September 8, 2026
PR isn’t easy and it’s not uncommon to find the perfect angle for a story, write an outstanding press release, and send it to the right journalists at the right time, only to receive complete tumbleweed in return. It’s happened before and it will almost certainly happen again if you don’t fix what’s not working.
Most people immediately jump to the same conclusion - that your campaign just wasn’t that interesting or your contact list wasn’t well-suited, and while that could be the case, there are some other potential reasons that are worth exploring, too.
Here are three mistakes that could be costing you coverage and what you can do to fix them.
It’s only natural to want to talk about your business. Whether it’s a new product or service, your team is expanding, or you hit record sales, you’re proud of it and you’re going to want to talk about it. The problem here is that not many people outside of your organisation, especially journalists, are likely to care as much as you do.
Instead of attempting to make your company sound more interesting than it actually is, you need to slot your company into a more interesting conversation.
A coffee company announcing a new flavour of coffee, for example, could run a study to find out how much caffeine the average UK adult consumes at work in a week and which industries had the highest consumption and offer expert commentary on the findings, rather than just advertising the latest addition to their collection.
A good tip is to remove your brand from the story entirely and, if it’s still interesting, you’re good to go. If it’s not, you may want to rethink your angle.
There is one important caveat here though…
A business achieving or launching something isn’t automatically newsworthy, unless it has a direct connection to the publication’s audience. A local business may have more scope to talk about themselves when targeting local media. For example, a popular bar expanding in Leeds could be genuinely relevant to a Leeds-based publication. But even so, there does need to be a reason for the journalist and the reader to care about the story.
Journalists are incredibly busy people, so you want to make it as easy as possible for one to cover your story. Even if your campaign is interesting, if the journalist has to extract documents from a zip file, fiddle with images, or spend time working out what the story actually is, you’re probably going to lose them.
Remove as much friction as possible.
Keep everything neat and organised, explain any research, and put the numbers and quotes that really matter right in front of them. If they can’t understand your story or start writing without having to ask for additional assets, you’re making them work too hard.
Ensure your pitch incudes:
A strong campaign can still fail to gain coverage if the timing wasn’t quite right. Whether an interested journalist was having an especially busy day, a breaking news story took precedence, or a similar article was just published, you might have just got unlucky.
But just because you were met with radio silence doesn’t mean your story or outreach method was bad.
Look for another opportunity to put your story in front of the right journalist.
Send a carefully crafted follow up email, maybe even add a fresh statistic or another expert quote if possible, especially if there's been a development.
It can be hard to know when’s best to follow up, when to adapt your angle, and when to just move on but it’s rare that giving up after one attempt will get you very far.
There are many reasons why your campaign isn’t getting the attention you thought it would, but these are three common mistakes that we see all the time.
By selling your story and not your brand, making it as easy as possible for the journalist to publish, and not giving up at the first hurdle, you can increase your chances of securing coverage in high-quality publications.
If you need expert help with PR or outreach, get in touch with us today.
