Help a Reporter Out (HARO) was great until it was acquired. Today, HERO is the real hero.
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Connecting our clients and their stories to reporters seeking sources for stories they're actively developing is a critical process that leads to important results. We use Help a Reporter Out (HARO) (and similar tools) to learn about these opportunities. When we find a suitable match between a reporter and the experts we have to offer, we make the pitch and hopefully turn it into coverage.
Pros
- Identify active opportunities for coverage with reporters that need qualified sources
- Create more opportunities for clients to earn coverage in a wide range of media outlets
- Provide an ongoing source for leads that can help us meet our goals.
Cons
- Help a Reporter Out (HARO) was recently acquired by Cision, which drove it straight into the ground.
- Cision's idea to turn Help a Reporter Out (HARO) into a subscription service was a death knell. Making these opportunities available as a resource for journalists and PR practitioners alike, without having to pay for it, was what made it so great.
- Help a Reporter Out (HARO) founder Peter Shankman revived the idea and launched HERO, which essentially captures everything that was great about HARO.
Return on Investment
- As a free resource, the ROI was off the charts. As a subscription service, not so much.
- When we can bring clients wins, regardless of how they were sourced, that keeps them happy and helps us maintain strong long-term agency/client relationships. In that regard, subscribing to a free resource like HARO (or now HERO) is a no-brainer.
- It's unlikely that we'll subscribe to a service that doesn't do as good a job as it used to, especially when we pay so much for other services that are required to do business effectively.
