PART 1: A Look INSIDE the Process of How Writers Handle an Inbox Full of PR Pitches
You wrote your pitch, sent it out ... now what? Nicole shares everything you want to know about how she reads, processes & decides on the pitches that land in her inbox
Hi TTC Substackers. Happy Thursday! Thank you so much for the wonderful feedback you’ve been sending our way on these newsletters. It means so much to hear that we’re really making a difference in how people are positioning their clients and we love hear about your successes! And keep commenting away (we’re answering them all). As a reminder, if anyone has any suggestions of topics they’d like us to dive into next, definitely let us know. We want to make sure we’re continuing to bring you the content that you need. And we love hearing from our members.
As a paid subscriber, you have access to our entire archive of Substack newsletters, so don’t forget to take advantage of reading earlier ones before you joined!
Last week’s Substack on 8 Things You Need to Do to Help Prep Your Clients for Interviews has been our most popular yet. It’s amazing how just taking a few extra steps before handing your client off to do an interview with a journalist can make all the difference in helping the interview run smoothly, which means a much better chance of your client making it into the article and with more prominent placement. If you haven’t read it yet, check it out here:
Another one subscribers have been raving about is our past newsletter on How to Help Clients Rock Email Interviews. Everybody is doing email interviews these days it seems, at least occasionally. Here is this one if you haven’t seen it:
And our course, we have a few holiday pitching guides that have been extremely helpful. And it’s definitely not too late to read those. A lot of writers (us included) are writing gift guides right now. So don’t forget to put these tips into practice when sending out your pitches to journalists and editors. Read our holiday pitching guides below:
Now onto this week’s newsletter. We’re bringing you something SUPER special: A look into how WE handle your pitches!
You spend tons of time putting together a pitch to send to a writer, and an equal amount of time figuring out which writers to send it off to. But have you ever wondered what happens after you push send? This week — and next — we’re going to do something fun with our newsletters and give you a glimpse into what happens when a writer sits down in front of their computer, or grabs their phone or tablet in the morning (afternoon, evening or whenever) and checks their emails. We’ll give you a glimpse inside how each of us personally handles this, looking at:
How many emails do we get per day?
What times of the days are our inbox the craziest?
Do we read all of our emails? Scan through them at least?
Do we delete anything without reading it?
Do any subject lines turn us off?
What catches our eye in an initial scan/read of a pitch?
When and how do we make a decision on a pitch once we receive it?
What goes through our heads when we are opening pitches?
What are we looking for when we’re scanning through our inbox? What makes us want to move forward on a pitch email we receive/
What do we write back to right away, vs. what do we instantly delete and what do we save to respond to at a later date?
Up first, we have Nicole weighing in (Jill will share her thoughts next week!):
Pic of me attempting to paddleboard with my pups to add some cheesy personality to this post ;-)
I’m excited to chime in here with a look at how I manage my inbox. This is something we’ve done in some of our custom sessions when people frequently ask us these questions and everyone has found the information beyond valuable. Hopefully this will give you some insight into what happens after you send out a pitch. So how I handle my inbox. Here we go…
First off, I often tell people that it may seem like you are sending your email pitches out into a black hole where it gets absorbed quickly by something fancy in outer space and nobody reads it. I promise that is not the case. Writers are reading your pitches. I will let you take a moment to exhale, smile or have some sort of reaction to that. :-p
OK, now that that’s done…haha… So first of all, I can personally say I’m seeing EVERYTHING that comes into my inbox. I just don’t have time to write back to every email (which I know sucks but trust me, if I answered every email, it would be a full time job). I do have a system that I use each and every day. Here’s what to know about how that process works plus answers to FAQ that I get from publicists on what happens when a pitch lands in my inbox? What goes through my head when I’m reading it? How do I decide on what to pursue, etc.?