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12 tactics from Matthew Panzarino
Pitch Your App to the Press – Matthew Panzarino, TechCrunch
Watch the full episode“Your subject line needs to be simple — it needs to either be very short or very long. Are you putting everything in the subject line and the body is basically just here's the contact information? Or are you trying to say please look at this because XYZ very short very simple and then get in there and make your pitch.”
Your subject line has 2 seconds — keep it ultra-short or put everything in it
Most journalists scan sender and subject line — nothing else. Two strategies work: cram all the signal into a long subject so opening is optional, or write a tiny subject hook that pulls them in to a short body. Everything in between — medium-length subject with medium-length copy — gets ignored. News-hook pitches built around current events almost never work.
“It really is about getting covered by writer why — they have an audience that they are trying to intentionally build and it's just like anything else: why do you advertise on Google instead of advertising on the street?”
Target the writer, not the publication — they carry a portable audience
A publication's name on a story matters less than which writer wrote it. Journalists build specialist audiences that follow them across publications. Pitch the fintech writer for your fintech app, the productivity beat reporter for your productivity tool. That writer's portable readership — pre-qualified and engaged on exactly your topic — is worth far more than a blast to a tips inbox.
“Instead of stepping in with the message that like haha they're down we're not — you step in with a message that like hey they're down, did you know we offer all of these really cool features that Apple weather doesn't.”
Capitalize on market moments through your differentiation — not the event itself
When a competitor stumbles or shuts down, the instinct is to lead with their failure. That's a mistake: users acquired around an external event churn back the moment that event resolves. Step into the moment, but make your pitch about why your experience is better at any time — the crisis is just the distribution moment, not the message.
“The churn is mitigated by the fact that those users came in through a pipeline of understanding the differentiation factors, not just the needs in the moment of an app that was up while another one was down.”
Users who came in for differentiation don't churn when the external event resolves
When Mint shut down, apps that pitched around Mint's shutdown attracted users who had no reason to stay once alternatives returned. Apps that pitched around their own feature differentiation — why they were better regardless — retained those users. The framing of your acquisition moment shapes long-term retention: acquisition messaging becomes the reason users stay.
“There really are three kind of major reasons: market intelligence — what are competitors doing, what are people investing in — recruiting, and then raising money. User acquisition is the fourth reason but it's very targeted.”
TechCrunch readers want market intel, recruiting leverage, and fundraising fodder — not user acquisition
Understanding why people read TechCrunch tells you what story to pitch. Founders use TC coverage for investor deck replacement, recruiters use it for talent narrative, and competitors use it for market tracking. User acquisition happens as a side effect — but pitching TC purely for downloads misses its real leverage and leads to poorly framed pitches.
“The sweet spot for TechCrunch is that we always wanted to be super early to stuff — 12 to 18 months early to things — so that by the time it made it to the pages of the Times or the Journal, people could go look at the history of the company on TechCrunch.”
TechCrunch wants to be 12–18 months early — pitch the beginning, not the milestone
TechCrunch's editorial identity is writing the history of Silicon Valley in real time — which means they want to cover companies before they're famous, not after. A pitch at seed stage or first meaningful traction is actually more attractive than a post-Series-A announcement. The writer who covers you early becomes a chronicler who follows your progress.
“When you pitch TechCrunch you need to be thinking about that kind of storytelling — and when you pitched 9to5 Mac you don't send them the same pitch that you sent to the writer at TechCrunch, you send them a totally different pitch.”
Match your pitch to the outlet's job-to-be-done — 9to5Mac and TechCrunch need totally different pitches
9to5Mac covers new apps as a service to enthusiasts who want to know what exists — they care about design, features, and novelty. TechCrunch covers companies as historical artifacts in an industry narrative — they care about what changes and why it matters to builders and investors. Sending the same pitch to both signals you haven't done the homework and reduces the chance either publishes.
“Existing does not mean anything — congratulations — the bar is even higher now. Solid design that uses Apple's robust design frameworks looks pretty good these days — but once you reach that point you've just reached zero.”
Get to zero first — a well-built app is table stakes, not your pitch hook
A working, well-designed app that uses platform conventions and spellings correctly is no longer a differentiator — it's the minimum bar to be taken seriously. From 500 pitches a day, about 100 look like real companies; of those, maybe a dozen are in the writer's beat; of those, one has something genuinely above the baseline. Your pitch should lead with that thing above zero, not with the fact that you built it.
“Strategy based comms and marketing is so much more interesting and so much more important long term — you really need to get that out of a PR strategist; you won't get that out of a PR firm.”
Hire a PR strategist, not a PR firm — you need a narrative, not a press-release factory
A traditional PR firm packages and blasts press releases to maximize surface area — useful for gaming companies seeding their name broadly. But what app founders actually need is someone who builds the narrative you'll tell consistently over years: the story your future users and investors will always recognize as true. That strategic layer isn't a volume game.
“Short simple straight to the point subject lines, a couple of lines of body copy — and then you can always attach the press kit with high resolution images, all the information they could ever want about the founders, the app, its purpose, and then the images or assets necessary.”
Short pitch, deep press kit — give writers everything to write the story without a follow-up
The pitch email gets two seconds. The press kit is what closes the story. The ideal format is a few personal sentences in the email body, and a linked press kit with hi-res images, founder backstory, feature list, App Store copy, and a TestFlight link — so a writer can go from reading the subject line to publishing with zero additional outreach. The goal is removing every possible friction point.
“You want to tease them with your story — I've got a really compelling story XY I think is really cool, but then let them go wait, really? Like how did that happen? — pulling out the details from there.”
Don't pre-write the story — tease the details and let the writer pull them out
Founders sometimes send pre-written narratives about themselves inside their pitch — even full draft stories. Panzarino says this kills the writer's engagement: there's nothing left to discover. The smarter move is a compelling tease — enough to make the writer curious — then offer direct contact for the real interview. The writer needs to feel like they're unearthing something, not reformatting your copy.
“Apple can handle it — it is a matter of general states. If you evaluate every scenario by that rule of not punching down, you can sometimes realize hey it's okay to get a little feisty with our marketing when it comes to competing with a company like Apple.”
It's OK to be feisty with giants — punching up is different from punching down
When a small app calls out Apple Weather for going down, that's punching up — the giant has infinite resources to fix it and can absorb criticism. When an app gloats over a small competitor's shutdown or a category of people losing jobs, that's punching down — and writers, audiences, and even potential customers will notice. The rule: feisty is fine at scale, mean-spirited reads badly at any scale.