How to send personalized press pitches from Gmail and follow up in the same thread

You send a personal pitch from Gmail by writing each journalist their own email and sending it from your own address, then following up by replying to that email instead of composing a new one. The reply goes to the same reporter, keeps your original subject with "Re:" in front, and lands stacked on top of your first pitch. The reporter sees both messages together, so your follow-up can be two sentences long.

Gmail decides what counts as the same conversation by looking at two things. Every email carries a hidden identifier, and a reply carries hidden references that point back to the earlier email's identifier. Gmail also checks that the subject line matches. If you write a fresh email with the same subject, or edit the subject while replying, Gmail starts a new conversation and the reporter loses the context of your pitch.

Sending from your own Gmail matters more for press than for most email. Journalists get hundreds of pitches, and they skim the sender line first. A pitch from a person at the company, with a name they can look up, reads like a note from a source. A pitch from a newsletter tool or a shared marketing address reads like a press release blast. When the reporter writes back, the reply lands in your own inbox, where you'll actually see it.

Gmail gives you some help with the mechanics:

• Templates let you save a pitch and insert it into a new email, so you aren't retyping the same paragraphs.
• Mail merge, on some paid Google Workspace plans, sends each person a separate copy of one email with fields such as their first name filled in from a Google Sheet.
• Scheduled send lets you write a pitch tonight and have it go out at 8 a.m. in the reporter's time zone.
• Nudges can suggest sent emails to follow up on when they haven't had a reply after a few days.

Mail-merge add-ons for Gmail, such as GMass and Mailmeteor, go further and send automatic follow-ups as replies in the same thread, stopping when someone answers.

All of these move the email. None of them decides what to say to each reporter. A merged pitch that swaps in a first name is still the same pitch, and an automatic follow-up written in advance can only say "just checking you saw this." Reporters notice both.

A good press pitch does a few specific things. It goes to a journalist who covers the subject right now, at the outlet they work for right now. It opens with why this story matters to that reporter's readers, often by connecting it to something they wrote recently. It's short, plain, and asks one thing. And the follow-up, if there is one, gives the reporter something they didn't have before, such as a new data point, a customer willing to talk, or a change in timing.

Kite does that work for you. It researches each journalist, writes each pitch for that one person, sends it from your Gmail once you approve, and follows up in the same thread only when it has something new to add.

Start by telling Kite what the news is and who should hear about it. You can do this in the Kite web app or in Slack. If you already have a media list, point Kite at it:

"Pitch our Series A announcement to the reporters in this spreadsheet. Send from my Gmail and follow up once next week if they don't reply."

If you don't have a list yet, ask Kite to build one first:

"Find ten reporters who've covered developer tools funding in the last six months and pitch them our launch from my Gmail."

Kite is an AI marketer. It researches your business, builds a growth strategy, and ships the work that brings you new customers. From that research, it already knows your positioning, your customers, your competitors, and your brand voice, so it can work out the angle for each outlet without a long brief. It proposes the list, the angle, and the pitch for each reporter, and you confirm or adjust them.

You'll need to connect your Gmail account through OAuth, which is Google's sign-in screen where you approve what Kite can access. Once connected, Kite can send email as you, save drafts in your Drafts folder, read the threads it starts, and reply within them. Without a connected Gmail account, Kite can send from your team's own Kite email address instead, but the pitch then comes from that address rather than from you.

By default, Kite asks before it sends any email to someone outside your team. Every batch of pitches, and every round of follow-ups, waits for your approval with the button in the conversation or a reply. If you'd rather press send yourself, ask Kite to leave the pitches as drafts in your Gmail, and you can send each one from your own inbox.

Kite pitches only journalists who cover your subject now, at the outlet they're at now. Reporters change beats and outlets often, and a pitch to someone who left the publication six months ago goes nowhere. So before writing anything, Kite checks each journalist's current role and outlet against their public profile and the outlet's own pages, and it reads what they've published recently.

When you give Kite a list, it checks every name on it and tells you about anyone who has moved on or stopped covering the area. When you ask Kite to build the list, it searches public articles and professional profiles for reporters writing about your topic, and it finds a professional email address for each one when a source has it. Each journalist on the list comes with a one-line reason they belong there, such as "Covered two developer-tools funding rounds in September, both at seed or Series A."

Kite also leaves out anyone who has asked not to hear from you. It checks the email notes in your team's knowledge base and any earlier replies it can see, and a reporter who wrote "please take me off your list" doesn't get a pitch, even when their name is in your spreadsheet.

Kite writes each pitch for one journalist, grounded in facts about that person's coverage. It opens with why the story matters to that reporter's readers, in the first two sentences, and connects it to something real, such as a story they wrote last month or a trend they keep returning to. A detail that could describe any reporter, such as "I love your work," isn't personalization, so Kite doesn't use it.

The pitch is plain text, usually under 120 words, with at most one link, such as your press page or an embargoed announcement. It asks one thing: whether the reporter wants the story, an interview, or early access. Kite writes it in your brand voice and signs it with your name and title, because the pitch comes from you. It also checks each draft for phrasing that reads machine-written, since reporters delete those on sight.

Each pitch gets its own subject line, written for that reporter's beat, because the subject is what a busy journalist reads first.

Kite sends each pitch as its own email from your connected Gmail account, one reporter per message. No reporter sees anyone else's name, and nobody is copied. The reporter sees your name and your address in the sender line, exactly as if you'd written the email yourself.

For a longer list, Kite sends a first handful of pitches, checks that Gmail accepted them, and then sends the rest. For every pitch Gmail accepts, Kite records the message and the Gmail thread it started. That record is what lets a later follow-up land in the right conversation. If a send fails, Kite notes which reporter it was for and why, and doesn't quietly try again, because the email may already have gone out.

Kite follows up only with journalists who haven't replied and haven't asked to be left alone. Before each round, it opens every pitch's thread in your Gmail and reads it. A reporter who answered, even with a short "not for us," doesn't get another email.

When a reporter does reply, Kite treats it as the start of a real conversation, not as part of the campaign. It reads what they asked for, such as a founder interview, a quote, or the embargo time, and drafts a response that answers it. With Gmail connected, Kite can also watch your inbox. It checks your new mail every two hours and messages your team owner when something matters, such as a reporter who wants to talk today. The watch only reads your mail unless a team member allows Kite to reply, so by default Kite drafts the answer and you decide whether it goes out.

Each follow-up gives the reporter something the pitch didn't. Kite looks for a genuinely new reason to write, such as a fresh number from your launch, a customer who agreed to speak, a new date for the announcement, or an offer of an exclusive. When nothing new has happened, it takes a different angle that fits the reporter's beat better. The follow-up doesn't restate the pitch, because the pitch sits right below it in the thread.

Kite spaces follow-ups days apart and sends no more than two. Many journalists consider one follow-up plenty, so for press it's common to stop at one, and you can tell Kite to do that. After the last follow-up, Kite treats silence as an answer and stops writing to that reporter. Kite puts the follow-up round on a schedule, so it runs on its date without anyone remembering to start it.

Kite sends every follow-up as a reply to the original pitch, using Gmail's reply-in-thread action and the thread it recorded at send time. Gmail keeps the original subject with "Re:" in front, and the reporter sees your follow-up stacked on top of your pitch. Kite never edits the subject on a follow-up, because that would split it into a new conversation.

If Kite can't find the original thread, for example because the pitch was deleted from your Sent folder, it doesn't send a new email in its place. It gives you the follow-up as a draft and tells you what was missing, so you can send it as a reply yourself.

After each round, Kite posts a summary in the conversation where you asked. It lists which journalists got a pitch or a follow-up, any sends that failed and why, who was skipped because they replied, moved on, or opted out, and when the next round is due. The summary includes the exact copy each reporter received, so you can read what went out under your name.

When the outreach ends, Kite saves what worked in your team's knowledge base, including which subject lines, angles, and outlets drew replies. Your next announcement starts from those results instead of from scratch.

When Kite finishes, your Gmail holds a clean, personal conversation with each journalist, and you know exactly where every pitch stands.