with my signature. It doesn’t look like a mass pitch, so it actually gets a response. It has enabled me to scale my efforts without investing a ton of extra administrative hours.

In fact, just a few weeks ago, I opted not to do a news release about some research we were conducting. The research was pretty specific to LA, so I thought it would have particular appeal to local broadcast stations, and decided to do a smaller teaser pitch to gauge interest in covering it after publication.

Using Muck Rack, I found the names and contact information for a few assignment editors at LA TV stations and added them to a list I’d already built of our local NPR affiliates and news radio stations. After sending those contacts a pitch from within the platform, within a few minutes I started to receive replies from folks who were interested in covering it.

It was really exciting and gratifying to see, not only how easily I could get that information out there, but also the immediate response I received.

The icing on the cake is being able to see who opened and clicked on a pitch after it was distributed, making follow up much easier. If I can see someone has already clicked on the links in my pitch and still hasn’t reached out, I know chances are they probably aren’t interested. Instead of spending time on them, I can tailor my follow up emails to those who haven’t clicked yet and still may bite on the story.

Broadcast Monitoring

Staying on top of news alerts and trends is a lot easier with Muck Rack. Every morning I get a summary email of all the relevant coverage related to specific keywords I’ve set up. Whether it’s just general mentions of our college or coverage related to research we’re doing on COVID-19, everything is right at my fingertips.

One of the coverage reporting features I really love is Broadcast Monitoring. Almost immediately after a segment airs on TV, it shows up for us in Muck Rack. With very minimal editing through the intuitive user interface, I can share those broadcast clips with internal stakeholders right in our regular coverage reports.

Being able to have those direct broadcast links and to make them shareable across our organization is awesome. I’ve never had that ability with any other platform I’ve worked with.

Fast Questions With Jim Key

1. In addition to media results, what are some of the other benefits you’ve experienced using Muck Rack?

Muck Rack has saved me a ton of time and made my workflow more efficient. Prior to Muck Rack, I would sometimes spend four or five times the amount of time pitching stories as I do now.

The media monitoring has also been so much more thorough than anything I’ve ever used in the past. I’ve never before been able to effectively monitor and share the broadcast coverage, which is huge.

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

One of the biggest advantages I share with people is that, when I have a question or need help building a search or creating a media list, I can get the answers I need from Muck Rack with the click of a button. Their customer success team is always quick to respond and either provide the necessary information or even do the work for me. That is extremely valuable and important, particularly when I’m on deadline with a project.

3. What would your job be like if your team didn’t have Muck Rack?

Without Muck Rack, I think there would be a lot of waste. I know I wouldn’t be as efficient. I’d spend a lot more time doing administrative tasks, like building media lists and sending out emails one at a time instead of strategy and creative work. Being able to focus on the things I enjoy and care about makes my job so much more satisfying.

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

I would explain to them how great the user interface is and how easy it is to learn and use Muck Rack. And if they do run into issues or have questions, the Muck Rack customer success team is extremely helpful and responsive—they’ll get it worked out, no matter what it is.

5. How would you describe your team’s experience and workflow on Muck Rack in three words?

Comprehensive, responsive, intuitive.