Should media relations follow-up on PR pitches? Here’s what the data says

Surveys of reporters consistently show that a majority say one follow-up, a few days later, is okay, but being too aggressive will get you blacklisted

One challenge for PR in pitching stories to the media is the lack of response. At times, it can feel like pitching into the void.

Sometimes, you send what you think is a well-researched, relevant and timely pitch – and nothing happens. Other times, you can whip up a short order pitch on a whim and it winds up driving solid coverage.

To be sure, even for seasoned pros, the former happens more often than the latter, data shows. While the volume of pitches can vary by their beat or industry, most reporters are short on time and under pressure of a deadline.

There are more PR pros pitching, or SEOs and digital marketers moonlighting as PR pros, than reporters in a news seat. They simply can’t respond to every pitch, even if they think it’s a good one. That’s just the nature of media relations.

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PR isn’t completely blind either

We aren’t completely blind to what’s going on here. There are a number of surveys that poll reporters and ask them about their pitching preferences.

Many of these, but not all, are conducted by PR software providers that maintain a database of reporters as part of their product. Regular readers know I like to pour over the surveys of journalists and highlight interesting findings.

In this post, I’ve gone back through the reports I’ve covered – and checked out a few more – to aggregate PR pitching statistics.

About half of reporters never respond to PR pitches

Here’s what the data shows about reporter response rates:

2026 Muck Rack survey of ~900 reporters:

- 54% of journalists say they seldom or never respond to PR pitches;
- 25% respond about half the time;
- 15% usually respond; and
- Just 6% always respond.

The 2026 survey findings were more or less consistent with the same survey conducted two years prior.

2024 Muck Rack survey of ~1,100 reporters:

- 49% seldom or never respond;
- 24% respond about “half the time”; and
- 26% respond to PR pitches always or usually.

A 2024 study by Propel substantiates these surveys somewhat. Importantly, the Propel data is not survey data, but behavioral data. In the first quarter of 2024, the company analyzed 400,000 pitches sent to 4,000 reporters through the Propel platform.

2024 Propel study of 400,000 pitches:

- Reporters open about half (46%) of the story pitches they receive; and
- Reporters respond to 3.43% of the story pitches they receive.

The risks of following up on PR pitches

To put the Propel data in context, a 3% response rate means you’ll hear back from a reporter on three out of every 100 pitches. That leaves PR wondering about questions such as:

Did the pitch land in the inbox?
Did they see the pitch?
Did they understand the pitch?
Did they think the pitch was relevant?
Why or why not?

Such questions lead to the next logical progression: should PR follow up on pitches?

Yes, generally you should consider following up, but carefully. It’s a delicate balance between making sure they saw the news you are pitching – and annoying a reporter.

Annoyance carries risks that can lead to permanent damage:

A 2024 survey of 3,000 journalists by Cision found 48% of journalists will block a PR person for repeated aggressive follow-ups.

A 2019 survey of 500 writers, editors, and publishers, by the marketing agency Fractl, found “53% have blacklisted at least one person this month due to bad pitches. 30% have blacklisted three or more.”

Should media relations follow up on PR pitches?

As I “grew up” in PR, I was very loath to follow up with reporters. The legends of getting blocked was always on my mind.

Further, I tend to be a machine when it comes to managing email (pro tip: turn off email previews; this feature destroys your productivity), and I suspect reporters are, too. They are dependent on email to do their job.

My original approach was to, sparingly, write a new pitch with a fresh angle. Yet over time, I changed my mind about this based on survey data:

2026 Muck Rack survey findings. The 2026 survey cited above found that 50% of reporters say one follow-up is ideal; 51% say follow-ups should happen between a few days after the initial pitch and up to a week later.

2025 Cison survey (N = 3,000). A 2025 survey had slightly different findings. Overall, the global survey found 62% of reporters say just one follow-up is appropriate. When just looking at U.S.-based reporters, the number goes up slightly: 69% said one follow-up is okay, 6% are good with several follow-ups and 24% said never follow up.

2024 Cision survey. The 2024 version of Cision’s survey was in the same ballpark: 64% of reporters said it’s fine to follow-up once; 8% said it’s okay to follow-up multiple times and 27% said PR should never follow up.

What’s interesting is that if we go back through these reports, we can see a real shift right about the time the pandemic hit.

For example, Muck Rack’s survey findings every year have been similar – until we hit 2019. That version polled ~700 reporters and we can see a real shift of about 25%.

In 2019, “73% of journalists are OK with receiving a follow-up to a pitch they didn’t initially respond to. Only 12% would prefer not to receive any type of follow-up.”

In other words, reporters were more open to follow-ups prior to the pandemic than they are today. I would venture that we will likely see a continued downward trend in this respect as AI-generated content enables lazy PR people to fling sloppy pitches around the web.

How do I handle follow-ups?

Generally, I’ll do one short follow-up 2-3 days later for reporters who haven’t responded. I always strive to connect what I’m pitching with what they’ve covered historically.

Anything beyond that, and I usually write an entirely new pitch, or wait until the next time I have something I think will be of interest to them.

I have also long since borrowed a play from email marketing and use analytics to track opens and clicks. That data informs me if, when and how best to follow up.

There is a caveat: email open and click-through rates are not always accurate. Privacy settings by device, preference and even on an enterprise scale can impact the readings. So, consider the analytics a guideline and not a fact.

Well, that doesn’t sound too promising, so what should PR do? As I wrote for the lead story in a September 2016 edition of Communication World by IABC, PR and content marketing need each other. It’s worth your while to “report” on your industry through your own unique view of the world. If you do that for readers, they will reward you with an audience.

In other words, content marketing makes media relations better and media relations make content marketing better. It’s been headed in this direction for a long time.

Those who know, know what it can do. Those that don’t will continue to see blogs and content as secondary, if not quaint, tools.

While I don’t think media relations will go away in the foreseeable future, it’s often not enough to simply pitch stories anymore: you have to prove a story has legs, and that’s what content marketing does for PR.

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