New PR pitching research out now: The Q4 Media Barometer Report
New PR data alert! The Q4 Propel Media Barometer is officially here, PR pros.
Ever send a killer PR pitch that seems to tick all the boxes, but you just never hear back from the journalist you sent it to? It’s the worst.
That’s why we turn to the data for answers! Use our quarterly PR pitching research report to understand the evolving PR landscape, what journalists are looking for, and how to avoid missing the mark with your media outreach.
What is the Propel Media Barometer?
The Propel Media Barometer is a quarterly data report that gives PR pros a benchmark for PR pitching at large. No need to craft your pitch based on intuition or outdated strategy.
Every three months the Propel team analyzes hundreds of thousands of real PR pitches sent through our PRM platform to help you understand which pitches are getting the best engagement from journalists. With these findings you can make sure that your media outreach strategy is cutting edge, and that your story gets told.
Whether you are pitching journalists or managing a team, these quarterly reports about the media relations landscape will make you a more effective PR pro.
And for the most up-to-date findings, download the Q4 Propel Media Barometer here.
Q4 2022 Research Highlights
In Q3, PR pros sent over 400,000 story pitches to journalist contacts through our platform, and we were able to anonymously aggregate some incredibly useful findings.
Which day is best for journalist responses to pitches? How long does it take for most pitches to become news placements? What’s the most effective pitch length for sparking a journalist’s interest in your story?
Here’s a preview of what we learned!
The average response rate to PR pitches
How does today’s journalist engagement with PR pitches compare with past engagement rates?
The average journalist response rate to media pitches in Q3 has been on a steady decline since 2020, which marked the beginning of our quarterly PR pitching research.
As you can see in the image below, the average journalist response rate to PR pitches has decreased by 1.27% from Q3 2020 (4.62%) to Q3 2022 (3.35%).
And zooming in on this year’s journalist engagement with pitches Q/Q, we see that the 2022 average response rate has stayed relatively consistent.
And moving from Q2 to Q3, we see an optimistic jump in the average journalist response rate from 3.25 to 3.35! See below for the quarterly changes in the average journalist response rate to pitches:
This may be an indication that PR pros focusing on data-informed pitching are making great waves in a positive direction with their media relations strategy and tactics.
How long is the average pitching cycle, from pitch to placement?
For this study on “pitching cycle” duration, we found the average time it takes for a story to be published once the first pitch for that initiative has been sent out. See a breakdown of the pitching cycle stages for the average time for an open, response and article published:
We found that the majority of pitches that lead to news articles only take three days to convert! Each stage of the process from pitch to placement are broken down here:
- The majority of pitch opens happen within 1 hour of a journalist receiving the pitch (55.92% of all opens).
- The majority of pitch responses happen within 4 hours of a journalist receiving the pitch (58.66% of all responses).
- The majority of news placements happen within 3 days of the initial pitch being sent (51.01% of articles published).
Which pitches from Q3 did journalists engage with the most?
As you know, there are many factors that make some PR pitches much more enticing than others. Contacting the right journalist for the right topic is at the heart of this, but even using a more concise subject line could be the difference between getting a story placed and getting moved to the spam folder.
We analyzed journalist open and response rates correlated with key pitch elements like journalist-topic relevance, subject length, number of embedded links and more, arriving at the following recommendations:
Want more where that came from? Download your copy of the full PR pitching report here!
