Want to be featured in Technical.ly? Here’s how to pitch your story

Want to be featured in Technical.ly, but don’t know how to start? It’s actually pretty easy, if you have a viable story idea or Philly-area business we haven’t yet profiled.

The short version is this: Send an email to philly@technical.ly and introduce us to your business or idea. There’s no formal procedure or form. A professional press release isn’t required.

What should the email say? A few tips:

• Casual is fine. You can open with a simple “Hello.”
• Open with the fact that your business/org/story idea is based in the Greater Philadelphia region. We get a lot of email pitches from all over the country thanks to online tech pub databases. If you don’t highlight that you’re local, your pitch could accidentally get deleted.
• Keep it simple. Who are you, what is the business/org/story idea, why is it relevant? This could be as simple as you have a local startup relevant to Technical.ly’s beat, or it could be something newsy like a ribbon cutting, app launch or new product. Tell us what’s unique about your work.
• We love a good “how” story, so be prepared to tell us the process behind the story. You signed up 1,000 users in your first week — how? You raised more VC funding than expected — how? You pivoted your career from marketing to software engineering to entrepreneurship — how? The big idea, really, is communicating what someone in a similar position can learn from your story.
• Ask to set up a time to chat, either by phone or virtual meeting (or in person, if it’s safe to do so).
• Don’t make it sound like a sales pitch (e.g: avoid opening with anything resembling “Have I got a story for you!!”).
• Don’t pitch a list of article ideas like “How to gain social media followers” for a guest post unless you’re an expert on the specific topic. (If you’re really interested in writing for us, we have a guest post option for that. Lots of details here.)
• Don’t offer to exchange links or anything SEO-related.
• If you are looking to run a promotional piece where you have total control over what is written, you may be looking for a sponsored post and should contact our business team.
• If you don’t hear back from us within a week, it’s fine to follow up. Sometimes we get swamped and emails get missed.
• If you don’t hear back after a follow-up and you didn’t commit any of the “don’ts” above, make sure that it’s clear that you’re in the Philly region, and that your pitch is relevant to technology, small business/startups, nonprofit, STEM, education, economic development or access. We occasionally do arts stories, but only if there is a technology, entrepreneurship or community/access angle.

And consider this, from former Technical.ly Philly reporter Juliana Reyes:

Think of us as investors in this way — you have to win us over. If you’re completely new to us, we’re going to be looking for some sort of traction or caliber of “real-ness” to to write about you, whether it’s funding, office space or paying customers. If you don’t have that, you can still convince us with a personal story. Or, like you would with an investor, get someone in the tech scene to intro you. Still: Cold emails work, for sure. You just need to give us something more than “My product is going to change the world.”

Any questions? Email philly@technical.ly.