Managing the Opportunity Pipeline
Opportunities are the core workflow object in PR Tracker — like deals in a sales CRM. Each opportunity represents a specific PR initiative: pitching a story, submitting for an award, securing a speaking slot, or any other media engagement.
Creating an Opportunity
"Create an opportunity: pitch our Q2 product launch to Sarah Chen at TechCrunch"
"Start a new opportunity to submit for the Webby Awards in the AI category"
"Add an opportunity to get a speaking slot at TechCrunch Disrupt"
When creating an opportunity, include as much context as you can. The agent will link it to the right outlet, contact, and campaign.
Assigning to a campaign
Every opportunity belongs to a campaign. If you don't specify one, it goes into the "General" campaign.
"Create an opportunity for the Bloomberg pitch under our Q2 Launch campaign"
"Move the TechCrunch opportunity to the Product Launch campaign"
Opportunity Stages
Opportunities move through these stages:
| Stage | What it means |
|---|---|
| researching | Identifying and evaluating the opportunity |
| drafting | Preparing pitch or submission materials |
| pitched | Outreach has been sent |
| responded | Received a reply (positive, negative, or follow-up needed) |
| in_progress | Active dialogue, materials being exchanged |
| placed | Coverage or participation confirmed |
| published | Coverage is live or event completed |
| won | Successful outcome (award won, major placement) |
| lost | Declined, no response after follow-ups, or killed |
Advancing an opportunity
"Move the TechCrunch opportunity to 'pitched'"
"Advance the Forbes opportunity to 'responded' — they want to schedule a call"
"Mark the Bloomberg opportunity as 'lost' — they passed on the story"
You can move to any stage, not just the next one in the sequence.
Viewing the Pipeline
Full pipeline overview
"Show me our pipeline"
This gives you a count of opportunities at each stage and a summary of what's active.
Filter by stage
"What's in the 'pitched' stage?"
"Show me all opportunities that are in progress"
"List all lost opportunities from the Q2 Launch campaign"
Opportunity details
"What's the status of the TechCrunch opportunity?"
The opportunity_status tool shows everything linked to an opportunity: contacts, notes, emails, coverage, and next actions.
Next Actions
Every opportunity can track what needs to happen next. See the Next Actions guide for a detailed walkthrough.
"Set the next action on the TechCrunch opportunity to 'Send follow-up email' due Friday, owned by Adam"
Linking Contacts to Opportunities
An opportunity can involve multiple contacts:
"Add Mike Johnson as an editor contact on the Forbes opportunity"
"Who's involved in the TechCrunch opportunity?"
Priority
Set priority to help you focus:
"Set the Forbes opportunity to high priority"
"Show me all high-priority opportunities"
Target Dates
"Set the target date for the Webby submission to March 15"
"What opportunities have target dates this month?"
Example Workflow
Here's a typical opportunity lifecycle:
Research: "Create an opportunity to pitch our AI report to Sarah Chen at TechCrunch. Stage: researching."
Draft: "Move the TechCrunch opportunity to drafting. Next action: finalize pitch deck, due Wednesday, owned by Adam."
Pitch: "Advance TechCrunch to pitched. I sent the pitch email today. Log a note: sent pitch to Sarah, focused on the AI market size angle."
Response: "Sarah responded — she's interested! Move to responded. Next action: schedule a call with Sarah, due next Tuesday."
In Progress: "Had the call with Sarah. Move to in_progress. She wants data on our user growth. Next action: send user growth data, due Friday."
Placed: "Sarah confirmed she's writing the story. Move to placed. Target publish date: next Thursday."
Published: "The TechCrunch article is live! Move to published. Record the coverage." (See the Coverage guide)
Tips
- Keep stages current. Update the stage as soon as something changes. This keeps your pipeline view accurate.
- Always set a next action. An opportunity without a next action is easy to forget about.
- Use campaigns to group related work. Running a product launch? Create a campaign and assign all related pitches to it.
- Review the pipeline regularly. Ask your agent for a pipeline overview at the start of each week.