By Dave Reddy
Practice Lead, Media + Influencers
Host, Pressing Matters podcast
This is the first in a series of posts on how the B2B tech media landscape is changing and how those changes are impacting how brands shape their editorial plans.
Pitching B2B tech isn’t for the faint of heart. I’ve personally been at it for 27 years – and there are days I pine for a simple consumer device story. But where’s the challenge in that?
And for at least the 28th consecutive year, the B2B tech challenge is only going to get harder. (I’m not complaining. It’s a fun gig.) Between ongoing media consolidation and shrinking newsrooms, the evolving trends of paid media and AI (the subject and the technology), and clear indications that tech and politics will merge as a story like never before, it’s going to be quite a year. As you plan for 2025, consider these trends and adjustments.
The Issue: Consolidation and Shrinking Newsrooms
It’s a rare week that a B2B tech reporter doesn’t email me saying he or she is leaving journalism, either as part of a staff cut, a move to more lucrative marketing gigs or both.
This is hardly a new trend — and it will only be undone if someone finally figures out how to replace print ads revenue. (I have no issue with paywalls, but that’s not the answer.) The long-awaited marriage of TechTarget and Informa came to pass in December 2024. That means the dozens of SearchXYZ.com sites from TechTarget and Informa titles such as InformationWeek, CIO Dives (and all the other Dives) are under one banner. Hopefully, this won’t lead to layoffs or buyouts, but given there are now umpteen reporters with overlapping beats, it seems a logical outcome.
The Adjustment: Target a smaller, more strategic set of reporters.
That’s right. The answer isn’t finding more reporters who might be interested in your pitch one time in a hundred. You’ll end up in their spam filter real fast. CXOTalk Host Michael Krigsman, who joined us for a Pressing Matters episode that ran last month, put it plainly: He gets a lot of “generic pitches, and you know what? They’re worth less than zero because they turn off the recipient, like me.”
Work harder on planning. Create more targeted, strategic lists of reporters who care about the stories you can tell. Dig into what makes each reporter tick and then use that information to mine for better angles. It’ll save you money and give you more time to figure out what those stories are.
From there, advise your clients and internal colleagues with polite candor on what will and won’t work. Otherwise, you’re wasting your time and theirs, not to mention kicking the problem down the road.
