PRAPI Research · 2026-07-03
Running earned media across a portfolio: the system operators use to not drop the ball
Managing earned media across multiple brands or clients demands a robust system to prevent missed pitches, follow-ups, and coverage tracking. Twelve practitioners shared their workflows, revealing common pitfalls like reliance on memory, scattered data, and dropped follow-ups. Successful systems combine a centralized tracker—often a shared spreadsheet or CRM pipeline—with disciplined weekly reviews and clear next-step actions. The biggest impact comes from treating pitches like sales leads, automating reminders, and enforcing accountability for follow-ups, transforming chaotic outreach into a scalable, reliable process.
12 contributors cited
Setup
Running PR, earned media, or content across multiple brands or clients introduces complexity that can easily lead to dropped pitches, missed follow-ups, and lost coverage. To understand how practitioners keep these moving parts aligned, we asked twelve experienced operators to share their actual systems, the tools they rely on, what broke before they built their current workflows, and the one change that made the biggest difference.
Findings
Centralized Tracking as a Single Source of Truth
A universal theme is the necessity of a centralized, shared tracker to consolidate pitches, contacts, follow-ups, and coverage. Whether it’s a Google Sheet, a Notion board, or a CRM pipeline, this single source of truth prevents duplication, lost context, and forgotten next steps. Without it, data and communication scatter across inboxes, emails, and individual memories.
"Before building any system, we lost pitches constantly because there was no single source of truth for who pitched what, when, and what the next step was... The single change that made the biggest difference: the 'next action + date' field. It forced us to answer 'what happens next?' for every open pitch."
— Om Yadav, Co-Founder & CEO at Yavi Media
Treating Earned Media Like a Sales Pipeline
Several respondents emphasized that earned media outreach is a sales process requiring pipeline management with clear stages and automated reminders. This mindset shift ensures follow-ups happen on time, which is where many systems previously failed. Tracking pitches through stages such as "Pitched," "Followed Up," "Responded," and "Covered" with reminders prevents pitches from falling through the cracks.
"The one change that made the biggest difference was building a single tracked pipeline with clear stages: Pitched - Followed Up - Responded - Covered. Every pitch moves through those stages with automated reminders, so nothing sits untouched."
— Om Yadav, Co-Founder & CEO at Yavi Media
Discipline Through Regular Reviews and Forcing Functions
A weekly or regular review ritual is critical to keep the system alive and prevent backlog. Practitioners use Monday morning audits or 10-minute weekly check-ins to review follow-up dates, decide on next steps, and clear stalled pitches. Forcing functions like banning blank "next touch" fields or turning overdue follow-ups red create accountability and prevent stories from dying quietly.
"Every Monday, we do a 10-minute review of anything with a follow-up date in the coming week... Pitches that previously just sat in limbo — sent but never followed up — now had a forcing function. We either moved them forward or closed them."
— Pranjal Kukreja, CEO at Optima Bags
"The single change that made the biggest difference was the Monday review. Everything else was just a system. That ritual was the discipline that made the system actually work. Tools are only as good as the habit wrapped around them."
— Lina HajHussein, Founder and Chief Happiness Officer at INSPIRE
Context and Rationale to Maintain Quality
Operators stressed the importance of capturing context for each pitch — the angle, deadline, outlet fit, and rationale — to avoid chasing irrelevant opportunities and duplicating efforts. Adding a short note on why an opportunity is pursued helps maintain quality and focus, preventing wasted time and preserving institutional memory.
"The part that breaks at portfolio scale is not usually drafting. It is context... I track each opportunity by ID, topic, attribution, deadline, submission status, and the angle used... The biggest change was adding a short rationale before drafting. If I cannot explain in one sentence why ChainClarity belongs in the conversation, I skip it."
— Roman Vassilenko, Founder at ChainClarity
Leveraging Automation and AI for Monitoring and Coverage
Some practitioners have moved beyond manual tracking to incorporate AI-powered monitoring tools that crawl news and social media to detect untagged brand mentions and coverage. This automation reduces blind spots caused by the sheer volume of content and the fact that most mentions lack direct tags or handles.
"The fix? The game-changing single most important thing I've seen to scale agencies operate is to replace siloed manual PR logging with an AI-powered automated monitoring API... Instead of an operator having to proactively look for coverage, these APIs act as a perpetual crawler... and drop coverage into Slack and onto a tracking board in real time within a particular client's view."
— Ulf Lonegren, Partner & Co-Founder at Roketto
Cross-cuts
Across these themes, the dominant pattern is that tools alone do not solve the problem; disciplined habits and clear accountability are crucial. Shared trackers and CRMs provide structure, but without regular audits and enforced next steps, pitches and follow-ups slip through. Treating earned media like a sales pipeline with automated reminders and forcing functions around next actions transforms chaotic outreach into a scalable process. Additionally, capturing pitch rationale and context ensures quality and reduces wasted effort. Finally, automation and AI monitoring represent an emerging frontier to catch coverage that manual systems miss, especially at scale.
These insights collectively offer a concrete blueprint for operators managing multiple brands or clients: centralize data, systematize follow-ups, enforce discipline through reviews, maintain context, and leverage technology to close blind spots.
Contributors
The light-speed blind spot that breaks systems at portfolio scale is the reliance on manual coverage tracking + basic @mentions. The majority (80%+) of users talking about a company in social channels do not actually tag the handles/hashtags. When operators are working across multiple handles/brands within forums/traditional media/social, it means that trying to parse the 328 million terabytes of the internet that's created daily means that coverage will inevitably get missed. The fix? The game-changing single most important thing I've seen to scale agencies operate is to replace siloed manual PR logging with an AI-powered automated monitoring API (ex. Onclusive's Media API) that puts coverage into a CRM/centralized system/project management tool. Instead of an operator having to proactively look for coverage, what these APIs do is act as a perpetual crawler in the news ecosystem — they do NLP and topic extraction on millions of earned+Newswire sources globally, and can definitively tell you if there's an untagged mention of a brand, and then they format the sentiment and otherwise drop into slack and onto a tracking board in real time within a particular client's view. Practical application — one portfolio client/agency I know that when they implemented switching from the baseline Boolean search approach to manual monitoring from a dedicated AI-monitoring API, their client's tracked/important placements jumped from 45 hits/quarter to 78 hits/quarter. They didn't pitch more — they just weren't missing the untagged social and syndicated stuff. If you want a scalable system in the PR/earned media world, you have to let the AI handle the parsing of the signals, and then the operators can focus on building the relationships. Citation etc: Ulf Lonegren Ceo/co-founder Roketto https://www.helloroket.to/
Running earned media across multiple contractor clients, our biggest breakthrough was treating every pitch like a lead in a CRM, not a to-do list. Before that, follow-ups slipped through the cracks constantly — we'd send a pitch, get busy with another client, and forget to follow up at the exact moment it mattered. The one change that made the biggest difference was building a single tracked pipeline with clear stages: Pitched - Followed Up - Responded - Covered. Every pitch moves through those stages with automated reminders, so nothing sits untouched. We use GoHighLevel to manage it the same way we'd manage client leads — because earned media IS a sales process. The lesson: coverage doesn't fall through the cracks because you forget to pitch. It falls through because you forget to follow up. Systematize the follow-up, and your hit rate transforms.
- Pranjal Kukreja, CEO at Optima Bags
Pranjal Kukreja | CEO | Optima Bags Before building any system, we lost pitches constantly because there was no single source of truth for who pitched what, when, and what the next step was. We had email threads, a spreadsheet nobody maintained consistently, and individual team members doing their own follow-up on their own timelines. The result was duplicate pitches, missed follow-ups, and zero institutional memory around journalist relationships. The system we built: a simple Notion board with a row per active pitch, tracking publication name, journalist name and email, pitch sent date, deadline if applicable, follow-up date, and a "next action + date" column. Every interaction updates the board. Every Monday, we do a 10-minute review of anything with a follow-up date in the coming week. The single change that made the biggest difference: the "next action + date" field. It forced us to answer "what happens next?" for every open pitch. Pitches that previously just sat in limbo 1 sent but never followed up 1 now had a forcing function. We either moved them forward or closed them. In the first 30 days after implementing this, we recovered four placement opportunities that had gone dormant simply because nobody had defined the next step. The tool doesn't matter much. We've used Notion, Airtable, and a shared spreadsheet at different stages and they all work if the discipline is there. The workflow 1 reviewing it weekly and always defining the next action 1 is what makes it functional. 1 Pranjal Kukreja, CEO, Optima Bags
The key takeaway for me about managing digital PR projects on multiple brands is that your inbox must not be your project manager but rather should serve as an asset to your project management process. Over the years, I have realized that if you depend upon your inbox for your priorities, things will definitely fall through the cracks. The first step in my process involves a Google Sheet, which is used as a single source of truth for all projects. Everything from opportunities to journalists to pitches to follow-ups to responses to placements is documented on the spreadsheet. In addition, I have a project created in Basecamp for each individual client in which I store all the notes for the campaigns, assets, discussions, deadlines, and completed work in one place. Google Drive hosts all the supporting documents, and AI helps with research, pitches, and coverage analysis. It is the same case with my Gmail account. Each email exchange is categorized by the client, enabling me to find all the communication for a particular campaign easily. I also have specific folders for each part of the outreach process: positive responses, follow-ups, and press coverage. As soon as I receive a positive response from the journalist, I put that email exchange in its right folder. After doing the next step, such as following up, sending more information, or noting the placement, I shift it to the next folder. My one rule, which I always keep, is that I do not leave any email unopened unless there is something in it for which I need to take some action. Once opened, I have already replied to it, set up an action plan, or put it into its respective folder. At an earlier stage in my career, the issue was that journalists operate on their own schedule. While some will reply immediately, others wait weeks before replying to your e-mail. This was especially evident as the number of campaigns increased. The most drastic thing I did was apply the rule of **"next action." As soon as I make an offer, the task is not marked as completed. Right away, I note down the next step in my tracker, whether it is to follow up in three days, expect a response, give additional info, or mark the lead as closed. On top of that, at the very same time, I shift my email to the proper Gmail folder, add the information to the customer's project in Basecamp, and also document my last interaction in my outreach tracker. Each interaction goes through this routine, so there is no need to rely on your memory. The process of using a well-defined tracking system, Basecamp for project management, labels within Gmail per customer, e-mail folders by stages, and always defining the next step on each proposal has made this process of managing multiple brands a lot easier to do without forgetting follow-ups, sending duplicates of proposals, or remembering any media mentions. It's not necessarily the most advanced way of doing something but the way that is consistent.
- Roman Vassilenko, Founder at ChainClarity
The system I use is less glamorous than most people expect: one source of truth, strict statuses, and a short note on why each opportunity is worth pursuing. The part that breaks at portfolio scale is not usually drafting. It is context. You forget which angle you used, whether the outlet gives a link, what the deadline is, and whether the request is actually a fit or just looks attractive because the domain authority is high. Once that context is scattered across inboxes and docs, the quality drops fast. My workflow is to track each opportunity by ID, topic, attribution, deadline, submission status, and the angle used. I also keep a local log of what was submitted, selected, published, or rejected. That sounds basic, but it prevents two bad habits: chasing every shiny request and accidentally sending near-duplicate thinking to different reporters. The biggest change was adding a short rationale before drafting. If I cannot explain in one sentence why ChainClarity belongs in the conversation, I skip it. That one filter saves more time than any writing tool because it keeps the whole system honest.
My pitching calendar used to live in my head, and that worked fine when I had one brand to think about. The moment I started juggling multiple product lines and seasonal drops, follow-ups started slipping. I'd pitch an editor, forget to circle back, and lose the window entirely. So I built a shared spreadsheet organized around three tabs. Active pitches, a follow-up queue, and landed coverage. Every pitch gets a date-sent field and a next-touch date. If the next-touch date passes without action, it turns red. Nothing stays red for more than 24 hours. The part that made the system hold together was a weekly Monday morning audit. I scan the follow-up tab and decide whether to bump it, kill it, or re-angle the pitch for a different contact. Before that audit, dead pitches sat in the pipeline and made the whole list feel overwhelming. Now every Monday resets the queue. I also keep a running link list of every placement. When I reach out to someone new, I drop in a recent clip that proves the story has traction.
Hi Tom, I run content around several home-improvement categories at K&B Direct: kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities, interior doors, windows, mouldings, and full remodel projects. My system is simple: Google Drive for assets, Google Sheets as the master tracker, and Calendar reminders for follow-ups. What broke before was handoff. A great kitchen remodel or door project would finish, but photos, product names, customer notes, and the “why this project mattered” were scattered between emails, phones, and installers. The biggest change was creating the content folder before the project starts, not after. Each job gets a checklist: consultation notes, measurements, products used, install photos, finishing-touch photos, blog/gallery angle, owner, follow-up date, and published/coverage link. For example, on a Chicago kitchen project, tracking the design goal, cabinetry finish, hardware, window choice, challenges, and final photos in one place made it much easier to turn the job into usable content instead of trying to reconstruct the story later. Name: Eryk Piatkowski | Role: Owner | Company: K&B Direct | Format: short quote [YX52] Eryk Piatkowski Website: https://kandbdirect.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eryk-piatkowski-b8442842/ Bio: Hi, my name is Eryk Piatkowski and I am an Owner At K&B Direct. We have kept it simple since 2011. Our goal is to create spaces that homeowners and professionals are proud of by providing quality products and top-notch customer service. Since we opened doors to our cabinet store, more than ten years ago, K&B Direct has earned a solid reputation as a home improvement company focused on quality, customer service, and value. At K&B Direct, we believe that kitchens and bathrooms are the heart of every home. We’re interested in serving you up our knowledge, advice and products, so you can end up with a home within your budget and style. If you’re looking for quality cabinets at great prices, our cabinet store has everything you need. Renovate your home, just the way you imagine it. Call now to discuss your desired home renovation with a member of our design team. Headshot: https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/ai-templates.appspot.com/o/bot%2Fyh1Z1Yj8V9Mk8LVlMJri%2Flogo%2FEryk%20Piatkowski%20linkedin.jpg?alt=media&token=7a1cf820-50e0-461c-8345-ef1145ac247d
The thing that broke first was my memory. I was managing engagement projects across multiple clients, tracking follow-ups in my head, and losing things in email threads that went fifteen replies deep. I convinced myself I could hold it all. I could not. The fix was embarrassingly simple. One shared tracker with three columns: what was promised, to whom, and by when. Every client conversation got logged within ten minutes of it ending. Every Monday morning I reviewed it before anything else touched my calendar. The single change that made the biggest difference was the Monday review. Everything else was just a system. That ritual was the discipline that made the system actually work. Tools are only as good as the habit wrapped around them.
Hi Tom, I run Midwest Amber like a media pipeline and a jewelry pipeline: one Google Sheet is the source of truth, with tabs for pitch/contact, product angle, asset link, status, next follow-up date, and outcome. Gmail labels, calendar reminders, Shopify product links, and Drive folders for photos/certificates keep every pitch tied to the exact amber piece or collection. What broke before was simple: good ideas lived in email threads, and a follow-up could get separated from inventory, supplier timing, or the right product photo. Now if there is no owner, date, and next action, it does not exist. The biggest change was building pitches around specific “proof assets,” not vague brand claims. For example, if I pitch a story on how to identify real Baltic amber, the tracker links directly to our saltwater test guidance, .925 silver notes, sourcing from Poland/Lithuania, and product examples with natural inclusions. Name: Gabriel Ciupek Role: President and Owner Company: Midwest Amber, Inc. Format: short quote [YX52] Gabriel Ciupek Website: https://midwestamber.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabrielciupek/ Bio: Experienced business leader with demonstrated strategic planning, problem-solving and team-building abilities. Successful at bringing in and training staff to handle customer and business needs. My friends and work associates describe me as motivated, hard-working, organized, dependable, diplomatic and responsible. President and owner of Midwest Amber, Inc. - Training teams on specific operations and requirements for each job, including applicable procedures and techniques. Develop and implement successful sales strategies leading to teams exceeding monthly sales goals. Monitor supplier operations to verify quality, delivery schedule, and conformance to contract specifications. Set pricing structures according to market analytics and emerging trends. Secure long term account, manage and perform sales presentations, virtually and in-person. Promote product and brand benefits. Direct contact with vendors and end of of the line users making sure all expectations are met and/or exceeded. Baltic Amber Jewelry - Discover the timeless beauty of genuine Baltic Amber jewelry - each handcrafted piece is a tiny treasure from the sea, glowing with ancient warmth and charm. No two pieces are ever alike, making your jewelry as unique as you are. Headshot: https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/ai-templates.appspot.com/o/bot%2FSbtjbL7i2ssXGCo5lSvZ%2Flogo%2Fgabriel%20ciupek.jpg?alt=media&token=e9709cb0-6452-4e4e-b7a0-25080485ec61
Hi Tom, I run this with a segmented media list, a shared campaign tracker, and a measurement stack of Google Analytics 4, Search Console, and Ahrefs. Every pitch has an owner, audience segment, next follow-up date, source URL, live coverage link, and status. What broke before was the handoff between “we sent it” and “did it create value?” For franchise and multi-location clients, one national announcement could turn into missed local angles, duplicate follow-ups, and coverage nobody tied back to traffic or leads. The biggest change was making the tracker start before the press release is written. We map the journalist, location, angle, landing page, and follow-up path first, then write the release around that distribution plan instead of doing “spray and pray” after the fact. Name: Rusty Rich Role: President and Founder Company: Latitude Park Format: short quote [YX52] Rusty Rich Website: https://latitudepark.ai/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rustyarich Bio: Rusty Rich is a seasoned marketing and business development executive, serving as the President and founder of Latitude Park, an influential digital advertising agency based in St. Petersburg, Florida. Since establishing the company in 2009, Rusty has grown it from a solo designer operation into a full-service team, offering website design, SEO, e-commerce solutions, and multi-channel advertising across Google, social media, print, radio, and TV. A natural leader and innovator, Rusty excels at building creative, collaborative teams that deliver performance-focused marketing solutions. He’s passionate about helping small businesses and burgeoning franchises build strong online presences and drive measurable growth. Under his guidance, Latitude Park has secured strategic partnerships, embraced certifications, and fostered a workplace culture centered on professional development, wellness, and community giving. Rusty is also an engaging speaker at business and franchise-focused conferences, where he shares expertise in digital strategy, brand development, and agency leadership. Known for his blend of strategic vision, operational discipline, and creative problem-solving, Rusty continues to help businesses stand out and thrive in a competitive marketplace. Headshot: https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/ai-templates.appspot.com/o/bot%2FzRKG8MLsQL01JkJVQKGl%2Flogo%2FScreenshot%202025-07-15%20at%201.46.59%E2%80%AFAM.png?alt=media&token=7f05b96d-35eb-4a59-b9df-8f2b7aee98dc
- Callum Gracie, Founder at Otto Media
The leak that hurt us wasn't bad pitches; it was dropped follow-ups. At Doggie Park Near Me we're telling stories across 6,300-plus dog parks in all 50 states, plus Auggie's Blog and our Claim Your Park outreach, so one inbox can't hold the whole portfolio. What broke early was celebrating a journalist's "sounds interesting" and having no system to nudge them a week later. Now everything lives in one tracker with non-negotiable fields: outlet, angle (fencing, water access, small-dog areas), last touch, next action date, and coverage link when it lands. We pair that with a weekly 30-minute review where open rows aren't allowed to sit without a scheduled follow-up. Pitches don't close until there's a next step on the calendar, not just in someone's head. The single change that mattered most: we banned blank "next touch" cells. Before that, replies felt like wins and stalled stories died quietly. Now if a writer goes quiet, the sheet still owns the reminder and we batch those nudges instead of playing inbox roulette. Tools-wise we're deliberately boring: a shared spreadsheet as source of truth, a light board for status, and calendar blocks for follow-up batches. We killed tracking split across Slack threads, flagged emails, and notebooks because portfolio scale is really memory scale. I'm not running a 20-client PR shop; I'm an operator who has to sound like a real dog-and-human duo while we research parks before we pitch them. So we log what broke (wrong contact, outdated claim data) and we don't double-pitch the same park owner. Trust comes from clear communication and doing the homework, same as our reviews. If you're drowning, shrink the system to six columns and protect the next-action date like revenue. Everything else can wait until those rows stop falling through the cracks. Callum Gracie Founder , Otto Media Automated 100.00%
- Rory Keel, Owner at Equipoise Coffee
Running earned media across a portfolio is the same discipline we use at Equipoise Coffee when we're roasting small batches, shipping orders, and keeping our educational blog and outreach from stepping on each other: one missed follow-up and the whole pipeline goes quiet. Before we built a system, everything lived in inboxes. A pitch would go out about our balance-focused roasting or a brewing guide angle, someone would mean to nudge the editor in five days, and then production or a wholesale question would eat the week. Coverage would land and we'd spot it late, with no clean record for the team or for the next story. At portfolio scale that's multiplied by every brand, and that's how balls drop. Our wo