Pitch Angles Calendar

A pitch angles calendar is a 12-month plan that matches your PR story ideas to seasons, industry dates, cultural moments, and predictable news cycles. Instead of coming up with ideas at the last minute, you have a relevant story ready when journalists are looking for sources.

How it works

Journalists plan around predictable themes: tax season, back-to-school, holiday shopping, year-end roundups. Every industry has its own calendar too, such as open enrollment in healthcare or launch season in tech. A pitch calendar lists these windows and prepares angles that make your team the expert source. The aim is to pitch before the story is assigned, not after.

How to do it

List every relevant date for the year: holidays, awareness months, conferences, earnings seasons, regulatory deadlines, and cultural events.
Add your own milestones: launches, funding, customer wins, anniversaries.
Write two or three angles per month. Each angle needs a clear point of view, not just a topic.
For each angle, list what a journalist would need: a spokesperson, original data, a customer example, or analysis. Have these ready several weeks ahead.
Work backward from publication dates using lead times. Monthly magazines plan months ahead, trade publications several weeks to months, podcasts a few weeks, and daily news days to weeks.
Assign an owner and deadline to each angle for the pitch draft, media list, and outreach.
Log pitches, replies, interviews, and placements in one shared tracker. Review quarterly to see which angles get coverage.

What to measure

Placement rate: placements divided by pitches sent.
Coverage consistency: number of months in the year with at least one earned placement.
Share of voice: your brand’s media mentions divided by all mentions in your category, tracked monthly.

Best practices

Build relationships with journalists before you need them. Read and share their work and offer background help with no story attached.
Keep a rapid-response section for likely but unscheduled events, such as acquisitions or regulation changes, with draft comments ready.
Pitch the angle, not the product. “Our CEO can discuss how rising rates affect small business hiring” gets coverage. “Our product helps small businesses hire” does not.
Line up the pitch calendar with your content calendar so a blog post supports each placement.

Common pitfalls

Building angles only around company news. Journalists want trends, data, and expert views.
Pitching too late. Holiday stories are often assigned months before the holidays.
Treating the calendar as fixed. Review it monthly and drop angles that no longer fit.