You still won’t believe how many follow-ups you can send

My biggest takeaway of the successful Traditional Media pitches I reviewed in 2025 is:

Even long-time media relations pros still underestimate the impact of diplomatic persistence when pitching.

That’s because whenever journalists and most PR pros hear the term “follow up,” they think of robotic repetition of the same story to someone who wasn’t interested the first time. Based on the results below, there’s a better way to react when you don’t hear back.

I hope this message will inspire you to add substance when you’ve pitched a solid story or source that you know through research is the right fit for your target journalist.

Last year, Inner Circle members’ diplomatic and classy persistence landed these results:

• ABC evening news feature 13 months after first pitch
• National NPR segment after emailing two hosts and two producers 11 times before getting a response
• Philly TV segment after pitching three producers three times each with no response, until going back to the first one for a fourth time did the trick
• Feature in The Guardian took 11 months and total of 15 emails before the reporter committed to the story (8 were follow-ups after he didn’t reply to previous ones)
• New York Post feature from replying to two-year-old thread (coincidentally, exactly two years to the day after the last email)
• Washington Post feature that took 23 months and three rounds: 3-4 substantive emails with no reply, then one brief “I’m interested,” then silence again – twice more – until the PR pro sent a single email packed with quotes, research, and source options. That’s when the writer committed.

And I also saw a new type of gusty persistence: doubling down on journalists who already like covering you because you’ve earned their “yes.”

• A writer at a top-tier lifestyle outlet ran 4 features last year about different aspects of the same organization – the PR team figured out what she loved and kept feeding it to her until she said no . . . and she never did.
• That same team landed two features in one month on their Top-5 market TV station . . . then repeated that two-in-one-month feat three months later. All with the same reporter.

In the Inner Circle, we’re leaning hard into Nontraditional Media and deepening our skillset with AI and GEO. But you can see that even as the mix evolves, Traditional Media is still rewarding the pros who know how to work it.

If you’d like to see the pitches, follow-up, and timelines behind these results, register for our Wait List and get access when we next accept new members.