Pitching and outreach

1Who you are actually writing to

Not "the brand." A person, with a job, whose inbox is full.

Depending on company size that's a founder, a social or content manager, a brand manager, or an agency. The bigger the company, the more likely your message reaches someone whose job it is to say no. Small brands are easier to reach and faster to decide, which is why they're the sensible place to start — not because they pay less, but because the loop is short enough to learn from.

2What a pitch is for

Not to get hired. To get a reply.

That reframe fixes most bad first pitches. A message trying to close a deal is long, effortful and easy to ignore. A message trying to start a conversation is short and easy to answer. You are optimising for reply rate, and everything that doesn't serve that is weight.

3The five things a pitch contains

In roughly this order, and it fits in a short paragraph.

1. Evidence you know who they are. One specific, recent, true thing. Not "I love your brand." "The pan you released in spring" — something that proves you looked.
2. What you make, in one clause. Not your life story.
3. One relevant piece of work. One. A link, not an attachment, not five options.
4. A specific suggestion. Not "let me know if you ever need content." "I'd make you a 20-second demo of X" — because a specific idea is answerable and an open offer isn't.
5. A small ask. "Worth a conversation?" You are not asking them to hire you in an email.

What to leave out: your rates (that conversation comes after they're interested), your availability, a deck, and any sentence beginning "I'm reaching out because."

4The unglamorous truth about volume

Most pitches get no reply. That is normal, it is not a verdict on you, and the main thing separating people who get work from people who don't is that the first group kept sending them after the silence started.

Two practical consequences:

• Track it. You cannot tell what's working from memory, and the difference between a 2% and a 6% reply rate is invisible without a record. That's the tracker in the kit.
• Follow up once. One short follow-up, a week or so later, on the same thread. Not three. One follow-up is professional; a sequence is a campaign, and people can tell.

5Warm beats cold, always

In rough order of how well they work:

1. Brands you actually use. Your Module 0B list. You can write the specific line honestly because it's true, and that shows.
2. An introduction. Anyone who can forward your message.
3. Inbound. They found you. Different conversation entirely — you're qualifying them as much as they're qualifying you.
4. Cold. Works, slowly, at volume.

The daily brand list exists partly for this. It's a warm-outreach list you built without meaning to.

6When they reply

Do not quote immediately. Ask the six scoping questions from Section 2 first. A quote before scoping is a guess, and a guess you've said out loud is hard to raise later.

If they've sent a proper brief, confirm you've read it by referencing something specific in it, then quote against it.

7Handling a no

Most nos are timing. "Not right now" is genuinely different from "not you."

The correct response is short, gracious, and asks one thing: may I follow up in a few months? Almost everyone says yes, and it converts a dead end into a dated entry in your tracker. A meaningful share of work comes from a second approach to someone who said no the first time.

Never argue with a no. It costs you the second approach.

8What to do this week

1. Take five brands from your Module 0B list.
2. Write five pitches, using the scripts in kit/03-outreach-scripts.md.
3. Send them. Log all five in the tracker.
4. Follow up once, a week later.
5. Note what got a reply, and what the replies had in common.

Five is enough to learn the shape. It is not enough to draw conclusions from — that takes a few rounds, which is exactly why the tracker exists.