The client and the problem
The client is a small London fintech that helps freelancers set aside tax from each payment. Good product, tiny brand. They had no funding news to announce and no budget for an event. What they did have was two years of anonymised data on when freelancers get paid, and how late.
Finding the story in the data
We spent a week in their numbers before writing anything. Most of it was dull. One finding wasn't: invoices sent on a Friday were paid, on average, nine days later than invoices sent on a Tuesday. Across their users, that added up to millions of pounds sitting in other people's accounts.
That's a story a personal finance journalist can use without writing an advert for anyone. It's specific, it's a little surprising, and readers can act on it the same day.
The pitch
We kept it to two lines plus the data. Journalists at the big titles get hundreds of emails a day. If the point isn't clear in the preview pane, it's gone.
We sent it to 11 journalists, not a list of 400. Each one had written about late payments or freelancing in the past year, and each email mentioned the piece they'd written.
The follow-up
Nobody replied to the first email. Four days later we sent a short follow-up with one new number: the share of late invoices that were paid within a day of a polite reminder. Two journalists replied. One wrote for the FT's personal finance pages, and the story ran ten days later with a quote from our client's founder.
Most of the coverage we get comes from the second or third email, not the first. Following up isn't pushy if each message adds something new.
The full pitch
Subject: Invoices sent on a Friday get paid 9 days later
Hi [name], we looked at 140,000 freelancer invoices from the last two years. The ones sent on a Friday were paid 9 days later on average than the ones sent on a Tuesday. Happy to share the full breakdown by industry if it's useful for your piece on late payments.
That's it. Copy it, swap in your own numbers, and send it to fewer people than you think you should.
- Digital PR
- Media relations
- Fintech
Rhea Sharma
Rhea leads digital PR at AdAscend. She spent five years as a business reporter in Mumbai and London before moving to the other side of the inbox.
