Send a pitch to every journalist on one of your media lists, from your own email address, in about 15 minutes. Available on: all paid plans. Not included in the 7-day free trial.
A campaign is an email and its follow-ups sent to a set of people. A mailbox is an email account you connect to JournoFinder. Campaign emails go out from your mailbox, so journalists see your real address and reply to you.
Before you start
Have these ready:
A media list with the journalists you want to pitch. A media list is a saved list of journalists from the JournoFinder database.
The sign-in details for the Gmail or Outlook account you want to send from.
Step 1: Connect your mailbox
In the sidebar, under Outreach, click Campaigns.
Go to the Email Accounts tab.
Click Connect account.
Click Gmail or Outlook / Microsoft 365, then sign in to your email account.
Gmail only: on Google's permission screen, tick the Gmail box, then click Continue.
If JournoFinder opens your mailbox page with Sender name marked “Required”, enter the name journalists should see. Then click Save changes. The bar shows “All changes saved”.
Your mailbox now shows on the Email Accounts tab.
To use another provider, see Connect another email provider with IMAP and SMTP. If the connection fails, see Fix "That connection didn't complete" when connecting a mailbox.
Step 2: Create a campaign and add your media list
Go to the Campaigns tab.
Click New campaign. JournoFinder creates a draft campaign and opens the Recipients step.
On the Media lists tab, find your list and click Add. The button changes to Added.
Check the number next to “ready to email” in the bar at the bottom of the page. This is how many journalists will get your email.
Click Continue.
If you added one media list, the campaign takes the list's name. To change it, click the name at the top of the page.
Note: If the bar shows “need a choice”, some journalists have more than one email address. Click it to choose one for each. See Add journalists and contacts to a campaign.
Step 3: Write your email
On the Compose step, enter your subject line in Subject.
Write your pitch in the box under the subject. Your email saves automatically.
To greet each journalist by name, type @ and choose First Name. It shows as a blue label in your email.
If JournoFinder has no first name for a journalist, the First Name label is left empty in their email. For example, "Hi " followed by the label becomes “Hi ,”.
Step 4: Send a test email to yourself
Send a test before you launch. You see the email as a journalist will.
Click Send test.
Check that Send to shows your own email address.
Optional: in Personalise as, choose a different journalist. The test uses that journalist's first name.
Click Send test. The button changes to “Sent”.
Open the test in your inbox. Its subject starts with “[TEST]”.
Back in JournoFinder, click Continue.
Step 5: Launch the campaign
Warning: Launching sends real emails to every journalist on the campaign. You cannot unsend an email after it is sent.
On the Launch step, under Send from, check that your mailbox is ticked. JournoFinder ticks it for you.
Under Start, leave Start now selected.
Under Sending window, leave Business hours selected. The sending window is the days and hours campaign emails are allowed to send. Business hours means Monday to Friday, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, in each journalist's local time.
Click Launch campaign.
You see “Campaign launched” with “Sending to 20 recipients.” The number shows your own count. JournoFinder then opens the Campaigns tab, where your campaign shows “Sending”.
Emails go out one at a time, 60 to 90 seconds apart. By default, each mailbox sends up to 30 campaign emails a day. The count starts again at midnight UTC. If JournoFinder does not know a journalist's time zone, it uses yours.
A campaign to 100 journalists from one mailbox takes about 4 working days. The mailbox sends 30 emails on each of the first 3 days and the last 10 on day 4. Business hours skips Saturday and Sunday. For example, if you launch on a Thursday morning, the last emails go out the next Tuesday.
To change the start date or sending hours, see Launch or schedule a campaign.