Jered Martin discusses OnePitch, which he co-founded with Rebecca “Beck” Bamberger in San Diego. OnePitch serves as a matchmaker to help journalists and publicists find each other with the right story idea at the right time. Think of it as eHarmony meets Bumble, but for communication professionals. OnePitch screens out the vast majority of pitches that are not a good fit for a particular journalist, and delivers only those story ideas that are closely matched with the journalist’s interests. The journalist can browse pitches anonymously and connect with a publicist when they see a story idea that interests them. According to Jered, “We’re offering a platform that’s relevant, but not invasive.”
Jered described the value proposition that OnePitch offers journalists in that the use a categorization process to tailor pitches to journalist’s needs. “You are going to receive at least one email a day that is going to have only the most relevant things you want to write about.” He noted that, “The beauty of OnePitch is that, as a journalist, you can expect to only receive the most relevant inquiries.”
For publicists, OnePitch helps them connect with the journalists who are most interested in their story. Say goodbye to the “spray and pray” approach of blindly sending releases and pitches to every journalist in the hope that one will be interested. Jered noted that, “We care if their story gets coverage.
In discussing the rise of chat bots in a wide range of customer-facing businesses, Jered noted the unique value of engaging a human being. “One thing we pride ourselves on at OnePitch is the high level of customer service and personalization.” He pointed out that, “It’s really important to understand how folks communicate and why they communicate.”
Prior to co-founding OnePitch, Jered earned a BA in Communication Studies with a minor in Marketing from Cal State Long Beach. He gravitated to a career in communications out of a deep desire to help people. He entered the public relations and marketing world through work with BITE San Diego, which he described as “A walking food tour with history.” He started as an intern and worked his way up to eventually being the head of operations for BITE San Diego, as well as working for Beck at BAM Communications.
In discussing how the OnePitch and BAM Communications teams maintain high performance, he noted the importance of senior leaders taking the time to mentor their employees, having regular face-to-face communication, and having an internal messaging tool, such as Slack. According to Jered, Slack is a great way to easily keep everyone on the same pag
As for project management for the OnePitch team, Jered discussed how the team ran into scaleability challenges as the team’s work grew. The project management and collaboration solution they settled on is a combination of Hubspot, Trello, and Slack. Jered noted that, “We have to have a solid system to organize and manage everyone, and without Hubspot, I would be pulling my hair out.” He also discussed the importance of tools that work well together, noting that “One thing that is great about Trello is that it integrates with Slack.”
In addition to his work on OnePitch, Jered also is part of Tech Coast Angels, the largest angel capital firm in San Diego. He’s working with them on a volunteer analyst program, in which his team conducts due diligence on start-up firms.
In addition, he is also working with the Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative, to support their program for entrepreneurial women. This program brings female entrepreneurs from countries throughout the Americas to Southern California to see how business is done in the United States and to provide them with mentoring opportunities.
Public Relations expert Deb Radman discusses the power of harnessing the four horsemen of public relations: Leadership, Ethics, Intuition, and Courage. She explains why she would advise her younger self to shut up and listen, so she could really understand what’s being said. She contends that there is great power in taking time to think about something before you formulate an answer. We should then leverage the power of persuasion to engage, motivate, and activate.
Because of changes in the media landscape, PR now has “the opportunity to be the primary source of ideas for our companies and our clients as they seek new ways to communicate.” To do this, we have to venture way outside the box we’ve been in for so long, and have the guts and courage to do that.
Deb also is in favor of integration across the communication spectrum. She argues that public relations professionals have “to be strong enough to go to clients with recommendations that transcend specific disciplines; we cannot be afraid to recommend integrated campaigns that include advertising, digital, promotion, direct response, and public relations.” According to Deb, all of these disciplines are part of PR, because they are all part of trying to persuade an audience to do what you want them to do. In her words, “Paid, earned, shared, and owned media all have to work together.” If paid, earned, and owned are not consistent, they will not help people share our message, because it will be fragmented. With this in mind, she argues that social media now is the province of public relations, because it is part of what PR practitioners do in the earned media arena.
According to Deb, mentoring adds tremendous value by helping our people develop creativity and that “it’s no longer sufficient to be able to write; we must also be creative problem solvers.” She describes the PRSA College of Fellows‘ work with educators to create momentum for mentoring. She also urges junior PR practitioners to “Find teachers and mentors who will teach you what they know and what other people know.” While public relations people might be well-trained in communication techniques, they need to be even more capable of understanding what motivates people to engage. Deb stresses the importance of lifelong learning and the value in being exposed to marketers, innovators, researchers, and creatives in the advertising world and beyond.
High points in her career have included winning the USO contract, when she won her first Silver Anvil award, presenting the James C. Bowling Executive-In-Residence Lecture at the University of Kentucky, and serving as project lead for the IBM centennial celebration, which included IBM’s Watson supercomputer competing on Jeopardy.