Sending out pitches using the Propel Gmail plug-in
Sending a Pitch
The most basic PR workflow is to send a single pitch to a single reporter. This is where we will start. Let's open a new compose window.
The first step we take whenever we send a pitch with Propel is to connect the email to the correct pitching initiative. This ensures that the pitch is tracked in Propel. Go ahead and connect your pitch to one of your pitching lists.
Selecting a pitch in Gmail
Once your email is connected to a pitch, you will see additional options become available. We'll take a look at these a little later. For now, write and send your pitch normally. You've already done everything necessary for your pitch to be tracked in Propel.
What happens once my pitch is sent?
Sending an email that's connected to a pitch gives you the following benefits:
- Open tracking – see which emails have been opened and how many times so that you can focus your follow-ups
- Response tracking – automatically be notified when a reporter responds to your pitch to enhance response speed
- Reporting – automated reporting based upon pitches sent, opened, responded, and articles published. Say goodbye to manual report generation!
These topics are discussed in more detail in other knowledge base articles.
Sending a Mail Merge
While personalized pitching tends to be the most effective, there will definitely be times when you need to get a pitch out quickly to a large media list with minimal customization. That's where mail merge comes in.
If you have never used mail merge before, the concept is simple. Write a single email, add the contact name and media outlet as variables, add your entire media list to the 'to' field, and send the email. Unlike a regular email, with mail merge, each recipient will receive their own copy with only their name in the 'to' field and with all variables replaced with their personal details.
With Propel, we make sending a mail merge simple. Let's start by choosing our recipients.
- Open a new compose view.
- Select your desired pitching initiative, the same as we did when sending a single email.
- Mouse over Media Lists and choose "This Media List". This opens a list of everybody that you added to the pitching list from the Propel web application.
View your media list in Gmail
The media list screen gives you full access to your pitching list from within Gmail. You can:
- Search for contacts on this list
- Filter by tags or the filter menu
- View last contacted details for each contact, and whether the person was already pitched for this campaign
- Select one or more contacts for your email
For now, select one or more contacts you would like to pitch. You can use the Select all button if you would like to pitch the entire list at once. Then click the Select button in the bottom right corner. This adds all contacts to your email.
Your media list – selecting contacts to pitch
Now that you've added some contacts to your email, you should write the email itself. Because this is a mail merge, we want to use variables instead of personally identifiable information such as names and media outlets. Use the Variables button to add the appropriate variables. These will be replaced when you send the email with the personal details of each recipient.
Inserting a variable
Just like that, your email is ready to go. Click the Send Mail Merge button in order to send the email. This will ensure that each contact gets his or her own personalized copy. Furthermore, each email sent will be recorded individually in Propel for easy follow-up and tracking.
Creating Bulk Drafts
While mail merge is great for pitches that require minimal personalization, we all know that PR is most successful when we personalize our pitches individually for each reporter. For that reason, mail merge is not always the best option. Propel gives you a second option that allows you to take advantage of bulk composing while still enabling full personalization. We call this option Generate Drafts.
To generate drafts, follow all the same steps as for sending a mail merge, but instead of clicking Send Mail Merge, click Generate Drafts. Rather than sending them all at once, Propel will get your emails ready for you and place them into your drafts folder. You then access any of these emails directly from your drafts folder, add the personal touch required for the intended recipient, and then send them one by one.
You just saved a ton of time preparing all of your pitches!
To learn more about pitching with Gmail, here are some helpful Youtube tutorial videos: