Pitching takes follow-up. Most journalists, curators, and bookers don't reply to the first email — but DO reply to the second or third. Sequences automate that follow-up cadence so you never forget to circle back.
Quick one-off email
Click the Email button next to View on a contact's row, or their email address, to open the composer, or click "Send Email" in the Contacts toolbar to compose to anyone. A quick email is not logged as a pitch. The Send icon on a contact row opens New Submission instead — it logs the pitch (type, status, follow-up date) and can send it through Gmail in the same step. To see the pitches you've saved for a contact, click the clock icon on their row (Pitch History): Edit changes a pitch's wording, status or follow-up date, and Delete removes it after asking first. Follow-up Reminders rows have the same Edit button.
Sending a pitch through Gmail
In New Submission, write the subject and message yourself, start from an email template (the Templates button next to Subject), or put in a draft from your team (see "Let your Publicist draft it" below). "Send via Gmail" is always there. Until it can send, a line beside it says why: Gmail isn't connected, the contact has no email address, or the subject or message is still empty. Gmail not connected? Click "Connect Gmail" right there: the window stays open and nothing you typed is lost. No email address? Save the pitch now and send it later from Pitch History. A pitch sent this way is marked Sent and listed in the contact's Pitch History. The From line shows the address it goes out from: your main Gmail address, or pick another one you send from, or add one with "+ Add another address" (see Connecting Gmail & YouTube). Opening a pitch that already went out picks the address it went out from; one a follow-up sequence is still waiting to email picks the sequence's address.
Email templates
Templates in the Contacts toolbar (or in a pitch) opens Email Templates. My templates are the ones you save. Starter templates are 11 ready-made emails that come with MusicLaunch: new single, new album or EP, playlist curator, blog or press feature, college or community radio, venue booking, support slot request, show announcement, follow-up after no reply, thank you after coverage, and sync or licensing intro. They can't be changed. Read one for ideas, use it in a pitch as it is, or click "Copy to My Templates" to make your own version.
{{contactName}}, {{outlet}} and {{artistName}} are filled in for you. Every other word in double braces, like {{trackTitle}}, is a blank only you can fill in: replace it, or delete the line, in the pitch. Send via Gmail stays off until none are left, so a blank is never emailed.
Let your Publicist draft it
Ask your Publicist (or your Booking Agent on the Local Scene tab) to write a pitch. Each email it drafts has buttons under it: "Use in this pitch" (only while a New Submission window is open; it puts the subject and message into that pitch, and nothing is sent), "Save as email template" and "Copy". Your team never sends anything. What it doesn't know, it leaves as a blank in double braces, like {{expectedTurnout}}, for you to fill in. Pasted into a quick Email window instead (the Email button on a contact's row, or a click on an email address), it works the same way: Send stays off while a blank in double braces is left, and "Fill in … for me" puts in the contact's name, outlet and your artist name.
Sequences (multi-step follow-ups)
A sequence is your pitch plus a series of follow-up emails sent on a schedule. Step 1 is always the pitch itself; the steps after it are the follow-ups. Contacts → Sequences opens the Sequence Manager, where you build your own or start from one of 3 preset templates:
- Standard Pitch Follow-up: Day 0 (your pitch) → Day 5 (gentle follow-up) → Day 14 (final check-in)
- Aggressive PR Push: Day 0 → Day 3 → Day 7 → Day 21 (4 touches, more persistent — for bigger announcements)
- Gentle Playlist Pitch: Day 0 → Day 7 (single follow-up — playlist curators get a lot of pitches, less is more)
The days are counted from the pitch: Day 14 means 14 days after the pitch went out, not 14 days after the previous follow-up. If an email goes out late — MusicLaunch was closed, or you paused the run — the ones after it move back by the same amount, so the gaps between emails stay the same.
Building a sequence
Open the Sequence Manager
Contacts → "Sequences" in the toolbar. The My Sequences tab lists what you've built.
Start from a preset or from scratch
Pick one of the 3 presets to load its follow-ups, or click New Sequence to write your own. Step 1 (Initial Email) has nothing to fill in — it is the pitch you start the sequence from. Each follow-up is a day to send it on (counted from the pitch, and later than the follow-up before it) plus a subject and a body.
Write each follow-up
Every follow-up needs a subject and a body — a sequence can't be saved with a blank one. Use the placeholders {name}, {outlet}, {artist} and {subject} in either; they are filled in for each contact when the email is sent (see "What the placeholders become" below). A sequence also can't be saved while a blank in double braces is left in a follow-up, like {{privateLink}} in the Aggressive PR Push preset: replace it with your own words first.
Save it
Saving stores the template only — nothing is sent until you start it for a specific contact (next step).
Start it from a submission
Contacts → the Send icon on a contact (New Submission), or edit an existing submission (the clock icon on the contact → Pitch History → Edit) → pick the sequence under "Start email sequence". A note under the picker says exactly what will be sent to this contact. Then either click Create Submission (Save Changes when editing) and let the sequence email the pitch, or click Send via Gmail to send the pitch right away and leave only the follow-ups to the sequence. The run appears in Sequences → Active Runs.
What step 1 sends
Step 1 is the pitch — the subject and body of the submission you started the sequence from. What happens to it depends on the pitch:
- Not sent yet, with a subject and a body: the sequence emails it within about 5 minutes of saving (placeholders in it are filled in too) and marks the pitch Sent. The first follow-up counts from that moment.
- Already sent with Send via Gmail, or marked Sent, Accepted, Rejected or No Response by you: it is not emailed again. The days are counted from the date the pitch was sent (from the moment you start the sequence if there is no sent date). If the pitch went out longer ago than the first follow-up's day, that follow-up goes out within about 5 minutes and the rest keep their spacing after it.
- Not sent, and missing its subject or its body: no first email is sent, and only the follow-ups go out.
A pitch is never sent twice by a sequence, and MusicLaunch never sends a sequence email with an empty subject or body. Nor does it send one with a blank left in it: a {{...}}, or an obvious blank in square brackets like "[streaming link]" or "[your name]" (a sequence saved from an older preset can still have one in a follow-up). The pitch waits until you fill the blank in. A follow-up with a square-bracket blank pauses the run instead, and Sequences → Active Runs says why: a saved sequence can't be edited, so stop that run and use a sequence without the blank. Every email of a sequence goes out from the same address as its pitch: the From picked when you start it, or, if the pitch already went out, the address it went out from (Active Runs and Edit Submission show it). If you send the pitch yourself while the sequence is still waiting to email it, the follow-ups go out from the address you sent it from. A sequence started before MusicLaunch kept that address sends from your main Gmail address. Sequence emails are sent by a background runner that checks every 5 minutes and only works while MusicLaunch is running (closing the window is fine, it stays in the menu bar; quitting stops it) — an email that came due while MusicLaunch was not running goes out within about 5 minutes of opening it again.
What the placeholders become
- {name} — the contact's name ("there" if the contact has no name)
- {outlet} — the contact's outlet. A contact with no outlet gets a general phrase that fits their category: "your playlist", "your venue", "your station", "your podcast", "your blog", "your channel", or "your outlet"
- {artist} — your artist name: the artist of the campaign the pitch is linked to, if it has one; otherwise the name of your profile. If the profile is still called "Default", the artist of your most recently updated campaign is used, then the name on your connected Gmail account
- {subject} — the subject of your pitch ("my pitch" if the pitch has no subject)
Managing active sequences
In the Sequence Manager, the Active Runs tab lists every run with the step it is on, and the next send date for the ones still running — pause, resume, or stop any of them (a stopped run shows as Cancelled and can't be started again). The My Sequences tab lists the sequences you've saved; one can be deleted there, but not edited — to change a sequence, build a new one.
