Experience of PR Professionals
In a survey of 1,034 PR professionals by MuckRack, getting journalists to respond is the #1 concern for PR pros.
This issue is ranked higher by people at agencies (59%) as opposed to brands (46%). Brands however are more concerned about having enough resources (55%) than their agency counterparts (42%).
When asked, “Over the last week, about how many hours did you work? This includes: meetings, outreach, writing and responding to messages, planning, researching.”, 41% of respondents said between 25 – 40 hours and 51% said between 41 – 50 hours.
Media Pitches
In a survey of over 500 journalists by Fractl, just over 50% of respondents said they receive less than 10 pitches a day. Over 42% of writers reported receiving 11 to 100 pitches a day, and almost 5% receive 100+ email pitches per day.
The longer someone has worked in the field of online journalism, the less likely they were to find email pitches valuable. Just over 40% of journalist participants in our survey reported that email pitches are “not at all valuable” to their work. 20% of people who had been working in online journalism for less than 9 years found email pitches extremely or very valuable. Only 13% of those working in the field for more than 20 years could say the same.
Of journalists that read email pitches, most writers (58%) prefer to receive a pitch between 100 and 200 words.
Of the journalists that read email pitches, 40.79% have no preference for the time of day your email pitch arrives in their inbox.
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are a writer’s favorite days to receive pitches.
Journalists prefer 0 or 1 follow up emails an average of 3 to 7 days after you’ve sent your initial pitch.
Take that preference with a grain of salt though. In a study of 600,000 link outreach emails, Authority Hackers found that you will get 40% more links if you follow up. Not following up at least once is costly.
Over 53% of journalists say they don’t subscribe to press release sources.
Publisher Responses
The higher the publisher’s Domain Authority, the less positive their feedback is likely to be when you pitch them. This is likely because publishers with the highest Domain Authority (> 90), have the strictest editorial guidelines. If you plan to pitch the likes of The New York Times, CNN, TIME, or The Washington Post, you pitch and methodology have to buttoned up.
Journalists generally respond positively if they respond. And when they respond positively, they are likely to compliment the work or to want an expert opinion.
In our experience, having a subject matter expert available to speak with a journalist is the third most important factor when pitching behind the quality of the content and the timing.
Link Building And Digital PR
In a survey of 755 link builders, Authority Hackers found that agencies and in-house SEOs were 3 times more likely to do digital PR than website owners. This is likely due to the high cost of executing an effective digital PR campaign.
Of those link builders who do digital PR, they rate digital PR as the most effective strategy for link building, above creating content, guest posting, HARO, link exchange, and buying domains.
After 5 years of link building experience, link builders are 433% more likely to use digital PR for link building. This may be due to the high cost and skills required to execute digital PR well.
Earlier we mentioned that journalists prefer 0 or 1 follow up emails an average of 3 to 7 days after you’ve sent your initial pitch. Take that preference with a grain of salt though.
In a study of 600,000 link outreach emails, Authority Hackers found that you will get 40% more links if you follow up.
Not following up at least once is costly.
Sources:
DataReportal: DIGITAL 2024: THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Authority Hacker: Link Building Survey
Fractl: Survey Of 500+ Journalists Reveals How To Pitch the Media for Top-Tier Press Coverage
