TL;DR
You’ve done the research. You’ve built the data and the visual. Now comes the part that most people get wrong – the outreach.
A strong campaign pitched badly gets ignored. A strong campaign pitched well gets picked up, syndicated and amplified across dozens of publications.
The difference comes down to three things: who you send it to, what you say in the email, and what you do once you have coverage.
How to reach out to journalists
The goal of outreach isn’t to email as many journalists as possible. It’s to get the right story in front of the right people at the right time. A list of 20 well-chosen contacts will consistently outperform a list of 200 random ones.
Building your media list
Your media list should be built from scratch for each campaign, not recycled from a generic database. The journalists who covered a home improvement story six months ago are the journalists most likely to cover yours today.
How to find the right contacts
- Search each target publication for your topic and note who wrote the most relevant recent stories.
- Click through to each journalist’s profile and check they’re still actively covering that beat – people move around.
- Note their angle preferences – are they drawn to data-led stories, human interest pieces or policy angles?
- Prioritise journalists at network publications (Reach PLC, Newsquest, National World) – one placement becomes many.
20 relevant contacts will always outperform 200 random ones. Quality of fit matters far more than volume.
What to record for each journalist
Keep a simple spreadsheet with: name, publication, network (if applicable), email, 2-3 recent relevant articles and any notes on their preferred angle. This takes 10 minutes per journalist and pays off every time you pitch them.
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Did You Know? Hunter.io gives you 25 free searches per month and works well for finding journalist emails at large publications. LinkedIn works for those it can’t find. Most journalists also list contact details on their publication profile page.
Writing a subject line that gets opened
The average journalist’s inbox receives over 100 PR emails a day. Your subject line has roughly 3 seconds to stand out. Everything else in your pitch is irrelevant if this line doesn’t work.
The formula ✅
Strong subject lines share one thing: they lead with the story, not the sender. They give the journalist a reason to open before they’ve read a single word of the pitch.
- ‘[City] ranks #1 for [surprising stat]’
- ‘[Counter-intuitive finding] shows…’
- ‘Data: [specific trend] up X% in [timeframe]’
- ‘Exclusive: [regional angle] revealed’
What to avoid ❌
- ‘New study from [Company]’ – company-first, no hook
- ‘You might find this interesting’ – vague, gives nothing
- ‘Press release: [generic title]’ – signals a generic pitch immediately
- ‘Following up on my email’ – if your first pitch was weak, this won’t fix it
Writing a subject line that gets opened
The pitch email should be short – 4 to 6 sentences at most. Journalists don’t read essays. They scan. Your job is to give them everything they need to decide ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in 20 seconds.
Subject: [City name] ranks #1 for [specific finding]
Hi [Name],
I saw your recent piece on [topic] – thought this might be relevant.
We analysed [X data points] and found that [surprising finding]. [City/subject]came out on top because of [specific reason].
Full data + embeddable charts here: [link]
Happy to provide more context or regional breakdowns.
Best,[Your name]
Why this works
- Line 1 references their recent work – it signals you’ve actually read it, not just found their email.
- Line 2 leads with the finding, not the company – they care about the story, not who produced it.
- Line 3 gives them a ready-made asset – they don’t have to ask for more information.
- The whole thing takes 20 seconds to read – which is all the time you have.
The reference to their recent piece is the most important line in the email. A pitch that says ‘I saw your piece on X’ converts dramatically better than one that doesn’t. If you can’t find a relevant recent article from them, they probably aren’t the right journalist for this campaign.
| ✅ Do | ❌ Don’t |
| – Reference a specific recent article of theirs – Lead with the finding, not your brand – Include a link to the full data and visuals – Keep it to 4-6 sentences – Offer regional breakdowns as a hook | – Open with ‘I hope this email finds you well’ – Attach a PDF press release as your first contact – Copy 50 journalists on the same email – Write more than 150 words – Pitch without a data asset to back it up |
The follow-up strategy
Most coverage doesn’t come from the first email. A well-timed follow-up – one that adds something rather than just chasing – can be the difference between a placement and silence. The key is knowing when to push and when to move on.
1⃣️ Day 1: Send the initial pitch
Morning, between 8 and 10am. Journalists read email before the day gets away from them. Avoid Mondays and Fridays.
3⃣️ Day 3: Gentle nudge
One sentence: ‘Just bumping this up your inbox in case it got buried.’ Nothing more. Don’t re-explain the pitch.
7⃣️ Day 7: Final follow-up with a new angle
Add a line that gives them a new reason to care – a different regional angle, a new data point, or a hook to a story that just broke. Then leave it.
🖐 After that: Move on
Three contacts is the limit. Anything beyond that damages the relationship. Mark them as contacted and move to the next journalist.
Amplifying your campaign
Getting one placement is good. Turning one placement into 20 is the job. Amplification isn’t about doing more outreach – it’s about working smarter with the campaign you’ve already built.
There are two levers: regional angle multiplication and data repurposing. Used together, they can take a single dataset and generate coverage across dozens of publications.
Regional angle multiplication
Most national datasets contain regional breakdowns that go unpitched. That’s a missed opportunity. A story about the UK’s best cities for remote work isn’t just one story – it’s 20 stories, one for each city in the ranking.
How it works
Once your national story has landed, go back through your data and pull the local angle for each region. Then pitch that angle directly to the local publication – not the national story, but the version that’s specifically about their city or area.
For example, ‘UK’s best cities for remote work’ becomes:
- ‘Manchester tops remote work rankings for second year running’ – pitch to Manchester Evening News.
- ‘Leeds ranks #3 for digital nomads in new UK study’ – pitch to Yorkshire Post.
- ‘Liverpool falls to #12 in remote work index’ – pitch to Liverpool Echo.
The local publication gets an exclusive local angle. You get a link. The journalist doesn’t have to reframe anything – you’ve already done that work for them.
Repurposing your data
A single dataset rarely has just one story in it. Once you’ve made your primary pitch, look at what else the data can support – different angles, different audiences, different seasonal hooks.
- Flip the angle – if the story was ‘best cities for X’, pitch ‘worst cities for X’ to different journalists.
- Update for seasonality – refresh the numbers ahead of a relevant season and pitch as a seasonal story.
- Zoom in – the national story might hide a compelling regional or demographic trend worth its own pitch.
- Combine with new data – layer in a fresh public dataset to produce a new metric from the same original research.
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Longevity Tip: Adjust your data alongside relevant external changes – price increases, policy announcements, seasonal shifts – and you can re-pitch the same campaign angle multiple times across different news cycles.
Building relationships for next time
Every journalist who covers your story is a warm contact for the next campaign. Most PR outreach treats every pitch as a cold start. The agencies that get consistent coverage treat outreach as relationship-building.
What to do after coverage lands
- Send a short thank-you – one line, no ask. It takes 30 seconds, yet almost nobody does it.
- Engage with the article – share it, reference it, let them see it performed well.
- Note what they changed or added – this tells you what they value and what to include next time.
- Flag them as a warm contact in your media list and prioritise them on future relevant campaigns.
Journalists who’ve covered you once are significantly more likely to cover you again – particularly if you made their job easy the first time. The compounding effect of a well-maintained media list is one of the biggest unfair advantages in PR.
What this looks like in practice
Here are four of our campaigns that applied this framework end-to-end; from a targeted media list and a strong pitch through to amplification across regional networks.
iHeat – ideal home temperatures
The pitch: a boiler client needed timely coverage during the Ofgem 10% price cap increase. Rather than a generic energy-saving story, the campaign led with a single, specific hook – lowering your thermostat by 1°C reduces your bill by 10%. Simple, quantified, reactive.
The result: 13 backlinks across DR 70-89 sites including Express.co.uk, Manchester Evening News, Birmingham Mail and Netmums. Total reach: 14.7 million.
Beachlets – Croyde staycation
The pitch: Google Trends data showed ‘staycation’ searches had grown 9,772% since 2004. The campaign used this to position Croyde as an overlooked UK destination outperforming Bali, Dubai and Spain in search interest. The pitch landed during peak holiday planning season.
The result: 20 backlinks across DR 47-92 sites including Express.co.uk, Mirror.co.uk and MSN.com. Total reach: 65 million.
Pure Optical – eye health supplement
The pitch: a supplements client in a crowded wellness market needed a credible health angle. The campaign used AREDS2 clinical research to back a specific claim – two nutrients shown to slow age-related macular degeneration, available for 33p a day. The pitch targeted health journalists writing for a 55+ audience.
The result: 10 backlinks across DR 73-92 sites including MSN.com, Mirror.co.uk and Manchester Evening News. Total reach: 70 million.
SAM Conveyancing – buying a neighbour’s land
The pitch: a journalist requested expert comment on a common legal question about buying a neighbour’s land. Rather than providing a quote and leaving it there, the team researched the most common misconceptions around the topic and provided a comprehensive, original expert response – debunking assumptions the journalist hadn’t even asked about.
The result: 100+ backlinks across DR 25-82 sites. The Newsquest regional network ran the story across dozens of titles simultaneously. Total reach: nearly 3 million.
It’s time to get featured online
A great PR campaign isn’t reserved for big brands with deep pockets – it’s built on clarity, relationships, and consistency. When you take the time to craft a compelling pitch, place your story with the right people, and amplify it across the channels your audience actually uses, you create momentum that marketing spend alone simply can’t buy.
The press isn’t gatekeeping your story. It’s waiting for you to tell it well. So refine your angle, reach out with confidence, and make some noise. Your next campaign could be the one that changes everything.
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