Your PR questions answered: pitching & following up

This newsletter feature was inspired by you! If you've attended one of our recent PR workshops, you likely noticed there were A LOT of great questions during the Q&A. We've collated all the questions and once a month we'll send you two in-depth answers to your most common PR questions.

Also- last week we hosted the team at Aeolidia for a workshop all about holiday email marketing. It was packed with great advice. Watch the replay here.

Q: How and when should I follow up with an editor who didn't respond to my pitch?

A: This is such a good question and a really common one too.

Following up is one of the most important parts of pitching. We generally follow up two times after the initial cold pitch.

In the first follow we just want to check and see if they're interested and if possible, we will send one more interesting point or fact about whatever we're pitching.

This first follow-up is usually two or three sentences max.

Our third and final email is also very short, a last check-in. We usually say something like "if I don't hear back from you I'll take that it's not a good fit and won't reach out again about XYZ (whatever we were pitching)."

We approach PR work using design thinking methodology and one of the key pillars is empathy. In design that means understanding and empathizing with the end user…for PR that person is the editor, so it's important to be clear that you respect their time and won't be bombarding them with emails.

And you know what? We get a lot of responses after this final short follow-up email.

At the end of the day, an editor's job is to write about interesting stuff.

Your job is to get interesting stuff in front of them. So if we're all doing our job, not pushing too much, and not taking anything personally we are all just participating in professional communication.

Q: What are your top two or three tips for writing the actual pitch email?

A: I would go back to empathy, and always keep the email receiver in mind.

We know that editors receive 100+ emails a day.

Give them an email that is short and sweet.

And most of all, helps them do their jobs.

Don't include attachments.

Embed low-resolution images that load quickly.

And of course, introduce yourself.

The number one thing is not to say- “Hey, it would be really great if you wrote about me because it would help me.” An editor's job is not to help you. Their job is to help their readers and put together a beautiful book.

Approach the email from the perspective of being most helpful to them, like- “I have something that I think your readers would be really interested in. I already have the images ready and here are two or three things that you might want to know about…” you're much more likely to get into that publication because, again, you're there to help them.

Useful tools to help you get started:

Our free 5-day Pitch the Media Mini Course

How to Read Like a Publicist: A Design Milk Case Study

How to Write Pitch Email Subject Lines Editors Will Actually Open

Thanks for giving us some time in your inbox!

Cheers,
Nora & Kirsten

PS - If you liked the newsletter, we’d be so happy if you shared it with others who might find it useful. Anyone new can subscribe here.

Your PR questions answered: pitching & following up

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