How To Keep Annual Awareness Month Pitching Fresh
How do you attract coverage to an annual event, without the coverage feeling stale?
The CMIA team asked that very question as we began to again support the Gift of Life Donor Program’s April media activities. We have proudly worked with the organization since 2019, handling media outreach related to National Donate Life Month and its annual signature event, the Donor Dash.
The Dash brings together ~15,000 organ recipients, donor families, living donors and more to celebrate the life-saving power of organ and tissue donation and to honor the donors who make it possible.
The 2025 Dash, which took place in Philadelphia, coincided with Gift of Life’s 50th anniversary of saving lives. This made it more pressing to get coverage, especially as the program marked the occasion by working to add more than 50,000 new organ donation registrants.
How We Work
When March comes around, our team knows it’s time to get to work. We spend the next two months working on earned media stories about donor families and organ donor recipients.
These inspirational stories deserve to be told, but they are not all easy to land. And in an ever-changing media environment, combined with reporters’ need to cover a new presidential administration, comes the difficulty of securing coverage for an annual event. Ceisler Media secured more than 550 stories and mentions for the 2025 Donor Dash throughout March and April – a record for us and for our client.
Here’s how we did it, and how others can do the same:
Creative Pitching: Make sure you are not offering the same reporters or the same outlets the same story subjects each year. Think of creative angles to make the pitches fresh and exciting. Our example of this is Vinny Vela’s column in The Philadelphia Inquirer. We asked Vinny to share his own story to include his unique perspective. Vinny’s beautiful recollection ran online the day before the Dash, with print coverage that very Sunday.
Collaborative Communication: Gift of Life treats Ceisler Media as an extension of its team, which provides the ability to have unique insights and approaches related to communication about its mission. By being integrated into the organization, we were able to discern story ideas from information and data that would not otherwise be available to your normal “consultant.”
Stay organized: Keep your pitches short and have all the key info easily accessible. We included a brief bio of the interview subject, a compelling quote capturing what the Donor Dash means to them, and details about the interviewee’s availability. When pitching day-of coverage, explain what you will have set up to make TV news live shots as seamless as possible. Line up interview subjects in advance. Share the time communications staff will be on site. The more details you can provide up front, the better. Our staff was onsite before the sun came up, and we ensured we had transplant recipients there just as early, ready to talk to the media.
Persistence matters: Don’t be afraid to email, call, and email again! Reporters get hundreds of emails and are unable to fully read them all. Start pitching early (think weeks before your event), especially when pitching feature stories, so that there is ample time for follow up. These stories don’t happen overnight. Don’t get discouraged by a few unreturned emails.
Organization is key. Yes, “organization” is on this list twice! When orchestrating hundreds of media placements, communication between consultant and client has to be constant and streamlined to finalize details for interview times, the right talking points, locations for photo opportunities, and more. Our team maintained a spreadsheet of media opportunities to serve as a living document down to the last minute.
Smart Work Pays Dividends
Our tried-and-true approach yielded record-breaking results for the 2025 Donor Dash:
- 561 total placements
- 306.4 million total media impressions
- $3.3 million estimated broadcast media value
- 4 out of 4 Philadelphia television stations on-site at Dash
Some of the stories behind these numbers:
We understand better than anyone that you can be the best media relations professional and still not land all four Philly TV stations, but we also know success like this doesn’t happen by accident. At Ceisler Media, we are always prepared, persistent and committed to being creative!
