Your startup is doing something interesting, and you want press coverage. Makes total sense. Then you send out pitches that get ignored or worse, make journalists remember your company name for all the wrong reasons. Most startups make the same preventable mistakes when chasing media attention.
1. Pitching Something That Isn’t Actually News
“We launched a company” isn’t news unless you’re Elon Musk. Journalists get hundreds of pitches every week from startups announcing they exist. Unless you’re doing something genuinely novel or you raised ten million dollars, your launch isn’t newsworthy to anyone except maybe your mom.
News needs an actual angle. You solved a big problem in a completely new way. You’re disrupting an entire industry with an innovative approach nobody tried before. You have data revealing surprising trends. You’re the tiny underdog taking on giants. Give journalists real stories they can write, not just announcements that you exist and would like free advertising, please.
2. Mass Emailing Every Journalist You Can Find
Nothing screams “I didn’t do any research” like a pitch starting with “Dear Journalist” that’s clearly been sent to five hundred people at once. Journalists can immediately tell when you mass emailed everyone, hoping someone bites. It’s insulting and incredibly lazy.
Personalize your pitches to specific journalists who actually cover your industry. Reference their previous articles proving you read their work. Explain why this story fits their beat specifically. A PR agency Indonesia would tell you personalized pitches to ten right journalists work infinitely better than generic blasts to hundreds of wrong ones.
3. Pitching Your Product Instead Of An Actual Story
Journalists aren’t there to give you free advertising. They write stories that interest their readers. If your pitch is just listing your product features and explaining why it’s amazing, you’re wasting everyone’s time.
Frame pitches around stories people actually care about. How does your product solve real problems people face daily? What larger trends does it represent? Why should anyone care beyond your specific company? Give journalists stories they can write that happen to include your startup instead of expecting them to write promotional content disguised as journalism.
4. Following Up Like An Aggressive Telemarketer
You sent a pitch and didn’t hear back, so you email again the next day. Then you call. Then you email again two days later. Congratulations, you just guaranteed that a journalist will never cover your company because you’re annoying and clearly don’t respect anyone’s time.
One follow-up email a week later is acceptable if you heard nothing. That’s it. Interested journalists will respond. Those who won’t suddenly become interested because you harassed them into submission. You’re supposedly building relationships for the long term, not trying to close a deal by Friday.
5. Only Chasing Big Names While Ignoring Smaller Publications
Everyone wants coverage in TechCrunch or The Wall Street Journal, but those are the hardest to get and often the least valuable for early startups. Smaller industry publications reach your exact target audience and are much more likely to cover you because they actually need content and you’re relevant to their readers.
Build relationships with smaller publications first. Use that coverage when pitching larger ones later. “As featured in Industry Publication” gives you credibility. Ignoring smaller publications while only chasing big names means missing opportunities for valuable coverage that actually drives business instead of just making you feel important.
Conclusion
Getting press coverage means pitching actual news instead of just yelling “hey, we exist!” into the void. It means writing individual pitches for specific journalists instead of blasting the same generic email to 500 people.
Don’t turn into that person sending daily “just checking in!” emails. Journalists work on deadlines that have nothing to do with your launch schedule. Demanding immediate coverage because your timeline says so gets pitches deleted fast.
