Pitching Best Practices
Our team constantly seeks ways to surface industry best practices through research and partnerships for you and your colleagues. Below are a few guides we put together, covering research based on best practices when pitching to journalists.
Learn More About Email in Muck Rack
Prior to sending your first pitch, we recommend you review our Email Integration in Muck Rack article for details on Email Security, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), and troubleshooting tips when trying to connect your email to Muck Rack.
Email Sending Guidelines
Email communication plays a vital role in successful media pitching via Muck Rack. Set yourself up for pitching success by reviewing Muck Rack's best practices for sending email pitches in this helpful guide.
Personalized Communication
Send targeted emails
Use Alerts to follow industry-specific contacts closely and learn about their focus, history, and personality. Use this information to fine-tune your recipients list. Enhance transparency (and avoid pitching to disinterested reporters) by enabling journalists to unsubscribe.
Write informative subject lines and messages
Create engaging subject lines and email content to grab attention and provide valuable information, encouraging recipients to open and engage with your message.
TIP: You can use PressPal.ai to come up with a subject line if you're stuck!
Add a personal touch
Use the Personalize step within Muck Rack’s Pitching tool to compose a custom message tailored to each individual journalist. Personalized messages are more likely to capture a journalist's attention than cold, generic pitches.
TIP: Assign Pitch Owners to your Media List contacts to delegate outreach efforts across your team and ensure your pitches are even more personalized!
Respectful Email Practices
Adhere to email sending limits.
Be mindful of the maximum number of emails you're allowed to send within a specific timeframe. Respect these email sending limits to prevent being flagged for excessive sending, which can harm your sender reputation.
Stagger your pitches over time.
Staggering your pitches by scheduling them also helps with adherence to email sending limits. You can also use data such as Last Pitched dates in your Recipients list to ensure you aren’t communicating with individual contacts too frequently.
Allow recipients to unsubscribe.
Include an easily accessible unsubscribe link in your emails. This not only aligns with regulations like CAN-SPAM, but also shows respect for recipients' preferences, reducing the likelihood of spam complaints.
Effective Email Management
Use data to inform your sending strategy.
Use the Pitch Analytics feature as well as the data highlighted in Muck Rack’s State of Journalism report to determine who and when to follow up with. Building a Dashboard with pitch metrics (we suggest our Outreach Performance template) can also help you keep track of how your pitches are performing.
Track your email activity.
Use Activity Reports to track how many emails you team is sending and take advantage of Email Logging to track relationship history for individual journalists.
Optimize your email deliverability.
Email deliverability, the ability of an email to be successfully delivered to the recipient's inbox, is a critical factor to consider when sending email pitches. Review this blog post to learn why this is so important and download our checklist to ensure your messages hit home.
Questions to Ask Yourself
Before sending a pitch:
Have I checked the Activity page in Muck Rack to understand recent interactions across the Media List I built for my outreach?
Am I the creator of this list, or did someone else within my organization build it?
Are any reports in my Media List already assigned a Relationship Owner?
Who (if anyone) within my team is assigned as the Pitch Owner?
Does my contact information for any of the reporters in my list differ from what Muck Rack has listed?
Have I included an Unsubscribe Link in the Setup of this pitch and reviewed those on my Do Not Contact and Email Suppression lists?
Have I personalized each email I am sending out through Muck Rack? (See our Pitching article for details on how to do this)
After sending a pitch:
Did I send an email outside of Muck Rack? (If so, you can manually log the email to make sure it is shown in the relationship history for the appropriate media contact)
If I sent the pitch through Muck Rack, have I reviewed the number of opens, clicks, etc., to improve my outreach the next time? (See our Pitch Status article for more information)
Pitching Resources
Check out the following resources before sending your next pitch:
Resource | Description |
Review a recap or watch the full on-demand recording of our webinar where PR coach Michael Smart shares 8 real-life successful pitches along with tips you can apply to your own pitching strategy.
You can also download the accompanying ebook, including 8 pitches that landed placements in WSJ, LA Times, Bloomberg, and more. | |
Read a recap of some of the most upvoted questions from our Why They Worked: Lessons from 8 Successful Media Pitches webinar. | |
Explore practical solutions for increasing pitch performance with Muck Rack, including how to personalize pitches effectively, write clearer content, and improve follow-up strategies to boost journalist engagement and pitch success | |
Examples and information on media pitching | |
A guide to crafting a Pitch that is attractive to journalists | |
Learn about what Journalists do not enjoy in pitches | |
A course featuring legendary PR coach Michael Smart where you will learn how to receive more responses from journalists and secure more media placements | |
Learn more about how journalists prefer to be pitched in our annual State of PR report |
Get Help
For additional help, contact support by choosing the chat icon in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen and selecting Messages > Send us a message.
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