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 annoying by sending too many emails. 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 media pros at all.

Even with the risk of running afoul of harried PR pros, though, follow-ups have proven to be a useful tool for many of the best PR professionals, and if used correctly, they could be the difference between slipping through the cracks and earning valuable coverage.

I spoke with some PR pros (and a few journalists) to get their best advice on following up. Some of their tips may seem obvious, some may be all-new, and some may validate your current approach.

These tips should help you know how to toe the line between persistence and annoyance, without crossing it:

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

We all know that follow-ups are useful to PR teams, but it’s easy to forget about the value they provide journalists.