Finding a relevant opportunity and crafting a strong response is the core workflow in PitchResponse. This article walks through the full process from browsing your feed to sending your pitch, along with guidance on what makes a response worth sending in the first place.
Before You Start: Connect Your Email #
PitchResponse sends your pitch responses using your own email account. Before you can respond to any opportunity, you will need to connect an email account and assign it to your project. If you have not done this yet, follow the steps in the Connecting Outreach Emails section before continuing here.
Step 1: Browse and Filter Your Opportunities #
Navigate to the Opportunities section of your project. You will see a feed of current journalist requests pulled from all the sources PitchResponse monitors. By default the feed shows all available opportunities, but you can filter by:
- Keywords to surface requests matching your target topics or areas of expertise
- Source to filter by where the request originated, such as HARO, SOS, Featured.com, or PitchResponse exclusive opportunities
- DR (Domain Rating) to focus on opportunities from publications above a certain authority threshold
- Link Type to filter for dofollow, nofollow, or unlinked mention opportunities depending on your goals
- Date and Deadline to prioritize the most recent or most urgent requests
For a full explanation of what each metric and filter means, see 05. Understanding Opportunity Metrics.
Step 2: Read the Request Carefully #
Before investing time in a response, read the full request. Journalists are specific about what they need, and a response that does not directly address their question will be ignored regardless of how well it is written.
Ask yourself:
- Does this request fall clearly within my area of expertise or my client’s?
- Is the publication one that matters to my target audience?
- Is the deadline realistic given how much time a good response will take?
- Am I genuinely one of the better sources available for this topic, or am I stretching?
A well-targeted response to a relevant request will always outperform a generic response sent to every opportunity that vaguely fits.
Step 3: Write Your Response #
A strong journalist request response is concise, direct, and immediately useful. Journalists are working on deadline and reviewing many responses at once. Your goal is to give them exactly what they asked for in a format they can use without significant editing.
Lead with your answer, not your credentials. The first sentence or two should address the journalist’s actual question. Your bio and credentials can follow, but they should not come first. A journalist reading under deadline wants the insight before the introduction.
Be specific. Vague, generic responses get passed over. Concrete examples, specific data points, and direct opinions grounded in genuine experience are what journalists are looking for. “In my experience, companies that do X tend to see Y result” is far more useful than “This is a complex topic with many factors to consider.”
Match the length to the request. A request asking for a quick one-line quote needs a different response than one asking for a detailed expert perspective. Read what the journalist is actually asking for and calibrate your response accordingly. As a general guide, most responses fall between 100 and 300 words.
Include your credentials briefly. After your substantive response, include a short line identifying who you are, your role or title, and your company or website. This gives the journalist the attribution information they need without burying your actual answer under a lengthy bio.
Step 4: Send Your Pitch #
Once your response is written, you will find the pitch submission area within the opportunity listing in PitchResponse. Enter your subject line and response, select the email account you want to send from if you have more than one connected, and click Send.
Your response is delivered directly to the journalist from your own email address. Any reply from the journalist will come back to your inbox, not to a platform inbox, so keep an eye on your email after sending.
A Note on Speed #
Journalist requests have deadlines, and speed matters. A response sent within the first few hours of a request being posted has a significantly better chance of being seen than one sent the day before the deadline, when the journalist may already have selected their sources. Set up keyword alerts if your platform plan supports them, and make it a habit to check your feed regularly when you are in an active pitching period.
Further Reading #
If you want to go deeper on the strategy and long-term value of responding to journalist requests, these two resources are worth your time:
- How HARO backlinks hold up over time: a two-year case study — an analysis of backlink longevity and removal rates from placements earned through journalist request platforms
- HARO backlink building 101 — a practical guide to the process from PitchResponse co-founder Greg Heilers