Before a pitch lands in a journalist’s inbox, the story should already have a pulse.
Gaining traction with journalists has never been more difficult. For communications teams trying to secure meaningful media coverage, which creates a simple but often overlooked question: why wait until the pitch to start proving that an executive has something worth saying?
Humanising a brand remains one of the most effective ways to build trust. People connect with people, particularly when those people can explain a market shift, challenge conventional thinking or offer a perspective that goes beyond corporate messaging.
That helps explain why executive communications has become a more strategic discipline. At the time of writing, LinkedIn was advertising 662 “Executive Communications” roles and 111 “Executive Communications Manager” roles in the UK. These are positions that, only a few years ago, were far less visible in the communications jobs market.
But that trend must pair with another; the evolution of media.
The changing shape of journalism
The issue is not that journalism has disappeared. It is that the media ecosystem has become thinner, more fragmented, and more pressured. UK labour-market data shows the number of journalists falling from 96,000 in 2020 to 74,500 in 2024, while the proportion listed as freelance rose from 28% in 2023 to 39% in 2024.
For companies trying to reach specialist audiences, the challenge is not simply fewer journalists. It is fewer deeply staffed editorial teams with the time, sector knowledge, and commercial resilience to cover complex B2B stories consistently.
That creates an imbalance. On one side, more in-house teams are looking to build executive profiles through earned media. On the other, there are fewer specialist journalists and fewer specialist outlets able to give those stories meaningful attention.
The result is a market of diminishing returns. More pitches are chasing fewer opportunities.
The compounding effect of owned media
Fortunately, there is a solution hiding in plain sight: the company’s own channels.
The same internet that disrupted traditional media also gave businesses the means to publish, distribute and amplify their own stories. Almost every company now has a website, a LinkedIn presence, a newsletter, a sales team, and a network of employees who can help carry a message into the market.
It does not need to be more complicated than that. The website provides the destination. Social platforms provide reach. Newsletters nurture existing audiences. Sales teams can share useful content directly with prospects. Paid promotion can put the right message in front of a defined audience.
This is not an argument for owned media replacing earned media. Far from it.
The gold standard for trust
Earned media still creates credibility. It brings independent scrutiny. It can reach audiences that a company does not already know. At its best, journalism filters out noise, challenges lazy claims, and gives a story meaning beyond the company’s own version of events.
But owned media gives executives a starting point. It allows them to publish consistently, test ideas, build authority and demonstrate relevance before they ask a journalist for time.
That matters because a media pitch is rarely judged on the pitch alone. It is judged on the strength of the story, the credibility of the spokesperson and the likelihood that the conversation will produce something useful.
Speaking to somebody, not nobody
Every executive has something to say. Far fewer say it in a way that earns attention.
Most senior leaders have reached their positions because they understand their market, their customers, and the problems their organisation is trying to solve. The raw material is usually there. The issue is that too much of it remains trapped in internal meetings, sales decks, and half-formed talking points.
A good owned-channel strategy turns that raw material into visible proof of expertise.
It gives an executive a record of published thinking. It shows they can explain complex issues clearly. It demonstrates that they have a point of view beyond “we are delighted to announce”. It also gives journalists something to assess before deciding whether a conversation is worth their time.
The interviewee wants to convey a message to the journalist’s audience, while the journalist wants to provide a useful and entertaining story for that audience
The interview is only successful if both sides of the transaction succeed. An established public profile and track record for delivering stories makes a spokesperson much more attractive to a journalist
That is the point too many companies miss. A journalist’s time is scarce. They are approached constantly. A vague offer of an interview with a senior executive is rarely enough on its own.
But an executive with a visible track record of useful commentary, sharp thinking and credible insight is a different proposition. The pitch becomes less of a cold introduction and more of a continuation of a conversation already happening in public.
Building the profile before the pitch
Executives do not need to become influencers. In most B2B markets, which would be the wrong goal anyway.
The objective is not constant visibility for its own sake. It is to create a body of work that makes the executive easier to understand, easier to trust and easier to pitch.
That is particularly important for smaller companies, challenger brands and specialist businesses that do not already command automatic media attention. A household-name CEO may get the meeting because of the logo. Everyone else usually has to earn it.
The good news is that the process is straightforward, even if the execution takes discipline.
Step one: have something to say
This is often the hardest part.
Many companies confuse internal importance with external relevance. A product launch, new appointment or corporate milestone may matter inside the business, but that does not automatically make it interesting to customers, journalists, or the wider market.
The strongest executive content starts with a useful idea. That might be a market observation, a customer problem, a contrarian view, a lesson from implementation or a practical explanation of where an industry is heading.
A useful rule of thumb is that every piece of content should give the reader something they did not know before. It does not need to be an academic thesis. It does need to leave the audience with a clearer understanding of an issue than they had before they started reading.
Step two: say it properly
Most companies have interesting people with interesting thoughts. But if those thoughts are not shaped, published, and distributed, they remain invisible.
Not every idea should become a blog. Some ideas are better suited to a short LinkedIn post, a customer story, a research-led article, a technology explainer, a Q&A, a video interview, or a practical guide.
The format should follow the idea, not the other way around.
This is where editorial judgement matters. A good executive profile programme is not a content treadmill. It should not produce “Dear Diary” updates from senior leaders. It should create purposeful content that connects what an executive knows with what the audience needs to understand.
Once the idea has been shaped into the right format, publish it. Make it visible. Give it a permanent home.
Step three: tell people what you have said
Publication is not distribution.
This is where many owned-channel programmes fall short. A company publishes a thoughtful article, adds it to the website, and assumes the job is done. In reality, publishing only creates the link. The real work is deciding what to do with that link.
A strong piece of executive content should have a distribution plan before it goes live. That might include LinkedIn posts from the executive and company channels, employee advocacy, newsletter placement, sales enablement, paid promotion, partner sharing, or inclusion in future media outreach.
The point is not to blast the same message everywhere. It is to give the idea enough momentum to reach the people for whom it was created.
Done consistently, this has a compounding effect. One article becomes a proof point. Several articles become a pattern. A sustained programme becomes a visible platform of expertise.
