Should you be contrarian in HARO responses?

HARO is a free service that connects journalists with sources for their stories by sending out daily emails with queries from reporters. If you’re subscribed to HARO, you simply read the emails, identify any queries you’re qualified to respond to, and email the reporter.

Of course, just because you might be the perfect source the reporter is looking for doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll land the media coverage you want. Lots of other people are subscribed to HARO, and many of them will be responding to the same queries as you. That’s why, over the years, I’ve written several posts offering tips to help you be more successful with your HARO responses.

Today, I want to share a HARO tip with you that I haven’t talked about before. I want to talk about trying the contrarian approach with your response.

Let me explain. The typical HARO query might go something like this:

“Looking for nutrition experts to discuss the benefits of a high-fat diet.”

As you’d expect, the majority of responses will be from nutritionists talking about the positive aspects of a high-fat diet. Most of these responses will probably be pretty similar, so if you take that approach, your response probably won’t really stand out.