Building a journalist pitch list: the 5-step tiering

Tiered pitch lists earn a median 3x the coverage per send vs blast lists, n=70 campaigns. The win is matching the story to the beat before you write line one.

— Identify 3-5 outlets that have covered your exact topic in the last year
— Pull bylines from those specific articles, not the masthead
— Verify each writer still covers the beat (check their last 5 pieces)
— Tier them: Tier 1 = wrote on your topic in 90 days, Tier 2 = adjacent
— Find direct emails, verify, never use generic tips@

Pitches to writers who covered the topic in the last 90 days land coverage at 16% vs 4% for cold-beat writers — recency of relevance is everything.

Sample: 70 digital-PR campaigns, 2023-2024.
Pitch the byline that covered your topic last quarter, never the masthead; relevance recency drives pickup.