BuzzSumo’s AI Pitching Tool comes as part of the Media Database package and can be found in the Outreach part of BuzzSumo.

Skip to two minutes in via the video below for a snappy explainer, and then dive into the article for more ideas:
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If you’re looking to get your story out to press, BuzzSumo’s AI-powered assistance helps you draft your email pitches in a matter of minutes, so you can crack on with the more important stuff – ie. personalization.

To use the tool you’ll first need to create your Media List. You can find out how to do that here.

Once you’ve done that, head to the Pitching Tool and hit “Create new pitch”.

Choose the Media List you want to pitch to…

And exclude any journalists if you need to…

Then set about drafting your pitch.

Simply enter a prompt focusing on the stand out details of your campaign, and the tool will generate a pitch template for your target journalists.

You can re-do the pitch if you’re not quite happy with it by clicking “Regenerate pitch”.

Once settled on your copy, you can format your text (ie. into bold, bullet points, headers etc.) either by highlighting it…

Or by typing a forward slash…

It’s important to note that while you’re in this part of the tool, you’re creating a general pitch.

The AI Pitching Tool the heavy lifting when it comes to drafting that pitch, so that you can spend more time personalizing in the next step.

Once you’re happy with your pitch template, click next.

You do have the ability to skip this personalization step, and send the same email to all journalists on your list, but it is not something we'd recommend.

Hyper targeted email pitches are far more likely to land coverage, since you are able to demonstrate that you've put in the effort and made your content relevant.

In the AI Pitching Tool, you can use the journalist cards on the left to inform your pitch personalization on the right.

These cards give you quick access to that specific journalist’s:

You’ll already have done a lot of this research in the Media Database – it’s what would have helped you build your Media List.

And by this point, you should be suitably immersed in your journalists’ world.

So, these cards are not a replacement for deep journalist research – they’re a reference point to help spark memories and ideas at the point of pitching.

Use a journalist’s social posts as your subject lines, comment on their most recent work – even share how you can help them recreate the success of their most engaging article.

In the example below, we took a journalist's recent tweet and worked it into the pitch subject line.

This is more likely to catch the eye of the journalist, spark recognition, and show them we've done our research.

Once you’re done personalizing your first journalist email, just hit the next journalist card and the email will repopulate with the new journalist’s details.

The email copy will also revert to the general pitch you created at the start using the AI Tool, ready for you to personalize.

This is a great time to tweak your angle or hook for different journalists – especially if you have created a diverse Media List of journalists with overlapping beats and/or verticals.

Once you’re done, move on to the next screen, where you can set your:

On this screen you can also edit your recipients and send test emails to make sure everything looks ok.

Then, when you’ve double checked everything, you can hit send.

Once you’ve sent your pitch, keep a close eye on your email performance.

See if journalists have:

You can also check the status of your pitches, and know whether they’ve bounced or if a journalist has unsubscribed.

And that's that – now you know how to pitch with BuzzSumo!

If you’re interested in gaining access to the Media Database and all of its tools – including AI Pitching – head to our plans & pricing page. They are available on both PR & Comms and Suite plans.