The six keys, by Kapil Kale from GiftRocket:
- Have a story
- If you don't have a story, engineer one
- Pitch your story to journalists (via warm intros or cold calls)
- Change your story for different types of blogs
- Use press to get more press
- Be determined
Having a story is definitely essential. If you're pitching news bloggers, I'd add that you need to create some kind of event. News bloggers only report on stuff that's up to about 12 hours old. After that, it's stale. If you launched yesterday, don't bother talking to news bloggers. If you're launching in a week, though, they'll be interested.
Don't forget to read this article too.