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Figure out the newspaper:
• Just pick the one that seems the oldest/most established, usually there’s only one.
• If there’s an even split or even two that are pretty popular, do both.
Identify the people:
• You want to shoot for about 7-10 emails going out.
• You want to pick 5-6 reporters (reporters are the most likely to respond).
◦ Try to find their emails in the student email directory if they’re not listed.
◦ Pick ones who have published a lot recently and ideally ones that have written about school related things.
• Definitely email the news desk editor/news editor
• Definitely email the Editor-in-Chief
• Email most/all managing editors
• Add in associate editors, if you’re not up to 7 emails yet.
• Maybe try adding in the “life editor”? See what they write about. They may care about this stuff more.
Email templates (below):
• Send to the emails they have listed on the newspaper.
◦ If two people share an email, address both of them (“Hi Cosmo and Nisha”)
• CC everyone’s student email address if you could find it in the student email directory.
• Be sure to express some sense of urgency in the emails, like “we recently added support” or “we added support yesterday/this week”.
◦ If reasonable, use words like “just” in place of “recently”, if we actually just added them.
• Use your school email signature (attached)
• Use your school email for sending (if possible), if not, use a Gmail address for sending.
• Space the emails out a bit (don’t send more than 1 per minute).
• Proofread the emails carefully, especially the first one you send to a given school.
• Subject line should be: “Tip: Course Registration Tool for UMD Students”
• If we have an impressive growth stat, use one of the two top templates. If we don’t, use one of the two bottom ones (all depending on whether we think the app or the planner will be more popular there).
• Be sure we actually support their school on the app before mentioning it.
◦ You could potentially say “Coursicle also has a companion app that notifies students when a class they want has an available seat (we plan to add support for Stanford on the app soon).”
If we have impressive growth stat (app). (e.g. 100 students in 3 days, 300 students last/this semester)
Hi Emily,
I wanted to make sure The Cougar was aware of Coursicle, a tool that helps students with registration. We recently added support for UH, and in just the past week over 100 UH students have started using Coursicle. In particular, students are interested in our iOS and Android app, which notifies them when a class they want has an open seat: https://www.coursicle.com/app/.
Coursicle also offers a schedule planner, which allows students to easily browse classes and plan their schedule: https://www.coursicle.com/uh/
I’d be happy to provide more information if you’re interested (I'm one of the developers). I've reached out to a few other people with the tip as well.
Best,
Kiran Aida
Columbia University | Class of 2018
B.A. Computer Science and Linguistics
kaa2171@columbia.edu | (919) 428-5526
When we have impressive growth stat (planner). (e.g. 300 students planned their schedule in 2 weeks, 500 students have used Coursicle to plan their schedule)
Hi Emily,
I wanted to make sure The Cougar was aware of Coursicle, a tool that helps students with registration. We recently added support for UH, and already over 300 students have used Coursicle to plan their schedule: https://www.coursicle.com/uh/
Coursicle also offers an iOS and Android app, which notifies students when a class they want has an open seat: https://www.coursicle.com/app/.
I’d be happy to provide more information if you’re interested (I'm one of the developers). I've reached out to a few other people with the tip as well.
Best,
Kiran Aida
Columbia University | Class of 2018
B.A. Computer Science and Linguistics
kaa2171@columbia.edu | (919) 428-5526
When they’re probably more interested in the app
Hi Holden,
I wanted to make sure The Technician was aware of Coursicle, a tool that helps students with registration. This week we added support for NC State, in response to many requests from students. In particular, students were interested in our iOS and Android app, which notifies them when a class they want has an open seat: https://www.coursicle.com/app/.
Coursicle also offers a schedule planner, which allows students to easily browse classes and plan their schedule: https://www.coursicle.com/ncsu/.
I’d be happy to provide more information if you’re interested (I'm one of the developers). I've reached out to a few other people with the tip as well.
Best,
Kiran Aida
Columbia University | Class of 2018
B.A. Computer Science and Linguistics
kaa2171@columbia.edu | (919) 428-5526
When they’re probably more interested in schedule planner
Hi Brooks,
I wanted to make sure The Diamondback was aware of Coursicle, a tool that helps students with registration. We just added support for UMD, in response to many requests from students. In particular, students were interested in our schedule planner, which allows them to easily browse classes and plan their schedule: https://www.coursicle.com/umd/
Coursicle also offers an iOS and Android app, which notifies students when a class they want has an open seat: https://www.coursicle.com/app/.
I’d be happy to provide more information if you’re interested (I'm one of the developers). I've reached out to a few other people with the tip as well.
Best,
Kiran Aida
Columbia University | Class of 2018
B.A. Computer Science and Linguistics
kaa2171@columbia.edu | (919) 428-5526
Follow-up:
• If you haven’t heard back/nobody is starting the process of writing an article, follow-up with everyone who didn’t respond.
• When someone responds, respond immediately. They’ll probably want to set up a call. Involve Joe when you get responses.
Follow-up template:
Hi Manuel,
I just wanted to follow-up on this. Are you interested in this story?
Best,
Kiran Aida
Columbia University | Class of 2018
B.A. Computer Science and Linguistics
kaa2171@columbia.edu | (919) 428-5526