What’s Worse: Rejection or Radio Silence?

You need tough skin to cold pitch.

There are three potential outcomes when you send a pitch, and two of them are bad.

1. Acceptance
2. Rejection
3. No response

You could argue radio silence is just another form of rejection, and I wouldn’t disagree with you. But there’s still a difference: one is immediate and the other is prolonged. So, is it better to be outright rejected or ignored?

Rejection is the lesser of the two evils — in my experience at least.

Speaking from experience

If I asked ten other freelance writers to evaluate my marketing strategy, I’d estimate that nine (or maybe even all ten) would call it unorthodox.

Why? Because I rarely cold pitch my services to random companies or submit post ideas to publications (outside of Medium). Most of my freelance work comes from inbound requests and referrals. It’s a slow-growth strategy, but it’s less taxing.

There was a time when I did though. I’d like to share the results of one of my cold pitching campaigns. In the fall of 2019, I sent 40 pitches promoting my writing services over a two-week stretch.