How to Get Press Coverage Without a PR Agency: A Founder’s Guide

How to Get Press Coverage Without a PR Agency: A Founder's Guide | ContactJournalists.com :root{ --cream:#F6F3ED; --card:#FFFFFF; --ink:#15141A; --ink-soft:#5B5867; --purple:#6C4CF0; --purple-dark:#4F35C4; --purple-tint:#EFEAFC; --border:#ECE8DF; --shadow:0 2px 6px rgba(20,15,45,.04), 0 12px 32px rgba(20,15,45,.06); --radius-lg:24px; --radius-pill:999px; } *{box-sizing:border-box;} html{scroll-behavior:smooth;} @media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce){ html{scroll-behavior:auto;} *{transition:none !important; animation:none !important;} } body{margin:0; background:var(--cream); color:var(--ink); font-family:'Inter',sans-serif; font-size:18px; line-height:1.75;} a{color:var(--purple); text-decoration:underline; text-decoration-color:rgba(108,76,240,.35);} a:hover{color:var(--purple-dark);} a:focus-visible, button:focus-visible{outline:3px solid var(--purple); outline-offset:3px; border-radius:4px;} .wrap{max-width:760px; margin:0 auto; padding:0 24px 100px;} .topbar{max-width:760px; margin:0 auto; 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Connect: in X ig Short on time? Here's the fast version Can I really get press coverage without an agency? Yes. Plenty of founders, including Fortuna with her own first business, have built genuine national coverage without ever hiring a traditional PR agency. What's the biggest reason DIY PR stalls out? Not skill, but consistency. Most founders can sustain research, pitching and follow-up for a few weeks before other priorities take over. Need publicity fast? WhatsApp us on 07822 002670 and we'll tell you honestly what's realistic and how quickly we can get moving for your brand. F Written by Fortuna, founder of ContactJournalists.com I spent seven years building It Really Works Vitamins as a solo founder, starting with nothing more than a logo I commissioned on Fiverr and a spare room full of stock. There was no PR team, no agency on retainer, and no one else to share the workload with. Over those seven years I grew it into a multi-million dollar brand before selling the business in 2022, and press was one of the single biggest levers in that growth, with genuine, unpaid coverage in Forbes, Men's Health, ShortList/Coach and the Evening Standard. ContactJournalists.com exists to bring that same real, lived experience to other founders, now run on behalf of clients across wellness and well beyond it. Forbes Men's Health ShortList / Coach Evening Standard Brands we already support with done-for-you PR: Yourpilla.com MobileAccountants.com AdvanceHomeHelp.co.uk RateGame.io Contents Why founders try DIY PR first What getting press coverage actually requires Finding the right journalists, not just any journalist Writing pitches that don't sound like ads The follow-up problem When DIY reaches its ceiling Where done-for-you PR fits in People also ask Final thoughts 🔎 Why founders try DIY PR first Hiring a traditional PR agency often means signing up for a retainer of £1,500 to £5,000 a month, with a minimum contract length attached, before a single piece of coverage has landed. For a founder-led business without that kind of budget, doing it yourself feels like the only realistic option, and it genuinely can work. Plenty of well-known brands, including my own first business, built early visibility entirely through founder-led outreach, without an agency involved at any point. The honest starting point is that DIY PR isn't a lesser strategy. It's often the right one in the early stages, when the founder is the most credible spokesperson for the brand anyway, and when the budget genuinely isn't there for anything else. The question isn't whether DIY works, it's how long a founder can realistically sustain the consistency it requires alongside everything else on their plate. 🧭 What getting press coverage actually requires Genuine press coverage requires three things happening consistently: a list of the right journalists for your specific niche, pitches personalised enough that they don't read like a mail merge, and follow-up that happens without becoming irritating. None of these are individually difficult. What's difficult is doing all three, every week, for months, without losing momentum the first time a week gets busy. This is where most DIY attempts quietly fall apart, not because the founder lacks the skill, but because PR competes for time against tasks with a more obvious, immediate cost of neglect, like a customer complaint or a broken checkout page. Skip the learning curve If you'd rather have someone who has already done this for their own multi-million dollar brand handle it for you, our done-for-you PR takes the research, pitching and follow-up off your plate entirely. Human-led outreach No lock-in £249/month WhatsApp 07822 002670 Apply for done-for-you PR 📇 Finding the right journalists, not just any journalist A common early mistake is building a list based on publication size rather than relevance. A national title that never covers your category is a worse target than a smaller trade publication that covers it every week. The right approach is to search recent articles in your specific niche, note who wrote them, and confirm that writer is still active on that beat before adding them to your list. According to Muck Rack's State of Journalism research , the overwhelming majority of journalists will delete a pitch immediately if it doesn't match what they actually cover, which makes this targeting step the single highest-leverage part of the entire process, more important than the pitch's wording. ✍️ Writing pitches that don't sound like ads A pitch that reads like a press release, formal, third-person, packed with adjectives, tends to get ignored. A pitch that reads like a short, useful email from one person to another tends to get a reply. The most effective structure opens with something specific to that journalist's recent work, states the story angle in one sentence, and offers something concrete: a quote, a data point, access to the founder for an interview. It's worth resisting the urge to pitch your product. Pitch the story instead, the angle a reader would actually care about, with your product or service as supporting evidence rather than the headline. 🔁 The follow-up problem Most pitches, even strong ones, get missed the first time. Journalists work against constant deadlines and a crowded inbox, and a good pitch sent at the wrong moment can simply disappear. A polite follow-up, sent four or five working days later, recovers a meaningful share of coverage that a single email alone would have missed. This is also the stage where most DIY attempts quietly stop. Sending the first email feels productive. Remembering to follow up on fifteen pitches sent two weeks ago, while also running the rest of the business, is a different kind of discipline entirely. Need publicity fast? WhatsApp us your timeline and we'll be straight with you about what's achievable and how quickly we can get your first pitches out the door. Fast turnaround Clear tracking £249/month WhatsApp 07822 002670 Apply for done-for-you PR 📈 When DIY reaches its ceiling DIY PR tends to work well for the first handful of pitches, while enthusiasm is high and the target list is fresh. The ceiling usually appears around month two or three, once the initial list has been exhausted, the founder's other responsibilities pile back up, and there's no clear system for finding new opportunities or picking up where the last batch of outreach left off. That ceiling isn't a sign of failure. It's simply the natural limit of a task that needs consistent, ongoing attention competing against a founder's finite time. 🤝 Where done-for-you PR fits in This is exactly the gap our done-for-you PR service closes. We take over the research, the pitching and the follow-up, every week, so the process that stalls out for most DIY founders around month two simply keeps running. It's human-led, not AI spam, built by someone who has done this for her own product business and secured genuine coverage in Forbes, Men's Health, ShortList/Coach and the Evening Standard. ❓ People also ask Do I need a big story to pitch journalists? No. Journalists cover small, relevant stories constantly. What matters more is a clear angle and personalisation to that journalist's specific beat. How many journalists should be on my first target list? Quality matters more than quantity. A tightly targeted list of twenty to thirty genuinely relevant journalists usually outperforms a generic list of two hundred. How long before DIY PR shows results? Most founders see their first response within a few weeks, but a noticeable pattern of coverage usually takes two to three months of consistent outreach. When should I consider done-for-you PR instead? When the research, pitching and follow-up start slipping because something else in the business always feels more urgent that week. ✅ Final thoughts DIY PR is a genuinely valid starting point, and for some founders it's the right long-term approach. But it lives or dies on consistency, and consistency is exactly what competes hardest against everything else on a founder's plate. Whether you keep doing it yourself or hand it over, the principles are the same: the right targets, a personal pitch, and follow-up that doesn't stop after the first email. We can't wait to help your business grow Done-for-you PR from ContactJournalists.com is built and run by someone who has actually done this for her own business and grown it into a multi-million dollar brand, not just an agency reading about PR theory. We already support brands like Yourpilla.com, MobileAccountants.com, AdvanceHomeHelp.co.uk and RateGame.io, and we'd love to add yours to that list. Builds SEO Builds AI visibility Saves time Saves money Saves energy WhatsApp us on 07822 002670 Apply for done-for-you PR ContactJournalists.com · Done-for-you PR for founder-led brands · 07822 002670