Back in June of 2021, Manasa Gogineni joined us on Coffee with a Journalist to discuss the ins and out of her role and most importantly her pitching preferences. Here is a list of 6 tips you can reference to pitch the VentureBeat reporter:

Give her adequate lead time

Between a heavy workload and tight deadlines, preparing and sharing your pitch well ahead of time can improve your chances of working with Manasa. She also hints about stories that don’t hold their own weight may require more research and potentially other sources who can contribute to them.

Make sure it’s timely

For pitches revolving around breaking news, it’s wise to focus on how your pitch weaves into the mix here and now versus there and then. The news cycle is a 24/7 machine and pitching something “late” rarely has any success especially if the story and commentary have already been covered by VentureBeat.

Personalize your pitch

For Manasa, on average, 1 in 50 pitches she receives hit the mark. She also mentions it would be “a huge help” if you personalize your pitch to her. Tactics such as identifying previous articles, mentioning the relationship between your pitch and her beat, and of course spelling her name and outlet correctly are easy ways to make your pitch personal and relative.

Have a clear purpose

First and foremost, your pitch should be focused on enterprise technology. Secondly, it can but doesn’t have to involve funding. Either way, provide a specific reason as to why you’re reaching out to her, and ask yourself:

• Has she written about anything like this in the past? 
• Has she covered our client/company already?
• Has she covered a client/company competitor already?

Simple questions like this can help guide you in your pitching process.

Do not call her

Manasa shared this source pet peeve on the podcast:

“The most annoying sources always – Leave me voicemails.”

While she didn’t specify if she prefers email over calls, it seems apparent given her inbox color-coding system that you have a better chance of working with her via email over anything else.

Follow up once

As we share new ways to learn about how to pitch journalists, the follow up rule is still somewhat of a mystery amongst the crowd. From Manasa’s perspective, it’s okay to, “follow up one time if I don’t reply,” and therefore you have the go-ahead to do so. Anything more than that and your chances slowly diminish.

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If you missed our episode with Manasa, you can listen to the full recording here and view notes from the episode about her inbox, pitches, and how she creates her stories.

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