What Journalists Really Want in PR Pitches: 2026 Insights on Personalization, AI & Media Outreach

Your pitch might be “fine” and still be the exact reason a journalist never opens your email again. We’re pulling back the curtain on fresh research from the BCPR Group, a survey of 100+ journalists and media pros that spells out what actually drives replies and what quietly gets you deleted.

But before we hope in, we start with a real, behind-the-scenes PR story from the beauty world: trade shows, tight timelines, and the kind of scrappy relationship building that turns a simple LinkedIn comment into a DM, an on-camera interview, and serious brand validation. If you’re an entrepreneur, creator, or small business owner trying to earn media coverage, this is your reminder that visibility rarely comes from luck. It comes from doing the unglamorous work consistently and knowing how to put the right story in front of the right person.

Then we get practical with the survey’s biggest takeaways for PR outreach and media relations: why personalization beats mass pitching, why relevance matters more than a big agency name, and why responsiveness is a trust signal journalists track. We also talk about the growing backlash to AI pitches and template-style emails, including why “polished” can read as fake, repetitive, and not newsworthy when everyone is using the same tools.

Listen for clear do’s and don’ts you can apply to your next pitch, press release, or podcast request. If it helps, subscribe, share it with a founder who needs press, and leave a quick review so more people learn how to PR themselves the right way.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So, are you ready to PR yourself? We'll remove the mystery from all things PR and we'll discuss everything from our top strategies to tips and tricks and everything that you can utilize to further enhance your brand or your message. I've been in media, I'm a journalist, and I'm also a publicist. I am Leah Frazier, CEO of Think3 Media, and your host for PR Yourself with Leah Frazier. Let's go.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

And welcome back to another episode of PR Yourself with Leah Frazier. This is the podcast where entrepreneurs, creators, and go-getters learn how to elevate their message, own their narrative, and build the visibility that they deserve. I am your host, Leah Fraser, CEO of Think Three Media, and I am so happy that you're joining me today. Well, let me just say the last couple of episodes have really taken me by surprise. Um, you definitely want to go back and listen to the last two because it has just been AI and PR and marketing overload. And from those two episodes with Lynn Ward, shout out to Lynn. He did a fantastic job. Definitely want to have him back. I have been bombarded with AI experts from all over the United States that want to come on and tell you guys what they know. And I said, you know, let me space this out. I don't want it to be too AI heavy, even though I know that is the future and that's where things are headed for small businesses and entrepreneurs. But wow, I'm just, I am just completely, completely blown away. If you're new here, welcome. I'm so excited that you're here. Today is just gonna be just a very short episode. I received an email talking about how journalists interact with PR partner and the key findings from this research that was done by the BCPR group. And so we're gonna get into pretty much what kind of gets under journalists' skin, what they like, what they don't like from PR partners. And then I'm gonna weigh in from things that I've seen, things from my expertise, and how you can be a better PR partner, essentially to these journalists that you want them to rely on you as a source. You want them to come back again and again and again, and you don't want to damage relationships before they even get off the ground. So let's talk about that. So that's where we're gonna be getting into this latest episode.

Miami Trip And New You Beauty Awards

SPEAKER_01 2:30

But before we do, man, it's been busy. I just got back from Miami. So shout out to my I I love Miami. Miami is a great time, but it is a city that I can only hop in for about three days and I gotta hop back out because a girl could get in there and just with from the beaches, the the pools, the rooftop pools, and the views and the people and the food and the shopping and the nightlife, it could really have you, you know, just you know, FF, what is it? F-A-F-O. And I don't want that. I want to keep my job, I want to keep employed, keep myself employed. But had a great time, had a client that was being honored at the new U Beauty Awards. So if you are in beauty, whether that's in hair, skincare, nails, um, makeup, and cosmetics, you need to check out new NEW UYOU media. Because when I tell you those awards were on point so much that I was like, man, I wish I had a professional videographer here to literally take back this footage and break down how professional and how amazing this event was. It wasn't the largest awards event I've ever been to. Um, it wasn't with thousands of people. It was highly curated. Um, but it was probably one of the best events that I've seen put on in a very long time. I joked that I wanted to take it back to Dallas and be like, all you people that keep giving out these awards and having these brunches and and doing these award shows, like this is how it's supposed to be done. Everything was top tier from the venue to the decor to how they treated the sponsors, the logos, even down to the curation of the invite list. So let me just say this and then I'll I'll move on. Um, this just shows you how impressed I was with their event. And then maybe if you're throwing an event, you can take some of these things into consideration. But so a lot of the sponsors and vendors were beauty brands, whether it was hair care or skincare or cosmetics or whatever. And so knowing that these people are, and and some of them were the actual winners of the awards, so that's something else. And so they had this expo part where it was a complete gifting suite, but because I know some of you are like, we don't have the money to just be giving products away, it was literally so many reality TV stars, it was so many content creators and influencers, so many that I recognized. And it was in a setting where it was clear that new you media made it very clear to those folks that they were there in support of these brands. Like try it out, take a picture, follow, you know, they found ways to activate the brands that were involved. And the people that were there, there was a ton of Bravo liberties. So, me being a Bravo TV fanatic, I was just in heaven and I was just telling my client, oh, this is so-and-so, and this is so-and-so, and this is so-and-so. And she's like, Oh my god, how do you know all this? I was like, I feel like it's my job to know all of this. There were folks from TLC, like 90-day fiance stars, but all of those creators and reality TV stars that were there were in the industry, or they created content within that particular industry. So it made sense to have them there and in front of those brands. So, again, it was one of the most intentional events that I've been to. And if somebody was gonna give my client a sponsorship deck and say, I want you to help sponsor this event, and here's what you get for $5,000, it well exceeded that. Like I would be like, Yes, give them your money because of just how amazing they handled that event. So if you go to my Instagram at the Leah Fraser, or you go on Think3 Media, you can see a brief little uh Instagram reel recap of the event, but it was absolutely phenomenal. And I will tell you, I was there with my client, New Standard Beauty, which specializes in hair wellness, and I'll tell you how it all came to be, and maybe it'll inspire

CosmoProf Press Corner Strategy

SPEAKER_01 7:05

some of you guys before we move on to what this episode is really about today. Um, but my client does an expo called Cosmo Prof Beauty every single year. It's a big trade show where if you have beauty products or skincare or hair care where you can get in front of buyers or perhaps retailers or things of that sort. Um, folks that want to wholesale your product, that's where you go and showcase. And there's so many people there. It's just like rows and rows and rows and rows of brands. It's crazy. And so she brings me out every year. And normally my job is to facilitate relationships, like what you know, they have a press and media corner, of course. And then who else is there that could potentially, if I know the goals of my client and her brand, who is there that fits or aligns with those goals? And then I send them to the booth. And so last year while I was there, and I think that was my second year going, and so with Cosmoprop, they do have a press and media corner. And the way that corner works is that you have to get there before the trade show opens, and you stand in a line, and they have on a pop-up banner who is going like what press is represented on what days, and you can sign up for a maximum of two appointments to pitch your brand to those journalists, anchors, editors, whoever, on behalf of your brand. But there's only so many slots, so you literally have to get there right before the trade show opens in order to secure the slots. And I'm so scrappy, like I don't play games, so I'm literally the probably the second or third person in line. I don't think I've ever been first, but the second or third person in line, I'll probably have my iPad with me and I will stand there for half an hour, 45 minutes, however long it takes to be able to get my client in front of those editors or those journalists. And we've done, you know, we've sat down in front of People Magazine, we did Beauty Matters, there was another beauty outlet, and some of them they leave and they publish on Cosmoprof immediately. So we left and we had publications that published on us because I made an effort to be in that line and made sure that at no, you know, whatever the cost was, we were putting her brand in front of those editors and the press that was present. So that's number one. After you exhaust that, it's like, okay, that's only two opportunities per day. And normally it's the first and the second day. So okay, that's four opportunities. Hmm. All right. So what I ended up doing last

Finding Media Through Hashtags

SPEAKER_01 10:00

year, after I secured her interviews, I literally sat in a corner at the Mandalay Bay conference uh center in Las Vegas, in this small little corner with my iPad, and I went through every hashtag and tag of people who were tagging and hashtagging Cosmoprof Beauty in Las Vegas on LinkedIn. And anybody that was relevant or, like I said, their values aligned with my client, I sent them a message or I commented on their post that we wanted to meet them at booth blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, for them to check out new standard beauty. And that took quite some time, I'm sure that you can imagine. Um, so one of those folks that I reached out to was CEW, which was the Cosmetic Executive Women's Association, which now, again, because of those touch points, um, last year we were invited to a special happy hour with CEW. And then they ended up doing an event in Dallas that we ended up going to. And now my client is one of the Dallas ambassadors. But all of these things rocked and rolled because you have to think outside of the box on how you're gonna facilitate these relationships. And for me, it's like I'm gonna sit my ass in a corner on this dirty ass floor with my iPad, and I'm gonna figure out who is here because CosmoProf is not handing us the list, they're not saying such and such influencer is here that has 1.9 million followers and they want the latest in hair care. They're not doing that, so I'm having to go stealthily under hashtags and tags to figure out who's here. Can I get in your DMs? And then what can I do to convince you to stop by our booth? And I know that once I get them to the booth, my client Autumn, she's gonna take it from there. But my job is to hand off the relationship. So you see how things happen with CEW. We built it over time. It actually took two Cosmoprofs for us to get here. And now she's a brand ambassador, she's high up. And my goal with that is that, you know, they have beauty awards as well. And there is one of the biggest beauty award shows in New York. And so we need that same recognition, you know. Once we can figure out how the product is gonna do, um, there's several new product launches we have. That is a goal. But you have to facilitate the relationship and you got to figure out how you're gonna wed yourself in. And you have to ask yourself, just how scrappy am I really willing to get? Like, how am I really willing to give up on not hearing back on the first email? Am I really not gonna pick up that phone and call when I don't hear back on an email? Am I really gonna be afraid to get in someone's DMs and then tell them what I need or what I want? You have to ask yourself these questions. I'm finding lately that people just don't want to put in the work. And they see something like that and they think that it came overnight. Oh man, that's so great. And I'm like, no, let me tell you how that happened. And it wasn't the sexiest job. I've had sexier jobs, but but I sat my ass in a corner because I didn't have a list from Cosmoprof. And I went through every single LinkedIn post, hashtag. I then went over to Instagram and I just started filtering people her way. And if we're thinking about in terms of conversion, maybe our top two relationships out of those people that went over there were um the new You Beauty team and CEW. So you have to think numbers. It's like I've got to reach out to X, like 50, just to convert on the two. That's really gonna change the trajectory of my brand. And you have to be willing to take the other 48 no's or the other 48 responses that don't really just turn out how you want them to. So think about that. All right, so that was CW. Uh, that was New You Beauty. Fast forward. I find New You Beauty.

The DM That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_01 14:20

They had written something on LinkedIn that said, Hey, we're here at Cosmoprof Beauty, and we're so excited to be here. Blah blah blah. They only had like one comment on the post. So I comment, hey, we're here too. We would love to meet you guys. Please come by the new standard booth in the such and such section. We are booth number, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Literally 10 minutes later, I had a DM that was like, we want to come over there. We're gonna be over there by, you know, this time, whatever. And before you know it, they actually beat me to my client's booth because she's calling me on my cell phone saying her mom is freaking out because they came over there with cameras and microphones. And so I did not know this, but they were there to scout new and innovative beauty brands. And when they met my client and saw the product, which is a drink and go scalp hair and scalp hydrator, which is and it tastes phenomenal. Um, they loved what she was doing. They sampled the product and they were like, we want to interview you. And by the way, we're handing out these awards while we're at Cosmoprop on like new you beauty, innovation, whatever. So she ended up getting an award. And we, I'm looking like all of this for me sitting in a dirty ass corner and and you know, hopping in people's DMs, like this is great, you know. So then me being in PR mode, you're always gonna need somebody that grabs that content, showing you as the authority or showing you in that limelight. So I immediately like put my purse and my iPad down, take out my phone and start snapping pictures and videos so she can make a reel of her being interviewed and of her being on camera. So, of course, if you're at a trade show and an expo, you're in front of everybody. So people walking by, like, who is she? Who is that? Like, what just happened? And so it's making my client like a rock star. So even after New You Beauty left, the line was so freaking long. I just grabbed my stuff and I said, You got it from here. I'm gonna go back in my little corner, or maybe I'll go look at some beauty brands to pass the time. But I think you have enough from here. So, anyway, so New You Beauty did all of that, and again, I just kept thinking about man, it was just a matter of just really getting down and dirty and scrappy. And so we left there, and then right after Cosmoprof, they contacted us and said, Hey, we have these beauty awards. Now, mind you, this was in July of last year, July 2025. They're like, We have these new you beauty awards that we give out. Really like your product. Um, it's in March, and at that time, we weren't a winner. It was just they were thinking about naming us as a finalist because they really liked her product. So, fast forward, she ends up being a winner. We end up going out to Miami, we have a vendor booth, we're meeting all of these amazing people. I'm just gonna shout out Cynthia Bailey from Real Housewives of Atlanta, Courtney Kerr, who is one of Dallas's biggest bloggers. She was there, she won Influencer of the Year. There was uh Alexia from The Real Housewives of Miami, who was also there with Marisol and Julia, and you can tell I'm a Bravo fan. And then there were several people from 90 Day Fiance, it was just like insanity, and I had the best time. And for her to win in front of all of those folks, and then to have those people testing and trying her product and validating what she was doing, it was amazing. But again, it comes back to the question of just how scrappy are you willing to get?

Get Scrappy Until You Get Yes

SPEAKER_01 18:14

On the next episode, I'm gonna break it down because by then I should have some confirmation. But on the next episode, I'm gonna break down getting scrappy even further. I just need to get confirmation on just waiting on one little piece on an event I'm working on from my client, and I will further validate why PR is not only just about relationships, but really you thinking outside the box to get what you want and really digging your heels in the sand and not being afraid to ask for what you want and not being afraid to find the decision makers to give you what you want instead of being discouraged by the first no, the second no, the third no. You know, I'm I'm human too. Sometimes if I know it could potentially be that no email, I'll let it linger for a while before I open it. Because yeah, it's painful. You know, it's your baby or it's the next part of the piece for your business or your brand. But you can't be afraid because once you can knock out some of those no's, you're eventually going to get to a yes. And so I hope that this has inspired you for maybe something that you're working on to just get after it, get scrappy, get after it, get in those DMs, follow those tags on LinkedIn, connect with these people on LinkedIn, send them a message, start building and forging these relationships in the words of Malcolm X, by any means necessary. So that's that. Um, that was longer than I anticipated. I could just make that that episode, but I'm not. So when we come back after the break, I'm briefly gonna chat through four items and four things that journalists are saying that they're seeing from their PR partners, things that matter. And I want you to be ahead of the curve. So what you're gonna do is wait right here. You're gonna hear a word from one of our partners, and afterwards, we're gonna get right to it. So keep it

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SPEAKER_01 20:09

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What Journalists Really Want from Publicists: Survey Setup From BCPR Group

SPEAKER_01 21:03

All right, and welcome back from the break. We're gonna get right into it because I've taken up way too much of your time. Let's chat this news survey on how journalists interact with PR partners. Okay, this came from the BC PR group. Um, I thought they were out of Minnesota or Minneapolis, and it's saying that they're out in Tampa, which is even better. That's where my sister's at. So it's fine. So they just released data today, actually. So you guys are getting this in real time. This was a survey that was conducted with over 100 journalists and media professionals to understand how journalists receive and respond to PR outreach. This is important because you may think you're pitching somebody how they want to be pitched, and then they do this survey and you find out that you're the one that's itching their ass. You're the ass itcher, like you're the one they don't want to deal with because you think you're doing it right. Then you read this survey. And you're like, crap, I gotta change my strategy. Okay. So here's four relevant findings. Actually, there's five here. And so I'll get

Personalization Drives Responses

SPEAKER_01 22:09

into the first one. One of the key findings was with journalists that personalization drives engagement. So it says nearly 30% of respondents cited tailored pitches that show knowledge of their work as the single biggest factor in deciding whether to respond. We have done a PR yourself with Leah Frazier episode on this, where we talked about you have to get to know the outlet, you have to get to know the reporter. If you're sending a pitch, are you pitching what they cover? And so 30% of journalists are saying that they're receiving pitches that from people that are all over the place that have no idea what they're covering, and you're just getting sent to the trash. And so personalizing the pitch, I get it all the time on the podcast side. And actually, I've just started responding to people very in a kind manner, but to let them know, like, I don't cover that to let them know, like, you can't keep sending these mass podcast requests, and a lot of it, I would say 90% of it is in AI. And if I see it in AI, I delete it because that means you're not listening to my podcast, which again, personalization drives engagement. Yes, you're personalizing it by saying, Oh, you listened to the last episode. Oh, I love the last episode you did with Lynn that said this, this, and that. Okay, AI can pull that out. You didn't really listen to my podcast because then the pitch of the person you want to bring on my show has absolutely nothing to do with what this show is about. So again, don't go in the trash. So find out what they cover and pitch them directly because you have a knowledge of their work. A trick that I like to do all the time is I will go out and read several of the editors or the journalists' articles or watch some of their TV segments, and I will reference it. So I have one actually up on my screen in real time where a writer for our local Dallas business magazine literally wrote a story that I just told my client we needed to get two days ago. And so I'm like, it's the almost the exact same, except he's in a different industry. So what am I gonna do? I'm gonna go back to that writer and say, Hey, I just read your story on so-and-so. I always hyperlink it, and now I'm gonna send her the relevant information on him. It shows personal, personally, I read your magazine, I read what you wrote, and I'm tailoring my pitch because I believe you're the best fit to write it. Okay. So that's number one. Number two, relevance matters. Okay,

Relevance And Boutique Agency Edge

SPEAKER_01 24:41

so 25% of journalists indicated that boutique agencies send the most relevant pitches. So, like mine. While 9.3% said that large and global agencies do, and then 15% of journalists said in-house teams. So, why is this important? Because a lot of small business owners and entrepreneurs think that they have to go hire the big guy. You have to dump the tens of thousand dollars a month retainer with the large agency, and these numbers are saying your boutique agencies, and the next fact will prove this up even more. Your boutique agencies are the ones that send the relevant picture pitches. They're the ones that really get down to the nitty-gritty. They know the reporters, they know the journalists, they know the editors, and the boutique agencies are the ones that are killing it. The larger global agencies, God bless them, the ones that have multiple offices in the US or they're based out of the UK or Canada or wherever they're at, only a small number of them send relevant pitches. But you've got to understand if they don't have somebody hyper-locally in your city or town, it's kind of hard for them to tailor some of those relevant pitches because they're not there. So they're doing the best they they can. They probably have massive amounts of clients that they represent, whereas the boutique agencies, they literally go with what they can cover their bandwidth, and they don't go outside of that. It's a smaller amount of clients, and they really know their their local or regional outlets to a T, and the outlets know them. Okay. So if you eventually want to stop PRing yourself and go hire an agency, this is telling you that's what you're supposed to do. That further brings me to number three that says responsiveness

Responsiveness Wins Under Deadline

SPEAKER_01 26:33

is critical. 38% of journalists said that boutique and smaller agencies are the most responsive when there's a quick turnaround compared with 4.7%. You guys, that is a decline of 31%. 4.7% of journalists at large and global agencies are responsiveness for critical request. That's not good. And my clients know. I will send a drone. If if a journalist needs something, I will slack you, asana you, text you, I will get in my car and pull up to your house to get them what they need and on time. So 38% of journalists see that these boutiques and smaller agencies are so responsive when they need a quick turnaround. And this is critical. So that's something to consider if you're trying to, you know, outside of PR and yourself, decide between a smaller agency or a larger global presence. And to be fair, some of those larger and global agencies do work with the boutique agencies because they know this. So some of them will outsource the hyperlocal activity to a smaller agency. I have one actually doing it for an organization that I'm just waiting on the contract, but um, that is doing this very same thing because they were like, we know you don't even have to pitch, Leah. You can just pick up the phone text, da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and it's gonna get done. And so that's the way it should be working. All right, number four, barriers remain. So

Why Irrelevant Pitches Get Ignored

SPEAKER_01 28:12

irrelevant or off-beat pitches were the top reason journalists ignore outreach. And this was reported by 48.6% of participants. So, this is what I said before. You're just blasting out your press release to anybody, and you're not checking to see if this is what they actually cover when they open it, and you're they are the entertainment or music editor, and you're sending them technology or you're sending them business, all they're doing is deleting it. You're wasting your time. And so please stop sending out mass distribution without double checking to see if that's what they cover. Period. You're gonna tick a lot of journalists off, and some of them are gonna just stop opening your emails, and we don't want that to happen, not in the PR land. And lastly, AI and template style pitches are increasingly common.

AI Templates Are Backfiring

SPEAKER_01 29:03

So 38.3% of journalists are noticing AI pitches or templates more frequently, while 49.5% are reporting occasional encounters. So it's almost about to even out neck and neck. I will say that the journalists that I follow on Substack, and then recently what I'm seeing in the platform quoted, and in some of uh the other platforms that I use to pitch my clients for some of those last-minute requests, they are now putting in bold and highlighting absolutely no AI pitches, not even to polish up your pitch. They don't want any AI detected whatsoever. It is driving journalists crazy. Something that I heard a journalist uh write on Substack that stuck with me was saying, you know, AI, we think that it thinks, and it is not technically thinking, it's just gathering and summarizing information that's already out there. So you're dumping in that I need this particular pitch, not knowing that 10 other people in your industry are doing the same thing. And so what AI is, is dumping out the same pitch for all 10 of you and you're sending it to the same journalist or editor. And so they're and they're saying, and and you got to remember that AI is grabbing what's already out there. So if they're a journalist or an editor that's trying to cover something unique or something special to their publication, then AI is not coming up with something new or fresh or trendy or a new idea. That can only come from the human brain. So you're really shooting yourself in the foot if you're not really sitting down and trying to figure out how to position your brand without the use of AI. You can use it again, but just know a lot of the journalists that want fresh ideas and fresh news, no. And there is software out there, I will say, that you can put somebody's pitch in to see how much of it is AI. I've used it with some of my clients who didn't tell me they were sending AI responses. And I now I use it all the time. Um, where some of those journalists, if they run it through and it's completely AI, they will delete you and block you. And there is a particular platform that will remain unnamed that will put you on suspension before uh deactivating your account if you use AI answer. So just a fair warning, just a fair warning. But those are our top five um journalist responses and how they interact with their PR partners. So let me know what you think about this. I've got to go. I've got to hop on a very important call with my client. But yeah, so just to recap, um, this is how journalists interact with PR partners from the BCPR group. Key findings included personalization, personalize your pitches. Two relevance matters. Please send relevant pitches to what that particular uh journalist covers. Responsiveness, be responsive. They are tracking how responsive you are to critical requests. Barriers remain. Stop sending irrelevant and off-beat pitches. I think we already talked about that. And then AI and tiplet style pitches are increasing. So that means you're really not standing out from the crowd. So try to do as minimal AI as possible, okay? If you feel like this episode has helped you, you know what you gotta do. You've got to like, you gotta comment, you've gotta share. Share this with somebody who you think this is relevant. If you want to leave me a message, you can go to PRYourself podcast on Instagram. You can DM me or you can send me a message on my personal the Leah Fraser. Let me know what you think about this next episode, or this episode, I should say. Sorry about that. And we'll be back with another Power Packed episode very, very soon. Not covering AI. I'm gonna give that a little bit of a break, but you know what to do. Keep it locked in and until next time.