If I hired you as CMO for my PR agency and gave you 5 minutes… What cold email would you write? Most people default to something like: "Hey [Name], we help people get more exposure for their brand/get featured in Forbes/etc. Interested?" That’s exactly what we used to send too. And our reply rates were trash. So we stopped pitching PR. Instead, we flipped the role completely. We stopped reaching out as marketers and started reaching out as journalists. Same inbox. Totally different psychology. The message shifted from: “Buy our service” to: “We’re covering a story.” Example: "Hey [Name], we're working on a story about [their industry]. Saw your [specific achievement] and thought it'd be perfect. Got 15 mins?" That one change removed resistance instantly. They’re not thinking: “What do you want from me?” They’re thinking: “Why me?” And the numbers backed it up: • 1.26% reply rate (vs ~0.6% industry average) • 67.6% positive replies** (2 out of 3 responses were warm) • $141K closed from a single campaign When they got on the call, we actually talked about them. Their story. Their positioning. Their goals. Rapport was already built. The PR pitch came naturally. The real lesson: Most industries get stuck doing the same thing… …and then wonder why results flatten. “Industry average” is average for a reason. Everyone’s zigging the same way. We zagged. Took market share. And when this stops working, we’ll zag again. That’s the game. Take this framework and ask yourself: 👉 How could I reposition my outreach so it doesn’t feel like a pitch at all? Or let us do it for you. Comment “Strategy” and we’ll show you how we’d structure this for your industry and campaigns.