The great pitch length debate

Every time I show successful pitches in a training, someone inevitably says:

“That seems really long. Don’t you think pitches should be short?”

I get why. We’re all hearing the same message from readability gurus (and journalists!): Nobody has time anymore, so everything has to be short short short.

If you want my default answer to “How long should an email pitch be?” it’s 200 words or less.

But if we’ve got time to go deeper and include some nuance, the real answer is: as long as it takes to persuade the target journalist before they stop reading.

You might not like that uncertainty. But it’s true. I’ve seen pitches from PR pros consistently deliver 400+ words and land coverage.

Compare these two examples.

One PR pro landed a Washington Post piece with a business reporter who does original research and interviews before running a story. That pitch cited two valuable data points and teased more – only 103 words. Because the PR pro knew that reporter’s regular workflow is to reply and get more info anyway.

Contrast that with a different PR pro who landed SELF.com. That journalist has to post many pieces a day and doesn’t have time to do any original research or interviews. Plus the angle needed enough context to make the idea click. The writing was still succinct, but total word count was 437.

One pitch was four times as long as the other. Both landed their target outlets. Was one “wrong”?

In summary:

Most long pitches are long because they ramble. You’re safer keeping it short – 200 words or less.

But if you trust your expertise and really know what your target journalist needs, you’ll recognize the exceptions when offering more proof points, direct quotes, and context mean the difference between coverage and getting overlooked.