A media pitch is a short email proposing a story to a journalist. The ones that work are under 150 words, lead with the news rather than the company, and offer something the reporter cannot get from your website. Between December 2025 and August 2026, 63% of our graded replies were positive. Below are the structures that produced them, and the specific things to cut.
The structure that works
Four parts, in this order:
1. Subject line: the story, not the company. What a headline would say. Not "Partnership announcement" — the thing that happened.
2. First sentence: the news. Who did what, or what is now true that was not before. If the reporter stops reading after one sentence they should still know whether they care.
3. Two or three sentences of substance. The number, the customer, the reason it matters now. This is where you supply what they cannot get elsewhere.
4. A specific offer and a close. What you can give them — an interview, the data, early access — and one short closing question.
That is the whole thing. Under 150 words.
Three worked structures
The data pitch
Subject: [Specific finding] across [n] [things measured]
[Name],
We looked at [n specific things] between [dates] and found [the single most surprising number].
[One sentence of context on why that is unexpected or matters now.] [One sentence on method, so it is checkable.]
Happy to send the full dataset and put you on with [named person] who ran it. Useful?
Why it works: the reporter can verify it, nobody else has it, and the method sentence pre-empts the first question they were going to ask.
The customer story pitch
Subject: How [named customer] [did the specific thing]
[Name],
[Customer] [did the concrete thing] and [the measurable result]. They are willing to talk about it, including [the part that did not go smoothly].
[One sentence on why this is a pattern rather than a one-off.]
I can set up 20 minutes with [name and title] this week. Worth a look?
Why it works: a named customer who will discuss the difficult part is rare, and the willingness to include it is what makes it credible.
The expert-source pitch
Subject: [Your position on the thing they wrote about]
[Name],
Your piece on [specific article] raised [specific point]. We see the opposite in [specific context], because [one concrete reason].
[Name] runs [relevant thing] and can explain it on the record, including where our own data is inconvenient.
Around this week if useful.
Why it works: it proves you read the article, it disagrees specifically rather than generally, and it offers a named person rather than a company statement.
What to cut
The company introduction. "Founded in 2019, [Company] is a leading provider of…" No reporter has ever read a second paragraph because of a first one that started this way.
Adjectives. Revolutionary, innovative, game-changing, seamless, cutting-edge. Each one lowers credibility.
The attachment. Send the press release only if asked. An unrequested attachment on a cold email hurts deliverability and gets deleted.
Multiple asks. One story, one offer. Two stories in one email means you are not sure which is better, and the reporter will assume neither.
"Just following up." If the follow-up adds nothing, it tells them the first email was not worth reading either.
"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
What the data says about pitching
Getting read is the constraint, not persuasion. Across 175 graded replies, 63% were positive and 19% were declines.
"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 first email does the work.
| Sequence step | Delivered | Open rate | Reply rate | Replies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First email | 2,063 | 47.6% | 6.0% | 124 |
| Follow-up 1 | 1,576 | 37.4% | 3.7% | 59 |
| Follow-up 2 | 69 | 40.6% | 4.3% | 3 |
Two-thirds of every reply came from the first email. Spend the effort there.
The list matters more than the writing. A perfect pitch to somebody who stopped covering the beat produces nothing.
"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
Before you send
- Has this person written about this subject in the last 90 days?
- Does the subject line say what happened, without the company name?
- Is it under 150 words?
- Is there one number or one named person in it?
- Have you offered something they cannot get from your website?
- Would you reply to this?
A note on personalisation
Referencing the reporter's recent article works when it is specific and connected to your pitch. It fails when it is decorative — "loved your piece on X" followed by an unrelated pitch is worse than no personalisation, because it reads as automated flattery, which is now extremely common and instantly recognisable.
The short version
- Under 150 words. News first, company second, adjectives never.
- Subject line says what happened, not that you have an announcement.
- Offer something they cannot get from your website: a number, a customer, a person.
- 63% of graded replies are a yes. Getting read is the hard part.
- Two-thirds of replies come from the first email. One follow-up, only if it adds.
- Decorative personalisation is worse than none.
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 pitches written this way — Salient PR is a technology PR agency working with technology companies. See how we work or start a conversation.
We also publish what a yes actually turns into — nine pitches traced from the reporter's reply to the published piece, with the dates.
Related reading
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Real media pitches that got replies, what they had in common, and the reply data behind them.
