Paste the release into the body of the email. Never attach it. Write a subject line that says what happened rather than that an announcement exists, put two or three sentences of context above the release explaining why this particular journalist should care, and send it individually rather than to a list. Between December 2025 and August 2026, 63% of graded replies to this approach were a yes.
This page covers the mechanics of sending. If you are writing the pitch itself, the structures that get replies are covered separately in our guide to media pitch examples.
The mechanics
Paste, do not attach. An unrequested attachment on a cold email hurts deliverability, gets stripped by some corporate filters, and will not be opened by a journalist who does not know you. Put the release inline, below your note.
One recipient per email. Not BCC, not a distribution list. A journalist can tell, and anything sent to a group reads as a broadcast they can safely ignore.
Subject line: the news, not the announcement. "TechCo Raises $40M to Expand Grid Storage Manufacturing" — not "Press Release: TechCo Funding Announcement". Under about 60 characters so it survives truncation on mobile.
Two or three sentences above the release. This is the part that determines whether anything happens. Why this journalist, why now, and what you can give them that the release does not contain.
Then the release, inline. Headline, dateline, body, quotes, boilerplate, contacts.
Signature with a real phone number. Somebody who might want to move fast needs to reach you.
The note above the release
The release states facts. The note argues relevance. Most people send the release with no note, or with a note that repeats the release, which is why most releases land nowhere.
A workable shape:
[Name],
[One sentence: what happened, and the single most interesting fact.]
[One sentence: why it connects to what they cover — reference a specific recent piece, not their beat in general.]
[One sentence: what you can supply — the executive, the data, the customer, early access.]
Full release below. Happy to get you [name] today if useful.
Under 80 words. The release can be 500.
"The pitches that get answered give the reporter something they can't get from the press release. A number, a customer who'll talk, a person who'll say the uncomfortable thing on record."
Lindsey Ranger, Account Lead, Salient PR
Who to send it to
The single largest determinant of whether this works, and it happens before you write anything.
"Before anything goes out I check whether the reporter has written about the category in the last 90 days. If they haven't, they come off the list. That one rule kills more pitches than any editing pass."
Lindsey Ranger, Account Lead, Salient PR
Twenty to forty verified names beats four hundred plausible ones. Verify the email — bounces damage your sending reputation and make future mail less likely to arrive at all. Our bounce rate was 1.0%, which is a list-hygiene number rather than a tooling one.
When to send
Recomputed from the reconciled export with automated replies excluded, across 1,931 deliverable pitches sent between December 2025 and July 2026:
| Day | Pitches | Human replies | Reply rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tuesday | 100 | 17 | 17.0% |
| Wednesday | 128 | 14 | 10.9% |
| Friday | 479 | 37 | 7.7% |
| Monday | 706 | 50 | 7.1% |
| Thursday | 518 | 30 | 5.8% |
Tuesday is also the smallest sample in the set, and send day is confounded with campaign quality — we did not randomise which campaign went out when. Treat it as a signal, not a rule. We deliberately do not recommend an hour: three-quarters of our sends fall inside a four-hour band, so we have never tested morning or evening at meaningful volume. The full timing analysis shows the whole dataset, including the parts that support nothing.
What matters far more than the hour: whether there is a bigger story in your category that day, and whether you are sending before the news is stale.
Follow-up
One, and it has to add something.
| Sequence step | Delivered | Reply rate | Replies |
|---|---|---|---|
| First email | 2,063 | 6.0% | 124 |
| Follow-up 1 | 1,576 | 3.7% | 59 |
| Follow-up 2 | 69 | 4.3% | 3 |
Two-thirds of every reply came from the first email.
"One follow-up, and it has to add something. If the second email is just 'bumping this up,' you've told them the first one wasn't worth reading either."
Lindsey Ranger, Account Lead, Salient PR
Embargo and exclusive
If you are offering either, say so in the first line of the note, not at the bottom.
Embargo: "Under embargo until 8am ET Tuesday 11 August." Give three weeks where you can. A day's notice is not an embargo.
Exclusive: state it plainly, state the deadline for them to decide, and honour it. Offering the same exclusive to three publications is the fastest way to lose all three.
What not to do
Attach the release. Covered above, and it is the most common mistake.
Send to a generic address like news@ or info@ if a named reporter exists.
Use "Press Release:" as the subject prefix. It labels the email as safe to ignore.
Include a "Dear Editor" greeting. Use their name or no greeting.
Send the same note to everyone. The note is the only part that is personalised. If it is not, do not send it.
Chase by phone. Cold-calling a journalist about an email is a reliable way to be remembered badly.
What to expect
Of our graded replies, 63% were a yes. On a well-built list of forty names, expect three or four real conversations. That is a good outcome. Expecting thirty is what leads people to build bad lists.
"When a reporter does reply, 63% of the time it's a yes. The hard part was never convincing them. It's getting read at all."
Justin Mauldin, Founder, Salient PR
The short version
- Paste the release inline. Never attach it.
- One recipient per email. Never BCC.
- Subject line says what happened, under 60 characters, no "Press Release:" prefix.
- Two or three personalised sentences above the release. Under 80 words.
- Verify every address. Our bounce rate is 1.0%.
- Two-thirds of replies come from the first email. One follow-up, only if it adds something.
- Expect three or four real conversations from forty good names.
Salient PR runs earned media programmes for technology companies. All figures come from our own outreach database covering December 2025 to August 2026 and are updated quarterly.
Sources
- Salient PR outreach database, Dec 2025 – Aug 2026
If you want the list and the sending handled — Salient PR is a technology PR agency working with technology companies. See how we work or start a conversation.
Related reading
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The mechanics of sending a press release by email — subject line, paste versus attach, who to send it to, and when. With reply data from our own outreach.
