A few years ago I pitched a New Zealand electric vehicle company to a journalist at a UK technology publication. I had no existing relationship with her, no warm introduction, and an eight-hour time zone gap working against me. The story ran within 48 hours, with a direct quote from the founder and a link back to their website. When I followed up to say thanks, she told me she'd been looking for exactly that kind of company outside the usual Silicon Valley pipeline, she just hadn't known where to find one.
That experience changed how I think about international media. Most New Zealand founders assume that overseas coverage is something reserved for companies with huge budgets, offshore offices, or a PR team already on the ground in London or New York. The reality is more encouraging, and more accessible, than most people realise.
Why do New Zealand companies have an advantage with international media?
It sounds counterintuitive, but being from New Zealand is genuinely helpful when pitching overseas. Journalists in London, New York and Sydney are buried under pitches from local companies and agencies all day, every day. According to Muck Rack's 2026 State of Journalism report, 88% of journalists immediately disregard pitches that don't match their beat, and the sheer volume means most of what arrives in their inbox looks the same. A well-constructed pitch from a New Zealand company cuts through precisely because it's unexpected.
New Zealand also carries a specific kind of brand equity internationally. We're associated with clean technology, sustainability, agricultural innovation, and building things with limited resources. Those aren't small advantages when you're trying to earn attention from a journalist who has seen fifteen pitches this morning from companies that all sound identical. If your company is doing something genuinely interesting in any of those spaces, you're not competing against the noise of another Bay Area startup, you're offering a perspective a journalist can't easily get from their local contacts.
At Payper, we've seen this firsthand with clients like FTN Motion, whose electric motorbikes attracted international tech and transport media attention precisely because a New Zealand company building electric motorcycles was novel enough to be worth writing about. The product was excellent, obviously, but the origin story added an extra layer of intrigue that a pitch from a well-known market simply wouldn't have carried.
What makes a story work for overseas media?
The same thing that makes any story work anywhere: it has to matter to the audience reading it. That sounds simple, and it is, but it's exactly where most international pitching falls apart.
The Muck Rack report found that 78% of journalists say a pitch feels genuinely relevant when it directly affects the community their audience belongs to. That's a useful filter for any founder thinking about pitching overseas. Your story needs to be about something bigger than your company, something the reader in that market will recognise as relevant to their own world.
You can't take a press release written for Stuff or the NZ Herald, change the subject line, and send it to the Financial Times. The angle has to shift. What worked as a "Kiwi startup does well" story domestically needs to become something else internationally, a story about a market shift, a data point, a trend, or a human problem that happens to have a New Zealand company sitting at the centre of it.
When Scapegrace Distilling was expanding into international markets, the domestic story was straightforward: a local distillery going global. For overseas spirits and trade media, the angle was completely different. It became a story about how a new wave of craft distillers from unexpected places were challenging established brands, with Scapegrace as one of the most compelling examples. Same company, same facts, but a fundamentally different story shaped for a different audience.
How do you actually find overseas journalists to pitch?
Most founders overcomplicate this step. You don't need a global media database subscription or a contact list of 500 journalists. You need ten to fifteen well-researched contacts who actually cover your space in the market you're targeting.
Start by reading. Spend a week reading the publications you'd love to appear in, not just the homepages, but the specific sections and beats where your story would sit. Technology, sustainability, food and beverage, fintech, health, whatever your industry is. Look at who's writing those stories. Click through to their author profiles and recent work. Follow them on LinkedIn or X. Understand what they care about before you ever send a pitch.
Tools like Muck Rack, Cision and even Google News alerts can help you build a shortlist, but there is no substitute for actually reading someone's work. A journalist can tell within seconds whether a pitch was sent by someone who knows their beat or someone who pulled their email from a database and hit send.
One tactical tip that works well for New Zealand companies: start with Australian media. Australia is the easiest international market to break into from New Zealand because journalists there already have some familiarity with Kiwi companies, the time zones are manageable, and coverage in Australian outlets often opens doors to UK and US publications later. Think of it as a stepping stone, not the final destination.
Should you hire a PR agency in each market?
Not necessarily, and certainly not at the beginning. A lot of New Zealand companies assume they need an agency on the ground in every market they want coverage in, which gets expensive fast when you're looking at retainers of $10,000 to $20,000 per month in the US or UK.
For most companies at the early stage of international expansion, a better approach is to work with your New Zealand PR team to identify and pitch the right journalists directly. Payper is a results-based PR agency in New Zealand where clients only pay when coverage lands, and that model works for international pitching too, you're not paying a monthly retainer in three different countries for coverage that might not materialise.
If you do reach a point where local representation makes sense, usually that's when you have a physical presence in the market, a significant customer base there, or a regular cadence of news to share, then a local agency relationship becomes more valuable. But for most Kiwi companies getting started with international media, it's an unnecessary expense.
How should you adapt your pitch for different markets?
Every market has its own media culture, and understanding those differences will make or break your pitch.
Australia is the most natural first step. Journalists there understand the New Zealand market context, and there's genuine interest in trans-Tasman business stories. Trade media in Australia is particularly accessible, whether you're in food and beverage, tech, agriculture, or retail. The angle often doesn't need to shift dramatically from your New Zealand pitch, just broaden it slightly to explain why an Australian audience should care.
The UK has a strong business media landscape and, thanks to the Commonwealth connection, a reasonable baseline familiarity with New Zealand. Publications like The Guardian, The Telegraph's business section, and specialist trade outlets are often receptive to stories from New Zealand, particularly if they involve sustainability, food innovation, or technology. British journalists tend to appreciate understatement and evidence over hype, which suits New Zealand companies well. Don't oversell. Let the facts and the story do the work.
The US is the hardest market to crack for sheer volume of competition, but it's also where the biggest opportunities sit. The trick is to think niche before you think big. A feature in a respected trade publication like TechCrunch for tech, VinePair for spirits, or Electrek for clean energy will carry more weight and actually reach more of the right people than chasing a mention in the New York Times. Niche US publications are often actively looking for international stories to diversify their coverage, which works in your favour.
The time zone question
Less than you'd think, but it does require a small adjustment to your workflow. The most practical approach is to send your pitch so it arrives in the journalist's inbox during their morning, which for US East Coast journalists means sending at around midnight New Zealand time, and for UK journalists around 7pm or 8pm NZT. Most email clients and PR tools let you schedule sends, so this is easy to automate.
The bigger adjustment is response time. When a journalist in London replies at 10am their time, it's 9pm in Auckland and 10pm in Christchurch. Having your phone on you during those windows, at least in the first few days after sending a pitch, makes a real difference. Journalists move fast, and if you're twelve hours behind on a reply, the window can close. That said, most journalists understand time zones and won't penalise you for a few hours' delay as long as you're responsive when it matters.
Timing your move
There's no single trigger, but a few signals suggest you're ready. If you've built a solid body of domestic coverage, meaning journalists in New Zealand know your company and you've been quoted or featured in credible outlets, that's a strong foundation. If you're entering or preparing to enter an overseas market, that creates a natural news hook. If you have customers, partners, or investors in the target market, those connections add credibility to your pitch.
The mistake most companies make is waiting until they've "made it" internationally before pursuing international media. By that point, the story is less interesting because the novelty has worn off. The best window is often right at the point of expansion, when the story still has momentum and the journalist can write about what's coming, not what already happened.
One of the things we encourage Payper clients to think about is building an international media presence in parallel with their commercial expansion, not after it. Coverage in a respected overseas outlet creates credibility that helps close deals, attract talent, and build partnerships in the new market. It's a commercial tool, not a vanity exercise.
The anatomy of a good international pitch
Keep it short, keep it specific, and make it about the reader's world, not yours. A good international pitch includes five things:
- A subject line that signals relevance to their beat, not your company name. "NZ cleantech company raises $5m" is less effective than "New EV charging tech cuts grid load by 40%, now expanding into UK market."
- One paragraph explaining why this story matters to their audience right now. Connect it to a trend, a data point, or a problem their readers are already thinking about.
- One paragraph on the company, framed through the lens of the story. Mention New Zealand briefly, but don't make it the centrepiece unless the origin is genuinely part of the story's appeal.
- A quote from the founder or CEO that says something interesting or opinionated, not a generic corporate statement. Journalists want a voice they can put in the piece.
- A clear offer: availability for interview, high-resolution images, additional data. Make it easy for them to say yes.
If the pitch is longer than 200 words, it's too long. Journalists receive hundreds of emails a day, and the ones that get read are the ones that respect their time.
The bottom line
International media coverage is not a privilege reserved for big companies with big budgets. It's available to any New Zealand business with a genuinely interesting story, a willingness to do the research, and the discipline to adapt their angle for a different audience. The distance that feels like a disadvantage is, in many cases, exactly what makes you stand out.
If you're thinking about expanding into a new market, or you're already there and want media to be part of your growth strategy, it's worth exploring what's possible. At Payper, we work with New Zealand companies to land coverage both domestically and internationally, and we're always happy to talk through whether your story has international potential.
Get in touch here and we'll give you a straight answer.