HARO — "Help A Reporter Out" — was a service that emailed journalist queries to a list of potential sources. Reply usefully, get quoted, receive a link and an attribution. The name became shorthand for the whole tactic, which is why people still ask about it even though the landscape has shifted and several competing platforms now carry the same traffic.
The platform question is the least interesting part. The tactic is expert quote sourcing, and it works for reasons that have nothing to do with which service the request arrives through.
Why it works at all
A journalist writing about your category on a deadline needs a quotable specialist and has no time to find one. Trade publications in B2B are frequently thinly staffed, covering topics they do not personally practise, and genuinely short of sources.
That asymmetry is the whole mechanism. You are not asking for a favour — you are solving a problem the writer has right now.
The clients who succeed at this stop thinking of it as link building within about six weeks. It becomes a media relations habit that happens to produce links, which is also why it compounds.
Where the requests live now
Rather than name specific platforms — which change, get acquired and alter their terms — here is what to look for and how to cover the space.
| Source type | Character |
|---|---|
| Query-distribution platforms | High volume, high competition, mixed quality. Several exist; subscribe to two or three. |
| Journalist social requests | Writers posting "looking for sources on X". Lower volume, far less competition. |
| Direct relationships | The end state. Writers who have used you before come back directly. |
| Trade association channels | Underused in B2B. Associations often circulate media requests to members. |
The third row is where the value concentrates. Platforms are the on-ramp; the objective is to stop needing them.
What a response that gets used looks like
Most responses are ignored for the same handful of reasons. The ones that get published share a shape.
It arrives fast
Within four hours, ideally within one. Journalists work the queue in order and stop reading once they have enough. This is the single largest determinant of success and it is an operational problem rather than a writing one.
It answers the question asked
Not the question you wish had been asked. A response that pivots to your product is discarded immediately, and the writer remembers the sender.
It is quotable as written
Two or three sentences a writer can lift verbatim into a paragraph. Not bullet points, not a document, not "happy to jump on a call" — a finished quote.
It contains something specific
A number, an example, a counterintuitive observation. Generic commentary that any vendor could have supplied does not get chosen, because the writer already has four of those.
It says who is speaking
Name, title, company, one line of credential. Nothing else. No boilerplate, no attachment, no logo.
The template that works
Subject: re: [their exact query subject]
[Name], [title] at [company], [one-line credential].
"[Two to three sentences answering exactly what was asked, containing one specific number, example or observation.]"
Happy to expand on any of this — and if you need a different angle, tell me and I will send it within the hour.
Five lines. Anything longer reduces the odds of being read to the end.
What to expect
Conversion is low and the arithmetic still works because the cost per attempt is minutes.
| Stage | Realistic figure |
|---|---|
| Relevant queries per week (B2B niche) | 3–10 |
| Worth responding to | 1–4 |
| Response-to-publication rate, months 1–3 | 5–10% |
| Response-to-publication rate, months 6+ | 15–25% |
| Placements per month once established | 2–6 |
The improvement between the two middle rows is the point. Writers build a mental list of sources who are fast, quotable and do not waste their time — and that list is short. Getting onto it takes persistence rather than budget.
The links, honestly
Two caveats that most write-ups about this tactic omit.
Many of these placements are no-follow. Large publications frequently no-follow all external links by policy. That is fine and it is not a reason to skip the tactic — the referral traffic, the credibility with a buying committee and the brand signal are unaffected by a rel attribute.
Some are unlinked mentions. Your name and company appear; no link. We log these anyway, because answer engines draw disproportionately on publications they treat as reliable, and being named as a source in that set raises the probability of appearing in a generated category comparison. No PageRank changes hands and the effect is real.
Why most companies fail at it
Three reasons, all operational.
- Nobody owns it. It gets added to a marketing manager's list and answered when convenient, which is never within four hours.
- Legal review. If every external statement needs two days of sign-off, this tactic is structurally unavailable. Better to establish pre-approved territory the specialist may speak on freely.
- The wrong person answers. Marketing writes generic commentary; the practitioner has the specific observation. Get the practitioner to speak and have marketing tidy it.
Making it work
Four practical decisions that turn this from an intention into a habit.
- Name one specialist. One person, not a rota. Consistency is what builds the reputation.
- Pre-agree the territory. Topics they may comment on without approval. This removes the legal bottleneck for 90% of queries.
- Set up a filter, not a subscription. Route matching queries to that person's phone. Reading a digest at 6pm is how you miss everything.
- Track responses and outcomes. After three months you will know which publications and which topics convert, and you can stop answering the rest.
Done properly this is among the cheapest tactics in B2B and one of the few that compounds into something else — the relationships it produces are what make trade publication contribution and newsjacking possible later.