When and how to follow up your PR pitch

It’s an age-old PR debate: Should you follow up your media pitch? If you do, how soon and how many times?

Many PR professionals struggle to strike a balance between making sure their message gets in front of the right people and becoming a digital nuisance. Then there’s another complicating layer: If too many journalists think you fall on the latter end and mark you as spam, you could be blocked from reaching any reporters at all.

However, follow-ups can be a useful tool to earn valuable coverage.

I spoke with some PR pros (and a few journalists) to get their best advice on following up. Here’s how they suggest toeing the line between persistence and annoyance:

1. Send a follow-up to avoid messages getting lost.

For some journalists, just sorting through emails can be a huge undertaking. With such a high-volume inbox, it’s no wonder that sometimes even the best PR emails can get lost in the shuffle.

This is where a follow-up comes in. Joan Stewart, a publicity expert at The Publicity Hound, says, “As a former newspaper editor, I loved receiving follow-ups because in a hectic newsroom too many things, including great story pitches, can fall through the cracks.”