 |
According to the new Propel Media Barometer, it was harder than ever for PR pros to turn a pitch into a piece of earned media in Q4 2022.
While the study says that the open rate for PR pitches remained fairly steady (39.11 percent vs. 40 percent in Q3), the number of responses dropped to 2.66 percent in Q4 2022 from 3.35 percent in Q3.
In addition, a sped-up media cycle has resorted in a far shorter window during which pitches can have their desired effect. A majority of pitches that get opened (54.79 percent) are opened within an hour of being received and less than 10 percent are opened more than two days after sending.
Response times are also speeding up—only 12 percent of responses come more than three days after the pitch has been sent. Plus, a majority of articles that result from pitches (55.83 percent) are published with three days of the pitch sent. (However, 11 percent of articles take more than a month to convert.)
The study dispenses a few tips on how PR pros can make their pitches rapid-fire attention-getters. The main takeaway: keep it short. The optimum subject length is 1-5 words, pitch leads should be limited to 51-80 words, and the body of pitch is best limited to 150 words.
And while outlets such as the BBC, New York Times and Wall Street Journal are the most popular targets for pitches, the study reminds PR pros that “smaller outlets with a more specific reader base relevant to your target audience can actually provide much greater return on investment.”
The Q1 2023 Propel Media Barometer examined approximately 500,000 pitches sent via the Propel platform during Q4 2022.
Almost two-thirds of the chief communications officers (65.9 percent) surveyed in a new study from Page say that the scope of their job has expanded over the past two years.
Ask any practitioner or academic, and they’ll tell you that not only is public relations one of the least understood professions in the world, but it also has a lingering odor about it, a stigma, a bad reputation. This has, and will continue to be, a problem for the field. But have you ever asked yourself why, and when, these anxieties about PR became widespread, and if, or how, they may be justified?
Zara is the most recommended brand in the U.S., according to a new survey conducted by research data and analytics group YouGov.
In a healthcare environment suffering from what often seems like too much information, doctors have become just one item on a menu of patient choices—and not always the most significant one, according to a new study from Edelman and the Yale School of Public Health.
Americans spent more than $174 billion on branded merchandise in 2025, according to a newly released study from Promotional Products Association International—accounting for 51 percent of global spending in the industry.
