How to pitch journalists

You built something, nobody has written about it, and the few emails you sent to big outlets got no answer. To pitch journalists so they reply, send a short story idea, not your launch news, to writers who covered that exact topic in the last 90 days: 100 of them a day, each one personal, with one follow-up. If you keep sending "we launched" to the biggest names, it gets deleted: in Muck Rack's 2026 survey, 88% of journalists said they delete pitches that miss their beat straight away.

Do these three things

About 5 hours a day, every day, for 4 weeks. Judge each story idea after 300 pitches and the whole routine after 2,800. Expect about 3 replies for every 100 pitches, and fewer stories than replies.

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1. 1Today: write 3 story ideas a stranger would read even if your company were not in them, and put a press page with photos, facts and your email on your site.
2. 2Every day: find 100 writers who covered one of those topics in the last 90 days, and send each a personal pitch under 150 words, before noon in their time zone. Follow up once, 3 to 5 days later.
3. 3Every Sunday: count pitches, replies and stories for each story idea, and swap the weakest idea for a new one.

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1. Write 3 story ideas a journalist would cover even without your company in them

A journalist writes for their readers, not for you, so pitch a story their readers want, with your company as the source of it. Write 3 story ideas today. Test each one with a single question: would a stranger read this article if your company were not in it? If the answer is no, it is an advert, and it gets deleted.

Pick your 3 from these five kinds of story. Every one of them works for a company with no news.

1. A number only you have. A count from your own work, or a count of public things: "7 in 10 [things you counted] [what you found]". Journalists value original data: 40% named it as one of the things they want most in a pitch in Muck Rack's 2026 survey. If you can count 100 or more things, the steps to build a full data story page are in how to get backlinks from news websites.
2. A change you see before others do. Something your buyers started doing in the last few months, which you see in your customer interviews, sales calls or support questions.
3. A local story. What your work means for people in your city or region. In the same survey, 78% of journalists said a pitch feels relevant when it affects the community their readers belong to.
4. A founder story with a real problem and a number. Not "we launched", but the hard part: the first 2 customers, the mistake that cost you a month, why a developer cannot sell. Small-business, startup and trade writers use these.
5. A reaction to this week's news. A new rule, a price change or a competitor's big move, with one fact from your own work. Same-day comments have their own routine in the news backlinks guide.

A launch, a new feature or funding is a story only for writers who cover launches in your field, and only on the day it happens. Pitch it then, as part of launching a B2B product, launching a D2C brand or a Product Hunt launch, next to the post that announces it on social media. Keep your 3 story ideas going the rest of the year.

Let AI list; you choose. Paste your website text, your notes and what your customers say into ChatGPT or Claude. Ask it for 20 story ideas across the five kinds, each with a headline that is a plain fact. Then pick the 3 where you have proof, and write each one on the sheet below. Put the numbers in yourself. A story about your ideal customer's world reaches people who might buy.

Story idea 1
Headline, as a plain fact with a number: [ ]
Why now: [what changed this month or this year]
Who it matters to: [the readers, in a few words: small shop owners in Leeds, web designers, parents of toddlers]
Proof I can give: [the number and where it comes from / a customer who will talk / photos]
Writers who cover this: [beats: local business, small business, retail trade, web design newsletters]Story idea 2: [same five lines]
Story idea 3: [same five lines]

• Tool: ChatGPT or Claude, and Google Docs. Free.
• Time: 1 hour.
• You will have: 3 story ideas on one page, each with a headline, why now, who it matters to, proof and the writers who cover it.
• It worked if: you read each headline to 3 people outside your field and at least 2 say "I'd read that" for at least 2 of the ideas, and every idea has a number in it.
• Common mistake: a story about your product ("[Company] launches the easiest way to…"). Journalists do not write adverts. They write about something that happened to people.

2. Put a press page on your site with photos, facts and your email

A press page is one page on your site, at yoursite.com/press, that gives a journalist everything they need to write about you without asking. Put it live today and link it in every pitch, so you never send attachments. Newsrooms are smaller than they were: in Cision's 2026 survey, 49% of journalists named shrinking budgets, staff cuts and more work as their biggest problem. The source who saves them time gets used.

High-resolution images were among the things journalists said they value most in a pitch in Muck Rack's 2026 survey (37%). So the photos matter as much as the words.

[Company] in one line: [what it does, for whom, in plain words, the same line as on your home page].Founders: [Name], [title]: [2 lines: what you did before and why you started this]. Headshot: [link to full-size file].Images: [3 to 5 product photos or screenshots, full size, free to use with credit to [Company]].
Logo: [link to PNG and SVG].5 facts: Started [month and year] in [city]. [What it costs]. [How many customers, signups or orders, honestly; leave it out if it is tiny]. [One number only you have]. [Who uses it].Coverage: [outlet names and links, once you have any].Press contact: [Name], [email], [phone]. I answer within an hour, [your working hours and time zone].

Write the one-line description with your value proposition, and keep it the same as your home page headline. Put the full-size files in one Google Drive folder set to "Anyone with the link" and link it from the page. Once customers say good things, add 1 or 2 short testimonials with their names. Journalists look you up before they reply, so make your LinkedIn profile match the bio: in Cision's 2026 survey, 62% of journalists use LinkedIn for work.

If you run a D2C store: add product photos on a plain white background and photos of the product in use. Say on the page that you can send samples. The same page helps a new store look trustworthy to shoppers.

If you run an agency: put client results on the page only with the client's written OK. Until you have that, say what you do and for whom, and point to one case study when you have one.

• Tool: your website builder, and Google Drive for the files. Free.
• Time: 1 to 2 hours.
• You will have: a live press page with your one line, founders and photos, images, logo, 5 facts and an email answered within an hour.
• It worked if: a friend can write 100 words about your company from the page alone, and every image downloads at full size.
• Common mistake: hiding the email behind a contact form, or puffing up the facts. A journalist who finds one wrong number stops trusting the rest.

3. Find 100 journalists a day who wrote about your story in the last 90 days

The right journalist for your pitch is one who wrote about the same topic in the last 90 days. Find 100 of them a day, so you can pitch 100 a day. Almost half of journalists say the pitches they get seldom match what they cover, and that is the gap you fill.

Search in four places, for each story idea.

1. Google News. Search your story's topic on Google, click the News tab, then Tools, and set the time to "Past month". For older stories, choose a custom range back to 90 days. Every byline on that page is a possible name.
2. Trade magazines and websites your buyers read for work, including the ones handed out at your industry's trade shows. Open each one's latest articles on your topic and note the writers.
3. Local news. Your city paper's business desk, local TV news sites and your area's business journal. Then do the same for other cities if your story has numbers for them.
4. Newsletter writers. Search Substack, and Google with "newsletter" and your topic. Many journalists now run their own newsletters: Poynter reported in April 2026 that a journalist leaves an outlet to start their own publication almost every week. Fewer people pitch them well.

Let AI fill the sheet; you check each row. Paste a page of search results into ChatGPT or Claude and ask it to list each writer's name, outlet, article title, date and link as rows. Then open each article yourself. Keep the row only if the writer wrote it, it is from the last 90 days, and it is on the same topic as your story idea. This takes under a minute a name, so 100 a day takes about 75 minutes.

Find each email the same way you would find any person's email address: the writer's author page, their bio, their social profile, or the outlet's staff page. If one outlet's emails all follow a pattern, such as first.last@outlet.com, use it and check it. Hunter's free plan gives 50 credits a month to find or check an email; keep them for the hardest ones. You do not need a paid media database yet. The steps for a free lead list work the same for journalists.

A spreadsheet is enough for this. Move to a CRM only when the sheet is too slow to use.

Name | Outlet | Group (local / trade / national / newsletter) | Their article (title, link, date) | Email | Time zone | Story idea (1, 2 or 3) | Pitch sent | Follow-up sent | Reply | Result (call / story / link)

The list must match the volume. 100 pitches a day is about 3,000 names a month. If you cannot find 100 writers a day who fit, do not add writers who do not. Instead, add a fourth story idea, which opens a new group of writers, or pitch your local story to outlets in more cities with each city's own numbers. Spend any time left on answering journalist requests, where the journalist has already asked for a source.

• Tool: Google and Google News, Substack, Google Sheets, ChatGPT or Claude, and Hunter's free plan. Free.
• Time: about 75 minutes a day, every day.
• You will have: 100 new rows a day, each with a recent article and an email.
• It worked if: every row has an article from the last 90 days on the same topic as its story idea, and fewer than 3 in every 100 emails bounce.
• Common mistake: a bought or copied list of "top journalists", or a name from a byline that is 2 years old. Both send your pitch to people who no longer cover your topic.

4. Send 100 personal pitches a day, under 150 words, before noon

Send each journalist on your sheet one short email of their own, under 150 words, before noon in their time zone. In Muck Rack's 2026 survey, 62% of journalists said they want pitches as a one-to-one email, 69% want them under 200 words, and 78% want them before noon. Half do not mind which day.

Subject: [The story, as a fact with a number, in under 10 words]Hi [first name],[One line about their article: what it said and what it made you notice.][The story in 2 to 3 sentences, with your number, written for their readers.][The proof: where the number comes from, and who can talk: you, a customer, an expert.]Would [the full numbers / a 15-minute call / a customer to talk to] help with a piece on this? Photos and facts are here: [yoursite.com/press].[Name], [title] at [Company], [city]
[Phone]

What AI writes and what you write. Write the story lines and the proof once for each story idea, in your own words. For each journalist, paste their article into ChatGPT or Claude and ask for a one-line opening about it. Check that line against the article, change it so it sounds like you, and add anything true you know. Then ask the AI to check the email is under 150 words. Do not let it write the whole pitch. In Pangram Labs' study of Featured's data from June 2025 to July 2026, journalists picked about 1 in 10 fully AI-written replies and about 1 in 3 written by people, and 35% of journalists there chose to block AI-written ones. In Cision's 2026 survey, 53% said they oppose AI-written pitches. The same rules that make a cold email get replies apply here: one person, one point, one small ask.

How 100 a day is possible. With the story lines written once and AI drafting the first line, each pitch takes about 90 seconds: read their article's opening, check the line, send. That is about 2.5 hours a day; plan it with the steps for fitting marketing into your week as a solo founder. Send each one from your own inbox, one at a time, to one person. Never BCC a list, never attach files, and never send the same text to everyone.

Know your email limits. Google Workspace lets each account send 2,000 emails a day, but a Workspace trial account only 500 until the trial ends. 100 a day is well inside both. If your domain is less than a month old, warm it up first, and check it has SPF and DKIM set up, or your pitches land in spam.

If you run a D2C store: lifestyle, beauty, home and gift writers often want to try the product. Offer a sample with no strings: Google's spam policy names "sending someone a product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link" as link spam. Gift guides fill up months ahead, so start holiday gift guide pitches at least 2 months before the season. Coverage in these outlets also feeds the answers that recommend products in ChatGPT.

If you run a B2B company: your buyers' trade magazines are your main list, and a customer who will talk on the record is your best proof. Coverage there also helps you get recommended by ChatGPT as a supplier.

If you run a SaaS: numbers from your own product make strong stories when they are added up and no customer is named: "Across [number] teams using our tool, [finding]." Check your terms and privacy policy allow it first.

If you run an agency: pitch marketing trade writers about your own agency first. A story you earned yourself is proof when you win clients without case studies.

• Tool: your email (Gmail or Google Workspace), and ChatGPT or Claude for the first lines. Free.
• Time: about 2.5 hours a day, every day.
• You will have: 100 pitches sent a day, each logged in the sheet with the date.
• It worked if: after 300 pitches for a story idea, you have about 3 replies for every 100. That is close to the average in Propel's 2024 analysis of about 400,000 pitches, the newest large count there is. It is the guide's pass mark, not a promise. Below 1 reply per 100, rewrite the subject and first line before you send more.
• Common mistake: "I'd love to set up a call to tell you about our product." The ask is about their article, not your product. The other mistake is a pitch over 200 words: in the same 2024 analysis, pitches under 150 words got about 4 times the replies of pitches over 500.

5. Follow up once after 3 to 5 days and answer every reply within an hour

Send one follow-up, 3 to 5 days after the pitch, in the same email thread, with one new fact. Then stop. This is different from following up on a cold email to a buyer, where up to 3 follow-ups is normal. Journalists ask for less: in Cision's 2025 survey, 62% said to follow up once and only once, 8% wanted more than one, and Cision reports that 30% want none at all.

Subject: Re: [your original subject]Hi [first name], one more thing on this: [one new fact, number or person you did not mention before].Happy to send [the full numbers / a quote / photos] today if it helps. If it is not for you, no need to reply.[Name]

Answer every reply within an hour, during your working hours. Give them exactly what they asked for: a quote, the numbers, photos, a customer's phone number. Short replies with what was asked win over long ones. If they say "not for me", thank them in one line and ask nothing more. Mark it in your sheet so you pitch them again only when you have a story on their topic.

Offer an exclusive for your best story idea. An exclusive means one journalist gets the story first and no one else gets it until they publish. Offer it to the one writer who fits best, and give them 48 hours to say yes. If they say no or do not answer, offer it to the next writer, or pitch the story to everyone. Never offer the same exclusive to two writers at once.

Use an embargo for news with a fixed date, like a launch. An embargo means several journalists get the news early and agree not to publish before a set time. Get their "yes" before you send the details, and give the date, the time and the time zone. Do not post the news yourself before that time.

Subject: Exclusive for you: [the story, as a fact]Hi [first name], I'd like to offer you this story first, before anyone else: [the story in one sentence, with the number].You'd get [the full numbers / an interview / a customer to talk to]. Could you let me know by [day and time, 48 hours from now, with time zone]? If it's not for you, I'll offer it elsewhere.[Name]

• Tool: your email and your sheet. Free.
• Time: about 50 minutes a day for follow-ups (about 30 seconds each), plus time for replies.
• You will have: every pitch followed up once, every reply answered, and one exclusive offered for your best story idea.
• It worked if: no journalist on your sheet has more than one follow-up, and every reply was answered within an hour of reading it.
• Common mistake: "Just bumping this to the top of your inbox", with nothing new. The other mistake is chasing the same journalist on LinkedIn, by phone and by email at once.

6. Count pitches, replies and stories every Sunday and change one story idea

Every Sunday, add up the week's pitches, replies, calls and stories for each story idea, and use the table below to keep, change or swap one idea. Judge a story idea after 300 pitches, not after a few days: at about 3 replies per 100, 40 pitches tells you nothing. Replies per 100 pitches is your reply rate.

After 2,800 pitches (4 weeks at 100 a day), look at the whole routine. If you have replies but no stories at all, move half your time to journalist requests and to podcast pitches, where the host has already asked for guests.

Put every story to work the day it comes out. Share it on LinkedIn and X, and turn it into posts for your other accounts. Add the outlet's name to your press page and an "As seen in" line on your home page, as social proof. If the article mentions you but has no backlink, ask once, as in the news backlinks guide. News also feeds AI answers: in Muck Rack's May 2026 study of more than 25 million links, 84% of the links ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini cited came from earned media such as news. That is one way to get mentioned by ChatGPT, and you can track those mentions. Add "Where did you hear about us?" to your signup or order form, a kind of self-reported attribution, so you can see which channel brought each customer.

Once a month, add the totals to your monthly marketing review.

Week of [date] | Story idea | Pitches | Follow-ups | Replies | Calls or interviews | Stories | Links | Replies per 100 | The one change

• Tool: Google Sheets. Free.
• Time: 30 minutes every Sunday.
• You will have: one row per story idea for the week, and one change written down.
• It worked if: the week's counts are filled in, and one story idea was kept, changed or swapped by the rule in the table.
• Common mistake: judging an idea after 40 pitches, or counting email opens instead of replies. Opens tell you nothing about whether the story was wanted.

Your journalist pitching checklist for the next 4 weeks

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Step 1 · Write 3 story ideas

• Write 3 story ideas a stranger would read even if your company were not in them.

Step 2 · Put a press page on your site

• Put a press page live with photos, facts and your email.

Step 3 · Find 100 journalists a day

• Set up your journalist sheet.
• Every dayAdd 100 journalists who wrote about one of your story ideas in the last 90 days.

Step 4 · Send 100 personal pitches a day

• Every daySend 100 personal pitches with a first line about each journalist's article.

Step 5 · Follow up once and answer every reply

• Every daySend one follow-up with one new fact to pitches from 3 to 5 days ago.
• Every dayAnswer every journalist's reply within an hour.
• Offer an exclusive for your best story idea to the one writer who fits best.

Step 6 · Count every Sunday and change one story idea

• Every SundayCount pitches, replies and stories for each story idea, and change one thing.
• Every SundayShare every new story and ask once for any missing link.
• After 2,800 pitchesJudge the whole routine and move time where the rule says.

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