How to Increase Your Email Pitching Success

Sending a successful media pitch isn't just about writing a great press release, it's also about sending the right content to the right journalists at the right time.

This guide shares practical recommendations to help improve deliverability, increase engagement, and get the best results from your Email Distributions in Agility.

One of the biggest factors affecting email performance is sending relevant content to the right recipients.

Instead of sending every announcement to a large list, use Agility's targeting tools to build focused media lists based on criteria such as:

Smaller, well-targeted distributions often perform better than broad, generic mailings.

Tip: Review your Targeted Lists regularly to remove outdated contacts and ensure your lists stay relevant.

Your subject line is often the first thing a journalist sees.

Good subject lines are:

Avoid trying to create clickbait or unnecessary urgency.

Instead of:

BIG NEWS!!! DON'T MISS THIS!!!

Try:

New Study Finds Renewable Energy Investment Doubled in 2026

Journalists receive a large number of emails every day.

Help them quickly understand:

Lead with the most important information and avoid unnecessary background.

Whenever appropriate, personalize your email using recipient information such as:

Personalized emails often feel more relevant than generic mass mailings.

Agility supports merge tags to help personalize your content automatically.

Recipients are generally more likely to open emails from an identifiable person than from a generic department or mailbox.

Whenever possible, use a sender name that clearly identifies both the individual and the organization.

For example:

Jane Smith, Acme Inc.

instead of

Marketing Team

Images can make your email more engaging, but avoid relying on images alone.

We recommend:

If you need to share large files, consider linking to cloud storage instead of attaching multiple large files.

Email providers look at many signals when deciding whether to deliver messages to the inbox, Promotions tab, or Spam folder.

To improve deliverability:

Remember that no sender can guarantee inbox placement.

If you're sending to a very large audience, consider splitting your distribution into smaller batches where appropriate.

Large mailings sent all at once may affect deliverability depending on receiving mail providers and your sender reputation.

Sometimes an email cannot be delivered.

Common delivery statuses include:

A temporary delivery issue, such as:

These issues may resolve automatically.

A permanent delivery failure.

Common causes include:

A deferred message has not been rejected, it has simply been delayed by the receiving mail server.

Agility will continue attempting delivery for a period of time before the message is eventually marked as undeliverable if delivery cannot be completed.

Gmail automatically categorizes incoming email using a variety of signals, including:

Landing in the Promotions tab does not necessarily mean your email has been marked as spam.

Many users actively check their Promotions tab, and Gmail's categorization varies from user to user.

No sender can guarantee whether an email will appear in Primary or Promotions.

Using your own Microsoft Outlook or Gmail account, or authenticating your sending domain—can help provide a more recognizable sender identity.

Depending on your account configuration, you may also be able to configure domain authentication such as DKIM.

See:

Before sending any distribution:

✅ Review your recipient list.

✅ Preview your email.

✅ Send yourself a test email.

✅ Check links and attachments.

✅ Verify personalization.

✅ Review your subject line.

Taking a few minutes to review your distribution can help prevent mistakes and improve engagement.

Not necessarily.

Targeting a smaller, more relevant audience generally produces better engagement than sending broadly to unrelated contacts.

Yes, when they're relevant.

However, avoid attaching very large files. If necessary, consider sharing large media assets using a download link instead.

Gmail automatically categorizes emails using many different signals.

Neither Agility nor any email platform can control which tab an individual recipient sees.

A soft bounce is usually temporary.

A hard bounce indicates that the email cannot be delivered and generally requires updating or removing the email address.

Some sources and further reading:

If you have questions about email distributions or deliverability, chat with Support directly from your Agility dashboard.