pitch training Archives - Clapperton Media

PR agencies large and small are under constant pressure to deliver results efficiently. Yet many teams find that one task quietly drains far more time and energy than they realise: ineffective media pitching.

For many agencies and in-house teams, the cycle is all too familiar. Drafts that don’t quite land. Endless rewrites. Promising stories that somehow never make it out of the inbox. Hours lost to a process that should take minutes, and opportunities slipping away simply because the initial pitch missed the mark. Journalists just don’t care, hence the shruggy image.

At Clapperton Media Training, this is exactly the problem our Pitch Perfect session is designed to solve.

An Investment in Skills — and in Efficiency

When PR managers send junior colleagues to our masterclasses, they’re not just supporting early-career development. They are strengthening their own pipeline. Stronger pitching skills mean fewer rewrites, fewer dead ends and fewer hours spent salvaging work that was never likely to succeed.

This isn’t just training. It’s an operational upgrade.

What Better Pitching Really Delivers

Our training helps delegates understand:

How journalists actually think — and what makes them respond.
What to cut from a pitch to avoid instant deletion.
How to spot weaknesses before the email is ever sent.
How to build long-term media relationships rather than chasing one-off wins.

The result?
Managers spend less time correcting and amending pitches. Success rates increase. Junior staff gain the confidence to craft smarter, tighter, more relevant story ideas. Teams become faster, sharper and more aligned with what journalists genuinely need.

A single story placement can be a success — but long-term relationships built on intelligent, relevant pitching are far more valuable. Our sessions are designed to help PR teams move from the former to the latter.

Upcoming Pitching Masterclass — 8 December

Clapperton Media Training still has places available on our 8th December morning and afternoon courses in London.

For agencies asking themselves where their time and energy are disappearing, this is often the most effective place to start.

For details, or to reserve a place, simply get in touch.

Attention public relations professionals!

Have you ever spent ages on a story pitch, combed through it for accuracy, made sure it says exactly what you want to say, hit “send” to the press, influencers, podcasters and everyone who might be interested – and then been met by the proverbial wall of silence?

You could be making the classic error of telling the media professional what you want to say rather than what their audience needs to know. Journalists aren’t thinking about your client’s milestone, partnership or new product — they’re thinking about what will make their readers click, share, or stay tuned. So before you hit send, ask:

👉 “If I were the journalist’s audience, why would this matter to me?”

If you can’t answer that in one sentence, you don’t yet have a story — you have a press release waiting to be ignored.

And if you’d like your team to learn how to think like a journalist — to craft story ideas that actually land — that’s exactly what I’ll be covering in my very interactive “Pitch Perfect” Masterclass on 8th December in central London. If you’d like to come or would like to send delegates, ask me about pricing.

Plus…

This time around the price will include a rebate on any media training or staff training you might book with Clapperton Media Associates during 2026.

Go on, drop me a note at Guy@Clapperton.co.uk – you know you want to!