Carly Martinetti

The difference between good and great PR:

Good: "Here are all our features and why they matter"

Great: "Here's the one thing a journalist would text their editor about"

"Can we get into Fast Company?"

Sure. For your landing page and investor deck.

"Can we get into CIO Magazine?"

Now we're talking revenue.

Different coverage. Different goals. Don't confuse the two.

Your "just following up" email isn't persistence. It's noise.

Give them value or leave them alone.

Reporter workload has tripled.

Newsroom staff has been slashed.

Beats that needed 3 people now have 1.

… But your pitch volume hasn't decreased.

So reporters are getting 200+ pitches daily on top of their actual journalism work. 🧵

Why PR momentum dies after one announcement:

You pitched one angle to one publication and called it strategy.

Meanwhile, that story had 4+ different audience angles you completely ignored.

Breaking news to a daily outlet? Follow up in 24 hours. Monthly magazine? Give them a week.

Urgency beats politeness when the story has actual legs.

When should you follow up on a PR pitch that got radio silence?

Too early = annoying. Too late = the moment's gone.

The answer depends on three factors: publication cycle, story urgency, and your relationship with the journalist. 🧵

Hot take: If journalists trust AI to draft articles, they definitely trust it to filter 300+ daily pitches.

Generic subject lines and buzzword salads? Auto-reject.

The bar for "worth a human's time" just got way higher.

In 15+ years of PR, I've learned this:

The word "No" protects your client more than the word "Yes" ever will.

The difference? One builds reputations. The other chases headlines.

You know what's expensive?

Rebuilding a reputation from scratch when you realize marketing alone doesn't create industry authority.

You know what's really expensive?

Realizing this after your competitors already own the narrative.

The CEO who earned Forbes coverage didn't announce a partnership.

She challenged how her industry measures success.

That's the difference between announcement-driven PR and merit-driven PR.

Most agencies emphasize what companies want to say.

Most journalists only care about what readers want to know.

Good PR bridges that gap. Bad PR ignores it.

What's the most challenging pitch transformation you've ever done? 🤔

The secret isn't making your announcement sound more exciting. It's finding the angle that serves the journalist's audience first and validates your client's story second.

If you keep pitching what clients hand you without making it newsworthy, you're doing client relations - not PR.

5. Make it about the audience's problems.

Pitches that read like ads end up in the trash. So do "just wanted to introduce you to..." emails. You're helping journalists serve their readers, not your client's ego. Frame your pitch around real problems, and your product becomes the natural solution.

4. Include proof points that make your story relevant.

Claims without evidence get ignored. What’s the human impact? Show the numbers. Is there research to back up your claim? Cite studies. Legitimize your story by naming notable people or established companies.

3. Add conflict, tension, or novelty.

What’s provocative about your story? Find an angle that challenges conventional wisdom, highlights controversy, or surprises the reader. Keep it current. Old news from three months ago won't cut it.

2. Tie it to a topic their audience cares about.

Do the journalist’s thinking for them. Transform your angle into what’s already making headlines: recent legislation, viral trends, breaking news. Be specific. Generic pitches get deleted.

1. Match it to the journalist you’re pitching.

Study your journalist beforehand. Connect your story to recent news they’ve covered. Is there a local angle you can feature? Write your headline to match their style. Avoid industry jargon.

V1 is what the client thought was news. V2 is what got them a feature in Business Insider, TODAY, and Fortune.

Here's how I taught the class to take what a client hands you and make it newsworthy:

V2: “As remote work becomes permanent, traditional 9-5 schedules are obsolete. A new workplace model called 'windowed work' allows employees to work in focused bursts around caregiving, boosting productivity while accommodating real life."

A few weeks ago Monique Kelley kindly invited me to speak to her Media Strategies & Management class at @bostonu.bsky.social College of Communications.

I showed them two pitches of the same story:
V1: "We’re launching a new project management software that boosts efficiency." 🧵

Strategic PR fills this gap consistently.
Tactical PR waits for permission.

Your story doesn't pause between milestones. Your media strategy shouldn't either.

The insight:

Editors have publication timelines independent of your announcement calendar. They need commentary on industry shifts; analysis of emerging challenges; perspective on market dynamics.

3️⃣ Leverage niche publications early:

These smaller outlets become testing grounds for messaging. One client dominated 6 consecutive issues of an emerging publication before competitors even noticed it existed.

2️⃣ Move to mainstream media:

Our healthcare client's CEO became the go-to source on industry consolidation trends—landing features in WSJ, Forbes, and CNBC during a gap between funding rounds.

1️⃣ Start with trade publications:

A retail client had zero news for Q4. We created a competitive analysis report that landed coverage in 5 industry outlets and established them as the category expert.

They're publishing daily. Weekly. Monthly. And they need expert voices to fill those pages.

When we work with clients in "quiet periods," we follow a proven approach that generates consistent coverage:

Because agencies don't know how to say it. And this addiction to announcements kills your PR strategy.

Most teams operate on a simple formula: Major news = Media coverage. No news = Silence.

But publications don't pause their editorial calendars waiting for your press release.

I can predict exactly when most PR agencies will stop delivering results.
It's the moment between your last announcement and your next one.

This gap—often spanning 3-6 months—represents the biggest waste in modern PR. Not because there's nothing to say. 🧵