How to get press coverage without a PR agency
Press coverage is not won by having the best product. It is won by having the clearest story, told to the right reporter, on the day they are already writing about it. This guide is the process we build into PRMagi, written out so you can run it by hand.
Short answer
Coverage is a third party with an editorial standard choosing to publish something about you. A podcast you booked yourself, a listicle you paid to be in, or a product review you wrote is not coverage — it is distribution. Distribution is useful, but it does not earn the citation or the trust that editorial coverage does.
What counts as coverage, and what does not
Coverage is a third party with an editorial standard choosing to publish something about you. A podcast you booked yourself, a listicle you paid to be in, or a product review you wrote is not coverage — it is distribution. Distribution is useful, but it does not earn the citation or the trust that editorial coverage does.
Before you pitch anything, write down the one sentence you want a reporter to write. If you cannot reduce your story to a sentence a stranger would repeat, the pitch is not ready.
Find the angle a reporter actually wants
Most founders pitch their company. Reporters write about the world, and mention companies inside it. That inversion is the whole game.
Take your strongest claim and ask which of these shapes it fits. Each shape has a different desk you are pitching to, and a different proof standard.
- Data study — you have a number nobody else has, from your own product or a survey you ran.
- Contrarian take — the consensus is wrong and you can show why with evidence.
- Trend commentary — something is changing and you have the front-row seat to explain it.
- Founder story — a decision, a failure, or a bet with a real number attached.
- Milestone — a threshold that means something to the market, not just to you.
- Newsjacking — today’s headline, your point of view, delivered within hours.
Build a list of twenty, not two hundred
A media list is only useful if every name on it could plausibly write the story. Twenty well-researched names beat two hundred scraped ones, because personalisation is the only thing that separates your email from the other forty in their inbox.
For each name, record the beat, the outlet, the last three pieces they wrote, and the last time they were contacted by you. If you cannot answer "why this reporter, this week", cut them from the list.
Write the pitch in four lines
Reporters read on a phone, between meetings. The pitch has to work in a preview pane. Four lines is the format we generate by default:
- Line 1 — the specific reason you are emailing them, referencing their own work.
- Line 2 — the story in one sentence, in their vocabulary, not yours.
- Line 3 — the proof: the number, the dataset, the customer, the document.
- Line 4 — the offer: an interview, an exclusive, data you will share, or a quote by a deadline.
Follow up twice, then stop
One follow-up on day 3 and one on day 5 is the polite maximum. After that you are training the reporter to filter you. A reply, an opt-out, a bounce, or a do-not-pitch flag stops the sequence immediately — no exceptions, no "just one more".
What never to do
Never invent a quote, a source, a statistic, or a journalist contact. Never attribute a quote to a person who has not read and approved it. Never send a claim you cannot link to a primary source.
These are not style preferences. They are the difference between a pitch that gets a reply and a domain that gets reported as spam.
Frequently asked
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