We Ran an Experiment and Responded to EVERY Pitch Received ...Here's How it Went

Spoiler: You're gonna be SHOCKED by these numbers and the outcome

Good morning, Top Tier Community.

Our 2 most recent posts have gotten a LOT of attention:

Part 1: Things Publicists Wish Writers Would Do to Make Publicists’ Jobs Easier

Part 2: What Publicists Wish Writers Would Do on Their Ends to Make PR Jobs Easier

One of the topics that came up for this via crowdsourcing — and comes up on an almost-daily basis in various PR Facebook groups and consulting sessions we do with clients — is that publicists wish journalists would respond to EVERY pitch they receive, even if it’s a pass.

So Jill decided to go ahead and give this a try for a few days to see how it played out … and it was an interesting experiement to say the least.

First, let’s set the stage for how the experiment was conducted

1. Jill responded to every pitch she recieved for 3 days … whether or not it had anything to do with her beats, whether or not it was addressed to her or just a generic mass pitch, whether or not she had ever worked with the publicist before, etc. She responded to every.single.pitch.

2. To make the experiement more efficient and the results more meaningful, Jill responded with one of four canned responses when it was a pass:

   1. Not a fit for anything at this time, sorry!

      This was used when the topic might be of intrest down the road, but it’s not right now — she didn’t want to discourage pitches along these lines.

   2. Not of interest, sorry!

      This was used when the topic was of zero interest and would never be — might as well head off more of these from coming in the future!

   3. I rarely write about destinations/experiences I haven't experienced first hand, sorry!
      This was used when publicists asked Jill to write about their hotel property or restaruant but didn’t offer a press trip — most of Jill’s travel writing is first-person work and her editors rely on her to vet things for readers.

   4. This topic is not in my wheelhouse ... please review my Muckrack portfolio.
      This was used when the topic was so far from her beat, that Jill literally couldn’t understand why on earth she’d receive such a pitch — it was to encourage better targeting moving forward.

3. Altogether, the sample size was just shy of 1,000 pitch replies in 3 days … can you even imagine an inbox like that?

Ready to see the findings of this experiment? Here’s what happened ….

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