I Doubled My Response Rate With This Simple Pitching Technique

I queried, they assigned. Sometimes, they rejected. Most of all, they just didn’t respond. Here’s what I did then that doubled my response rate.

By Natasha Khullar Relph

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Like most writers, I started my freelancing career fearing and hating query letters in equal parts. Then I doubled my response rate.

In the early days of my career, I sent out five query letters a day, 25 queries a week, most of them bad, and slowly worked my way up to a point where I was getting rejections and then to a point where I was getting acceptances.

This worked for a while. In fact, it worked for many years. My career started progressing, I got assignments from publications such as TIME and The New York Times. And then I got repeat assignments from these publications and many other prestigious titles as well. I was making money and I was doing well. I’d send out ten queries, seven of them would be ignored, three would get a response, and on average, I’d get one assignment.

While this worked, those non-responses upset me. They upset most freelancers the way rejections don’t.

Rejections are tough sometimes, but most of us understand that they’re a part of the job and we don’t take them personally. Non-responses, however, piss off even the most battle-hardy amongst us.

Was there a way I could get more responses, even if they were rejections? I decided to experiment.

What I Did To Double My Response Rate

I tried doing a number of things differently in my pitches, one at a time.

So I played around with the salutation (no difference), I tried sending my pitches on a different time of day or week (no difference), I tried sending two ideas instead of three, putting my bio first, and a ton of other things. I got my usual number of rejections, acceptances, and silences. None of these things made any considerable difference.

Except one. And it was this:

At the end of each email, I started inviting the editor to speak to me over the phone.

That single sentence doubled my response rate.

I used lines such as:

“If you like the sound of this, I’d be happy to talk more about it over the phone.”

“Let me know if you’d like to speak over phone or Skype.”

“I’d love to explain this to you in detail. Let me know if you’re interested and I’d be happy to arrange a call.”

The difference was marked. Editors didn’t always take me up on my offer to talk on the phone, but it doubled my response rate to the queries. They weren’t always acceptances—in fact, I don’t think the acceptances increased in number at all—but I did start hearing back from editors and being able to move those conversations forward.

Why It Worked

I’m convinced that the reason my “let’s talk” strategy worked was for three reasons:

1. It projected confidence

It said to the editor that I knew what I was talking about and I’d be willing to discuss it further.

2. It showed that there was more to the story that I had to share

If my query had indeed intrigued the editor, as any good query should, the invitation to then discuss that story further is just too good to pass up (especially if the editor has questions and wants to avoid the back and forth).

3. It’s an invitation to continue the conversation

Editors don’t like one-offs any more than writers do and when an editor gets an opportunity to build a relationship with a writer, they will often take it.

Writers are often afraid to pick up the phone and therefore, most of us avoid even mentioning that we actually own phones. What if someone calls us?

By making yourself available, however, by giving an editor the opportunity to build a relationship with you in the mode that is the most convenient to them, you open the bridge to more responses, more relationships, and eventually, more work.

So stop being shy, pick up the phone today, and email me to let me know if it makes any difference in your response rate, too. Just don’t call.

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P.S. Asking if I could drop by the office is the only reason I was ever able to break into TIME magazine. In my free case studies series, I lay out– in detail– how I broke into and became a regular at that magazine, as well as The New York Times, ELLE, and many more. Get those five case studies (at absolutely no cost to you) on this page.

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