New to Personalized Pitch?
Start with our Guide: Personalized Pitch
To connect your Gmail or Outlook account: Manage Personalized Pitch Gmail or Microsoft Outlook Accounts
To learn how to craft your first pitch and track replies: Send & Track Personalized Pitch Emails
Interested in creating pitches that all send out simultaneously with your press release? Continue reading below.
Jump to
Enable Press Release Pitch
Personalize your press release pitch emails with a custom message to key personal or media contacts in your curated lists. You can begin crafting up to 100 tailored pitch emails to individual recipients, while including your press release content inline, all before you submit your press release to our Editorial team. These personalized pitches are then scheduled simultaneously with your press release distribution, to build those earned media contacts at the same time!
All other recipients on your list(s) will receive the standard List Email, with your approved press release content inside of the selected Email Branding template wrapper(s), which supports merge tag options for light customization.
Step 1: In the Distribute module, click Create to begin your Full Service submission
Step 2: Within the Distribution step, click on the Company List tab
Step 3: Add one or more Company Lists as part of your distribution, which will allow the Personalized Pitch toggle to be enabled
Step 4: Toggle ON the Personalized Pitch option. This will add it to the right side as Selected Distribution
Note, the user who initially enables Personalized Pitch for the release will be the user whose connected Gmail or Microsoft Outlook email account is used to send the pitch emails. This user will be the one to draft the Press Release Pitch emails, and mark them as ready.
Enabling Personalized Pitch also automatically enables the submission for Approval Review. You will be required to complete any customized pitch emails and mark them as “Ready” before the press release can go through final review and approval.
Step 5: As the Personalized Pitch toggle is enabled, we will check that you have a connected Gmail or Outlook account set up in Connect.
If you haven’t yet set up your Gmail or Outlook email account, or it has become invalid or expired, this must be completed before you can enable Personalized Pitch for your submission. See more details on setting up and maintaining your connected Gmail or Outlook account here: Manage Personalized Pitch Gmail or Microsoft Outlook Accounts
Step 6: After completing the submission and sending it to our Editorial team for formatting, get a head start on generating & crafting your tailored pitch emails. You can also begin working on your pitches while the submission is in draft mode.
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Begin creating tailored pitches for key contacts
Step 1: Navigate to the Review & Submit step of the submission where you will see the Personalized Pitch section with a toggle. If for any reason you need to remove Personalized Pitch from the submission, anyone on the account can disable (or re-enable Personalized Pitch) from this step.
Note, the user who originally enabled Personalized Pitch for this release and established their own Gmail or Outlook email account as the connected account to send these pitches from, is the pitch owner for this release, and will therefore be the one to draft the Press Release Pitch emails.
Step 2: In the Review & Submit step, the established pitch owner for this release will see a Start Pitching button.
All other users will see a read-only status
As the pitch owner, clicking the Start Pitching button takes you to the Press Release Pitch page where you will create and customize your pitch emails:
Press Release Pitch page
The Job ID is listed at the top for quick reference to the submission.
Contact Name and Email addresses are displayed to help identify the recipients for which you want to create custom pitch emails (these are sortable columns).
List(s) are displayed to further help organize and find your recipients.
Email Type column consists of two options – Personalized Pitch which indicates the recipient will receive your tailored pitch email, including the press release inserted in the body, and List Email which indicates the recipient will receive our standard, branded press release email distribution.
The Pitches column allows you to start or edit your pitch, by entering your own content or clicking the Generate Pitch option for assistance creating a first draft. There is also a Press Release option to insert a placeholder where you want the press release content to display within the email message. Each personalized pitch email must be reviewed and saved.
Use the Save Progress button to exit the Press Release Pitch page at any time. When you are ready, you can return to continue drafting pitch emails from the Review screen of your submission.
Use the Mark as Ready button once you have created and saved all of your pitch emails for this release. Clicking this button will save all pitch emails and move the submission to the Approval Review step.
Step 4: Find the contact you are looking to pitch by filtering the list, searching or sorting columns
Step 5: Click on Start Pitch and the Personalized Pitch email editor will slide out
Step 6: Enter your subject line
Step 7: Enter your own email body content or click the Generate Pitch option for assistance creating a first draft.
If you choose to enter your own email content, jump to step 11.
Step 8: To generate a pitch, enter details about the topic, value, quotes, or key elements you want to cover, and click the Generate button. These details, along with available information about the individual contact you’re pitching, will be used to generate three tailored drafts to choose from.
If the Editorial team has completed formatting your release, the press release content will also be used to inform the generated drafts, in addition to the pitch details you provide, and available details about the contact you're pitching.
If the Editorial team is not yet ready with formatting, the drafts will still be generated using the pitch details you provide, and available details about the contact you're pitching, without referencing the release content.
If a 'busy' message appears while you are generating your pitch drafts, please click Try Again to return to the Pitch Details you entered, and generate your drafts again.
Step 9: Click each draft version to review. If you’d like, you can edit your Pitch Details at any time and click the Re-Generate button to create three new drafts.
Note, once new drafts are generated, the previous drafts are no longer available.
Step 10: Once you have selected your preferred draft, click Apply Draft.
A confirmation message will remind you that applying the draft will overwrite any previously entered content in the email editor.
Step 11: Edit and refine your email content within the editor.
Step 12: Insert the press release placeholder within the body by placing your cursor where you want the press release to appear, and click the Press Release option. This will insert a placeholder for the press release anywhere within the email body. You may only enter the placeholder once to avoid duplication.
Note, pitch emails may be written in any language, but only the English Press Release content will be inserted in the email regardless of the recipient's language preference.
Step 13: Click the Preview button in the lower right to see the email in preview mode.
If the Editorial team has completed the formatting, you will see the press release content included in the email.
If Editorial is not yet ready with formatting, then you will still see a placeholder.
Placeholder text is displayed if press release content is not yet formatted.
Press release content will be inserted, replacing the placeholder text.
Step 14: Click the Save button to save your pitch email and return to the Press Release Pitch page where you can continue drafting more personalized pitch emails.
Step 15: Once you have completed crafting all pitch emails you want to send to your key contacts for this release, click the Mark as Ready button
Marking your press release as ‘Ready’
Once you have completed drafting all the personalized pitch emails (you can schedule up to 100 customized pitch emails to be distributed simultaneously with your press release!), then you must “Ready” the pitching emails to progress to Approval Review. We will check once more that your connected Gmail or Outlook email account is still valid in Connect, and prompt you to refresh this if needed, before completing the Mark as Ready step.
Press Release Review and Approval flow
Your press release may not be scheduled until the pitches are marked as ready, to ensure everything is scheduled together. Only the pitch owner, the user who originally established their own Gmail or Outlook email account as the connected account for this release, may ready the press release pitches.
After the pitches are marked as ready, the release can then be approved and scheduled for distribution.
Related Articles
Guide: Personalized Pitch
Manage Personalized Pitch Gmail or Microsoft Outlook Accounts
Send & Track Personalized Pitch Emails