You have a great product. A solid team. Maybe even a marketing person who “also does PR.” You have sent dozens of press releases, pitched a few journalists, and the result is… nothing. No coverage. No links. No calls back.
You are not alone. Most companies that try PR in-house get zero meaningful coverage in their first year. Not because their product is bad, but because in-house PR almost always makes the same five mistakes.
I know because I made every single one of them. Before starting Presslei, I ran marketing for two ecommerce brands. We tried doing PR ourselves for over a year. The total result was three mentions in blogs nobody reads and a lot of wasted time.
Here is what we were doing wrong, and what I would tell any company trying to do PR in-house right now.
Mistake 1: Leading With Your Product Instead of a Story
This is the big one. Almost every in-house PR attempt starts the same way: “We just launched X, and we think journalists should write about it.”
Here is the uncomfortable truth: journalists do not care about your product. They care about stories their readers want to read. Your product launch is news to you. To a journalist who gets 300 pitches a day, it is noise.
The fix is simple but requires a mindset shift. Stop asking “how do we get press for our product?” and start asking “what story can we tell that a journalist would want to cover, where our brand happens to be relevant?”
That means data. Trends. Original research. A surprising finding. Something a journalist can build a story around.
Mistake 2: Pitching the Wrong Journalists
Most in-house teams build their media lists by Googling “journalists who cover [industry]” and sending the same pitch to everyone they find. This is like sending your CV to every company on LinkedIn and wondering why nobody responds.
The response rate for generic mass pitches is under 3 percent. For targeted, relevant pitches to journalists already covering your topic? 15 to 25 percent.
The difference is not the pitch template. It is the targeting. You need to know:
- What has this specific journalist written about in the last 30 days?
- What kind of sources do they typically use?
- Are they actively looking for data on this topic right now?
Building this intelligence takes time. Most in-house teams skip it and pay the price in silence.
Mistake 3: Writing Press Releases Nobody Asked For
Press releases made sense in 1995. Today, they are the PR equivalent of a fax machine. Journalists do not sit around waiting for your press release to land in their inbox. They are drowning in them.
A senior tech journalist once told me she automatically deletes any email with “press release” in the subject line. Without reading it.
What works instead: a short, personalized email. Under 150 words. One clear data point or angle. A reason why this matters to their specific audience right now. No attachments. No corporate jargon. No “we are excited to announce.”
Mistake 4: No Follow-Up System
In-house teams typically send a pitch, hear nothing, and assume the journalist is not interested. In reality, most journalists simply did not see your email. Their inboxes are chaos.
A well-timed follow-up 3 to 5 days later can double your response rate. But most in-house teams either never follow up or follow up so aggressively they get blocked.
The sweet spot is one follow-up email, short and friendly, that adds something new. A fresh data point. A related news angle. Not just “bumping this to the top of your inbox.”
Mistake 5: Measuring the Wrong Things (Or Nothing at All)
When you ask most in-house teams what their PR results are, you get one of two answers:
- “We got a mention in [outlet nobody has heard of]”
- “We don’t really track it”
Neither is useful. The metrics that matter for digital PR are specific and measurable:
| Metric | Why It Matters |
|---|---|
| Domain Rating of placement | A DR 70+ link is worth 10x more than a DR 20 link for SEO |
| Referral traffic | Real visitors from the article, not vanity impressions |
| Link type | Dofollow editorial link vs. nofollow mention vs. brand mention with no link |
| Branded search lift | Are more people Googling your brand name after coverage? |
If you are not tracking these, you have no idea whether your PR is working or wasting your time.
The Honest Assessment: Can You Really Do PR In-House?
Yes, but it takes more than most companies expect. Here is what in-house PR actually requires:
- 20+ hours per week of dedicated time (not “when I have a spare moment”)
- A journalist database you actively maintain and research
- The ability to create original data or find unique angles quickly
- Monitoring tools to spot trending stories in real time
- Thick skin and patience — even good pitches get ignored most of the time
If you have someone who can commit to this full-time, in-house PR can work. If PR is one of seventeen things on someone’s plate, you will likely spend a year sending pitches into the void.
Where to Start If You Want to Try
If you are going to do PR in-house, start here:
- Pick one topic area where you have genuine expertise or data
- Build a list of 20 journalists who actively cover that topic (read their recent articles)
- Create one piece of original data — a survey, an analysis, a trend report
- Write a 100-word pitch that leads with the data, not your brand
- Send it to your 20 journalists and follow up once after 4 days
If you do this properly and get zero responses, the issue is likely your angle or targeting. If you get responses but no placements, you are close — your follow-through needs work.
And if you find that the 20+ hours a week is just not realistic for your team? That is exactly why reactive PR agencies exist. Not to replace your knowledge of your own business, but to handle the infrastructure, the journalist relationships, and the speed that consistent coverage demands.
Want to see what reactive PR could do for your brand? We deliver 8 to 14 earned placements in 30 to 45 days. No retainers. No fluff. Just data-driven stories that journalists want to publish.
About the Author
Salvador Jovells
Founder of Presslei. 12+ years in ecommerce SEO across international markets. After a decade of link buying for Hockerty and Sumissura, I reverse-engineered 5,272 earned media placements and founded a reactive PR agency that builds authority through data-driven stories journalists actually want to publish. Based in Zurich.
