How to pitch music blogs and journalists

We sell campaigns, and this page explains how to run one without us. That is deliberate. Some artists have more time than money and would be better served doing this themselves, and an agency that hides the method is relying on mystique rather than value.

1. Build the list before you write anything

Most failed campaigns fail here. The instinct is to write one email and send it to everyone. The outlets that matter can spot that in a line and a half.

• Find the individual writer, not the general inbox. Look at who has covered artists adjacent to you in the last three months.
• Check they still work there. Music journalism turns over constantly and a pitch to someone who left in 2023 is wasted.
• Be honest about tier. Start with the outlets that cover artists at your level, not the ones you read. Working down from the nationals wastes the whole campaign.
• Record why each name is on your list. If you cannot write a sentence explaining why this writer specifically, take them off.
• Forty well-researched names will outperform four hundred scraped ones every time.

2. Work out what the story is

A writer needs an angle before they need a song. A new single out on the 14th is not an angle. These are:

• Something specific and true about how the record was made or why.
• A scene or place the outlet already covers, that you genuinely belong to.
• A live achievement: a support slot, a sold-out room, a festival billing.
• A collaborator, producer or label with existing standing.
• Something outside music entirely that is real and relevant.

If none of these apply, that is useful information. It usually means it is too early.

3. Write the email

Short. Specific. No adjectives you would be embarrassed to say out loud.

• Subject line: artist name, track name, one identifying detail. Never the words press release, and never anything in full capitals.
• First line: why this writer. One clause, not a paragraph of flattery.
• Second and third lines: what it is and what the angle is.
• Then: a private streaming link that works without a login, the release date, and where to find assets.
• Length: under 150 words. Editors read on phones between other tasks.

Avoid: hoping this email finds you well, genre-defying, the next big thing, attached files of any kind, and any claim you cannot evidence.

4. Time it properly

• Digital: first approach six weeks before release.
• Print monthlies: three to four months. There is no way around this.
• Radio: four to six weeks, and expect to be one of hundreds.
• Best days: Tuesday to Thursday morning. Never Friday afternoon, never Monday before ten.
• Avoid: mid-December, the whole of August in Edinburgh, and the week of any major awards or festival announcement.

5. Follow up once, properly

One follow-up, seven to ten days later, replying to your original email so the thread is intact. Add something new: a piece of coverage that has landed since, a gig announcement. Never send a message that only says you are bumping this.

After the second email, stop. A third is not persistence, it is a reason to be filtered permanently.

6. Have the assets ready first

Before you send anything: a high-resolution press shot that is not a phone selfie, artwork at full resolution, a biography in short and long versions, a working private stream link, and a page a writer can link to. If a journalist has to email you asking for a photo, most will not bother.

What is actually hard about this

Not the writing. The volume. Doing it properly for forty outlets is roughly two full days of research and writing, plus a week of follow-up management, repeated for every release.

That is genuinely what you are buying when you buy a campaign: the hours, the maintained list, and the judgement about which forty names. If you have the time and would rather keep the money, the method above is the whole of it.