Attention: This article will be archived in Q1 2025!
Please see our new Creating a Pitch collection in Help Center for a new and improved experience.
Pitching With Muck Rack
Pitches on Muck Rack transform how you send personalized emails in bulk, track metrics about your outreach, and organize your company's relationship history with every journalist.
Benefits of Pitching with Muck Rack
Send personalized emails in bulk
Track key email metrics
Manage and track follow-ups
Organize your relationship history
Learn More in Muck Rack Academy
You can learn all about sending Pitches in Muck Rack by taking the Muck Rack Essentials course in Muck Rack Academy.
Send A Pitch With Muck Rack
Watch the video or follow the steps below to learn how to send a Pitch using Muck Rack.
Go to Relationships > Pitches.
Select the Create New button in the top right-hand corner.
Follow the Pitch Workflow outlined in each section below.
Setup
Enter a name for your pitch.
NOTE: This will not be the subject of the email sent to your recipients, but for you to identify the pitch within Muck Rack.
Select any other settings that are applicable to your pitch:
Shared With: Select who has access to this pitch within your organization.
Include Unsubscribe: Provides users with the option to unsubscribe from the pitch.
Email Tracking: Track when emails are opened and links are clicked.
Select Next step in the bottom right-hand corner.
Recipients
Select the Add Recipients button.
Search for media lists, people, and newsdesks using the search bar and select to add to your Recipient list.
If you cannot locate a contact you need, select + New Custom Contact to create a new Custom Contact and add them to your Recipient list.
Once happy with your list, select the Add to pitch button at the bottom.
Review your list and remove recipients if desired.
Example: You can use the Last Pitched date to sort and filter recipients based on when they last received communication from your team. This can ensure you don't follow up with reporters too soon.
Select the Next step button in the bottom right-hand corner to proceed.
⚠️ IMPORTANT: If pitching to more than 500 recipients in a single pitch, you will be presented with the following warning message:
"Heads up! Large email lists (500+ recipients) can lead to slower delivery times and may require resends, as most email clients aren't built for such volumes. For faster sending, consider smaller groups or contact our team for assistance with DNS setup for large-volume pitching."
You can reach out to our Customer Support team via the chat widget in the bottom right-hand corner at any time for assistance with DNS setup.
Compose
Compose your Pitch by entering a Subject line and Pitch content. The [first name] merge tag will pull from the contact's data and input their first name into the greeting.
Learn More About Pitch Formatting & Attachments
This article covers the main steps of the Pitching workflow in Muck Rack. For more details on how you can format your pitch and add attachments, visit our Pitch Formatting & Attachments article.
Personalize
You can personalize each Pitch from the template you have created.
Select the Personalize button to edit the pitch for an individual contact.
Tailor your pitch to that contact by adding a personalized message.
Select the Save personalization button at the bottom.
NOTE: A personalized Pitch will have a Personalized tag next to the contact name.
Review & Send
Review your pitch and edit any details as needed. Then either schedule the pitch to be sent at a later date or select Send Now.
⚠️ IMPORTANT: If pitching to more than 500 recipients in a single pitch, you may be presented with the following warning message:
"Heads up! Large email lists (500+ recipients) can lead to slower delivery times and may require resends, as most email clients aren't built for such volumes. For faster sending, consider smaller groups or contact our team for assistance with DNS setup for large-volume pitching."
You can reach out to our Customer Support team via the chat widget in the bottom right-hand corner at any time for assistance with DNS setup.
Add Contacts to a Pitch
Add Contacts to a Pitch From a Media List
Sending a pitch through an existing Media List is an alternative process for sending pitches. You can use this method to send new and existing Pitches.
Go to Relationships > Media Lists and select a Media List.
From your selected Media List, select the Send Pitch drop-down in the top right-hand corner to add your entire Media List to a pitch or select specific contacts then the Add to Pitch button in the action bar that appears to add only those contacts. You can select an existing pitch or create a new one.
The pitch will populate contacts from the Media List as your recipients. You can select Add Recipients to add additional contacts or remove contacts individually or in bulk from this page.
NOTE: If you use a different email address to log into Muck Rack than you prefer to send emails with, no problem! Contact us, and we’ll set up your account so you can connect the email address you send emails with to Muck Rack without changing your login email address.
Add a Media List From the Pitching Tool
Select the Add recipients button from the pitching tool's Recipients page.
With the Media Lists tab selected, search for a media list using the search bar or select the name of the media list you'd like to add to the pitch.
Select the Add to pitch button at the bottom.
NOTE: If you're adding multiple Media Lists to the same pitch, Muck Rack will automatically remove any duplicate contacts across those various lists.
Scheduled Pitches
Schedule Pitches to Send Later
If you want to prepare a pitch for later, you can schedule pitches to be sent on a specific date at a specific time.
Navigate to the Review and Send step within an existing pitch.
Select the Schedule for Later button at the bottom.
Select a date for the pitch to be sent.
Select Schedule Pitch at the bottom right of the screen.
Edit or Cancel a Scheduled Pitch
Go to Relationships > Pitches.
Select the Scheduled tab.
Select the Pitch you'd like to reschedule and make changes as needed in the Review and Send section under Choose when to send this Pitch.
To cancel the scheduled pitch, select Cancel next to the currently scheduled date.
Delete A Pitch
Go to Relationships > Pitches and select the three dots under the Actions column next to the Pitch you want to delete.
Select Delete > Confirm.
NOTE: You can only delete pitches that have not been sent yet.
Pitch Follow-Ups
You can follow up on your pitches in Muck Rack by sending bulk and individual follow-ups to pitch recipients. Watch the video or follow the steps below to learn more.
Go to Relationships > Pitches and select a sent Pitch.
To send a follow-up to the full list of recipients, select the Send Follow-Up button at the top of the Pitch.
To send a follow-up to specific recipients, use the checkboxes to select the contacts you'd like to follow up with, then select the Send Follow-Up option in the action bar that appears.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Question | Answer |
How quickly will my pitch send? | The speed of sending your pitch depends on how you've set up email delivery through Muck Rack.
If you've linked your email through Muck Rack's integration:
If your organization frequently sends pitches to many recipients, it's advisable to contact our team to explore alternative sending methods.
If you use DNS records that allow Muck Rack to send from your email address: Pitches are usually sent within a few minutes. Please note that these emails won't appear in your organization's Sent folder.
Regardless of the sending method, it's not recommended to send pitches to several hundred recipients simultaneously. |
When pitching through Muck Rack, can I CC or BCC someone who does not have a Muck Rack account? | Not at this time, however, this is a functionality we are exploring. |
What happens if a new email address is found for a recipient? | Muck Rack’s team will update the status for the recipient from Issue to Unsent. This allows you to choose if you’d like to send the pitch to the recipient or if you’d prefer to remove them from the Pitch.
To send the Pitch to any recipients who were changed from Issue to Unsent, click the Continue sending button from your Pitch. |
What happens if a new email address is not found for a recipient? | Muck Rack’s team will leave the status of the recipient as an Issue and update the recipient’s Issue status. The issue status can be viewed by selecting the Issues filter from your Pitch, or clicking the row for a recipient included in your Pitch. |
What happens if my pitch did not send as expected and I'm using Gmail? | Sometimes your organization may have access rules in place that prevent our email integration provider, Nylas, from sending emails. If you encounter the above error, please have your IT administrator follow these instructions here. |
Where are past pitches stored? | You can view your previously sent pitches by navigating to Relationships > Pitches. The Pitches page will show you all your pitches, including those in draft status. |
How do I view follow-up pitches? | To view your pitch follow-ups, navigate to the Pitches page by selecting Relationships > Pitches.
There are 2 ways to view follow-ups:
|
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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