Something I keep noticing with our clients at Payper, particularly first-time founders, is that the pitch itself is rarely the hard part. Most people can write a decent email when they've got something genuinely worth saying. Where they come unstuck is the silence afterwards.
Two days pass, then three, then five, and the urge to follow up starts building. Some people send a gentle nudge. Others send five. A few pick up the phone and call the newsroom directly, which in New Zealand in 2026 is roughly equivalent to showing up at someone's house unannounced.
The follow-up is where most PR relationships are won or lost, and it's the part that almost nobody teaches you how to do properly.
Why Most Follow-Ups Make Things Worse
The data on this is quite stark. The average response rate for media pitches sits at 3.43%, according to Propel's latest State of PR report. That means for every hundred pitches sent, roughly three or four will get a reply. When you factor in that Muck Rack's 2026 survey found 50% of journalists say they seldom or never respond to pitches at all, the silence starts to make more sense.
It's not personal, it's volume. Half of journalists now receive 50 or more pitches per week, and in a market like New Zealand where newsrooms have shrunk to roughly 1,400 reporters covering the entire country, the people you're emailing are doing more with less than at any point in their careers. A pitch that doesn't match their beat, their current assignments, or their editor's priorities gets skipped, not because they're rude but because they physically don't have time to reply to everything.
Where most people go wrong is assuming that silence means their pitch wasn't seen. Sometimes that's true. But more often, the journalist read it, decided it wasn't for them, and moved on. A follow-up that essentially asks "did you get my email?" feels redundant at best and at worst like you're questioning whether they're doing their job.
How Long Should You Wait Before Following Up?
The research is fairly consistent on timing. Muck Rack's 2026 survey found 51% of journalists say the ideal follow-up window is between a few days and a week after the original pitch. Cision's global data lands in a similar place, recommending three to six business days.
We generally wait four to five business days. That gives the journalist enough time to have actually seen the pitch, considered it in the context of their week, and either acted on it or moved past it. Following up the next day almost never helps, and following up two weeks later is often too late for anything time-sensitive.
The timing also depends on what you pitched. If your story is tied to a specific date, an announcement, an event, an embargo lift, your follow-up window is shorter because the relevance is decaying. If it's an evergreen feature angle, you have more room to be patient.
What Does a Good Follow-Up Actually Look Like?
The best follow-ups do one of three things: they add something new, they make the journalist's job easier, or they acknowledge reality and move on gracefully.
Adding something new might mean a data point that's emerged since your original pitch, a relevant news hook that makes the story timelier, or an offer to connect the journalist with a specific source who can speak on the record. The worst follow-ups simply restate the original pitch in slightly different words, which tells the journalist nothing they didn't already know.
Making the journalist's job easier could be as simple as attaching a high-resolution photo they'd need for the story, or offering a 15-minute phone call with your founder at a specific time that works around deadline. Journalists are time-poor, and anything that reduces friction between "this is interesting" and "I can actually file this" increases your chances considerably.
And sometimes, the most effective follow-up is one that gives the journalist an easy out. Something like: "Completely understand if this one doesn't fit your current coverage. Happy to be a resource on [topic] if something comes up down the line." That kind of message costs you nothing and builds goodwill that compounds over time, which in a market as small as New Zealand matters enormously.
How Many Follow-Ups Are Too Many?
One follow-up is usually enough. Occasionally two, if you're genuinely adding value the second time. Almost never three.
I know that sounds blunt, but the data backs it up. Cision's global survey found that 62% of journalists say only one follow-up is appropriate. Among US reporters, 24% say you should never follow up at all. And 48% of journalists told Cision they will block a PR person for repeated aggressive follow-ups.
That last number should give everyone in communications pause. Nearly half of journalists will permanently block you for pushing too hard. In a market with around 1,400 working reporters, that's a relationship you might never get back.
The good news is that a single well-timed follow-up genuinely works. Research suggests that follow-ups typically contribute 15-35% of total responses, which means the second touch does move the needle. The third, fourth, and fifth touches are where diminishing returns turn into active damage.
When we're pitching on behalf of Payper clients, our rule is simple: one follow-up, well-timed, with something additional to offer. If there's still silence after that, we move on. Not because we've given up on the story, but because protecting the relationship with the journalist is worth more than any single piece of coverage.
When to Walk Away (And Why Walking Away Is a Strategy)
Walking away from a pitch that isn't landing is one of the hardest things to do in PR, especially when you've invested time researching the right journalists, crafted a strong angle, and genuinely believe the story deserves attention. But walking away isn't the same as losing.
In nearly ten years of running Payper, some of our best media relationships started with pitches that didn't land. We pitched, followed up once, and let it go. Months later, the journalist came back to us on a different story because they remembered we were professional, relevant, and didn't hassle them. That's the compounding effect of restraint, and it's particularly powerful in New Zealand where the same reporters cover the same beats year after year.
When we worked with Kea Aerospace, some of their strongest coverage came not from the initial pitch but from relationships we'd built through previous conversations with reporters who had originally passed on earlier angles. The journalist trusted us enough to pick up the phone when a story that fit Kea's expertise landed on their desk.
We see a similar pattern with longer-standing clients like Evnex, who've built sustained media presence over time partly because we never burned bridges with energy and technology reporters on pitches that didn't land. That patience is built into how we work.
What Should You Do When a Journalist Doesn't Respond?
Resist the urge to send another email. The most useful thing you can do when a journalist goes quiet is stop and honestly assess whether the pitch deserved a response in the first place. Was the story genuinely newsworthy, or were you pitching something that only matters inside your company? Did you send it to the right person, not just the right outlet? Was the timing right, or did your email land during a breaking news day when everything else gets buried?
If the answer to all three is yes and you still got silence, the problem probably isn't your pitch. It's that journalists are overwhelmed. Muck Rack's 2026 report found that 86% of journalists say PR pitches inspire at least some of their stories, so the system works. It just doesn't work every time, and expecting a response to every pitch is setting yourself up for frustration.
What you should do instead of following up again is keep the journalist on your radar. Read their work. When they write something relevant to your industry, share it without any agenda attached. When your next story comes around, reference their previous coverage in your pitch so they know you're paying attention. This is how you become the kind of contact a journalist wants to hear from, which is worth infinitely more than badgering them into responding to one pitch they've already decided to skip.
If you've built a strong media list using research rather than a purchased database, the journalists on it should be people whose coverage genuinely aligns with your story. When that alignment is there, one follow-up is usually enough. When it isn't, no amount of follow-ups will change their mind.
Why This Matters Even More in a Small Market
In the UK or the US, you can afford to burn a bridge with one journalist because there are hundreds of others covering the same beat. In New Zealand, there might be three. Maybe five if you include the trade publications. Burn one relationship and you've reduced your media universe by 20-30%.
This is something we talk about constantly at Payper. As a results-based PR agency where clients only pay when coverage lands, our reputation with journalists is literally our business model. Every journalist relationship directly affects our ability to deliver for the people who've trusted us with their story, which means we take the follow-up question seriously.
The research from Muck Rack confirms what we see on the ground: 70% of journalists prioritise alignment with their coverage area, and 58% want access to credible sources. Being a reliable, professional contact who respects a journalist's time is a strategy, not a consolation prize. If you want to understand more about how building those long-term relationships works, we covered the full process in our guide on how to become a go-to source for journalists.
And if you're still working on the fundamentals of how to approach a journalist in the first place, start with our guide on how to pitch a journalist. The follow-up only matters if the initial pitch was worth sending.
Get in touch here and we'll give you a straight answer.