How to pitch a journalist when nobody has heard of your startup

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By Saroj Jha · September 23, 2026 · 7 min read

The first press pitches I ever sent went nowhere, and looking at them now I understand why. They were announcements. They told a reporter that something had happened at my company and quietly assumed that was interesting to somebody other than me.

A reporter does not need news about you. They need a story their readers will finish. Once I started writing pitches that way, the replies began: not many, but enough, and from the right people.

Pick three reporters who already cover your buyer’s problem, read their recent work, and send each of them a short, specific email that offers a story they could write without you. Say what you can bring to it (data, a customer, a contrarian view) and make the ask small.

Why “we just launched” is not a story

Funding, launches and new hires are company events. They become stories only when they illustrate something a reader cares about: a market shifting, a practice changing, a number that contradicts what everyone assumes.

If you strip your company’s name out of the pitch and there is nothing left, there was never a story. That single test has killed more of my drafts than any editor. Journalists apply it too: in Muck Rack’s 2026 survey of 897 journalists, 88% delete a pitch that misses their coverage and 71% one that is overly promotional^[2].

Find three reporters, not three hundred

A list you bought is a list everyone else bought, and it shows: in Cision’s 2026 survey of 1,899 journalists, 72% said fewer than a quarter of the pitches they get are relevant^[1]. Work the other way round: start from the articles your buyers already read, and find the bylines behind them.

• Search for the problem your product solves, in the words your customers use, and note who wrote the three best pieces.
• Read their last five articles. A reporter who covered your topic a week ago is unlikely to want it again immediately; one who covered it three months ago may.
• Check what they complain about publicly. Reporters are candid about bad pitches, and they usually say exactly what they want instead.
• Keep it to three names per story. A pitch sent to thirty people reads like one sent to thirty people, and half of journalists delete a pitch that looks like a mass email^[2].

What goes in the opening lines

Assume your email is read on a phone, between two other things, and that the reader decides in seconds. Everything that matters goes above the fold.

• The subject line states the story, not your company name.
• The first sentence says why it matters now.
• The second says what you have that they cannot get elsewhere: a dataset, a customer who will talk on record, a practitioner view.
• The third makes the ask small: fifteen minutes, or permission to send the data.

Then stop. A pitch that runs past two hundred words is a press release wearing a jacket. In Muck Rack’s survey, 69% of journalists prefer pitches under 200 words, and 62% prefer a one-to-one email^[2].

A worked example

Here is an illustrative example, with an invented company and invented numbers, for a startup selling onboarding software to mid-market HR teams. The company is unknown; the story is not about the company.

Every sentence of the first version is about the company; there is no reader in it. The difference is not the writing. It is that the second one proposes a story about the reader’s world, and the company is only the access route to it.

Two constraints matter more than style. Every number you offer must be one you can actually produce, and every customer you name must have agreed beforehand. A reporter who asks for the data and receives an estimate will never open your email again.

What to do when nobody replies

Silence is the normal outcome: 54% of journalists say they seldom or never respond to pitches^[2]. It usually means the story was not right for that person at that time. Send one short follow-up after four or five days and then stop. That fits what journalists ask for: in Muck Rack’s eight years of journalist surveys, half call one follow-up ideal and 51% want it within three to seven days, and in the 2026 survey 46% delete pitches sent repeatedly without a response^[2].

• If two of three say it is not for them, the story is wrong, not the list. Rewrite it around a different tension.
• If nobody answers at all, the subject line probably read like an announcement.
• If a reporter replies with a different angle, take it. Their angle is better informed about their readers than yours is.

Do this

Publish the material yourself. The data and the customer story work as a post, a talk or a LinkedIn thread whether or not a journalist ever uses them, and published work is what makes the next pitch credible.

Free tool

Make the data only you can offer

Survey Studio designs and previews a short customer survey for free and works out how many responses you need, so your next pitch carries original data a reporter cannot get elsewhere.

How I judge whether it is working

Coverage is the outcome, not the measure, because it is largely outside your control. I track what I can influence:

• Reply rate to pitches, which tells me whether the story and the targeting are right.
• Relationships that continue: a reporter who comes back with a question months later is worth more than a single article.
• Whether the story gets used at all, including by me, since the work is not wasted if I publish it myself.

One thing is worth saying plainly: earned media is slow, and it is a poor substitute for demand you can create on purpose. It compounds credibility rather than filling a pipeline this quarter. Treat it as the second or third channel, never the first.

If you want me to look at your own funnel, positioning and channels, my Growth Audit ends with three prioritized fixes and a 30-day action plan.