In twenty years of financial journalism, I watched two kinds of companies try to land in Business Insider: the ones with a story, and the ones with a press release. Only one of those gets a callback.
Getting featured in Business Insider means getting a Business Insider journalist to write about you under the outlet's own masthead. That is editorial coverage, and editorial coverage is never for sale — not from Business Insider, not from any outlet worth the placement.
The direct answer to how to get featured in Business Insider is this: you get the right story, framed the way that reporter's beat already covers stories, in front of the right journalist, at a moment when the news actually justifies it. Everything else is noise.
I spent a decade producing business television at CNBC before moving into corporate comms at a Fortune 200 company, and the pattern holds in every newsroom, not just Business Insider's: the pitches that work read like the last four paragraphs of the story, not the first four of an ad.
No agency can guarantee Business Insider runs your story. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something dishonest, because the editorial decision belongs to the outlet, always. What a serious press process can guarantee is access — that the right editor actually sees the pitch, properly framed, at the right time.
What Does Business Insider Actually Cover?
Business Insider covers markets, technology, workplace culture, careers, and corporate strategy with a specific appetite: numbers, insider access, and a contrarian angle on a story everyone else is covering straight. Its reporters want the memo nobody else got, the data set nobody else pulled, or the executive quote that says something a competitor would not.
That appetite is why generic company news — a new logo, a new office, a routine hire — almost never lands there. A founder raising a Series B lands there. A CEO willing to put a real number behind a claim lands there. A dataset that reframes an industry narrative lands there.
In my newsroom years, the stories that got greenlit fastest were always the ones where the company had already done the reporter's job for them: source lined up, number sourced to a filing, quote ready. That is not luck. That is preparation.
How Do Journalists At Business Insider Find Stories?
Most Business Insider stories start one of three ways: a reporter's own beat reporting, a source they already trust, or a pitch that arrives through a channel with some credibility already attached to it. Cold emails to a general tips inbox get read last, if at all — reporters are triaging hundreds of pitches a week against a beat they already know cold.
This is why access matters more than volume. A pitch that reaches the right reporter, on the right beat, through a connection that has sent them something useful before, gets opened. A pitch that lands in a shared inbox competes with everything else that landed there today.
That is the entire logic behind a warm journalist network instead of a mass-blast wire service: fit before send, not spray and pray.
What Makes A Pitch Newsworthy To Business Insider?
Newsworthiness has a formula, even if editors would never call it that: a material fact, a number sourced honestly, and timing tied to something already moving through the news cycle. A well-built earnings call press release does half this work for you — it puts the material fact first, sources every figure to the filing, and gives a reporter a quote they can use without chasing you for a follow-up.
I have watched companies bury the one number the Street was waiting for under four paragraphs of adjectives, and I have watched the same release, rewritten with the number in the first sentence, get picked up the same afternoon. The difference was never the news. It was the order.
Reporters do not want your enthusiasm. They want your evidence.
Does A Press Release Guarantee Coverage?
No — and treat anyone who tells you otherwise with suspicion. A press release is a self-authored, on-record statement you pay to distribute; it is the definitive record of what your company says about itself, and it is supposed to cost you something, because that is what makes it yours. Editorial coverage is different: it is written by a journalist, under the outlet's own name, and the outlet keeps full control of whether, when, and how it runs.
Corporate press release distribution gets your statement in front of outlets and into the record. It does not buy a byline. What it can do — when it is built and routed correctly — is put your material fact in front of the exact reporter who covers it, which is the honest version of how to get featured in Business Insider: access and placement, guaranteed; the story itself, always the outlet's call.
How Do IPOs And Earnings Announcements Fit Into This?
Institutional moments are the cleanest way into outlets like Business Insider, because they come with a built-in news hook. An IPO announcement press release gives a reporter a date, a valuation, an underwriter, and a CEO quote — everything needed to write the story fast, which is exactly what a beat reporter on deadline wants from you.
The same discipline applies to earnings. Lead with the number the Street was waiting for, quote the CEO once, source every figure to the filing, and you have handed a reporter a story instead of a homework assignment. Bury that number under marketing language, and you have handed them a reason to skip you entirely.
This is disclosure choreography, not advertising copy. The market — and the reporters covering it — can tell the difference in one paragraph.
How Do You Actually Get Access To Business Insider?
This is where most comms teams stall — not on the writing, on the routing. Knowing how to get featured in Business Insider means knowing which reporter covers your vertical this quarter, having a real channel to reach them, and getting your release in front of them instead of into a general submissions queue.
This is the actual mechanics of corporate press release distribution done properly: a company writes and owns its release, the release is matched to outlets and journalists by beat fit, and the pitch reaches an actual editor rather than an algorithm. That is the function MXNN Media's Business Insider access exists to serve — a warm network across 2,000-plus journalists and 10,000-plus outlets, with human screening for fit before anything ever reaches an editor's desk. It works the same whether the release in question is an IPO announcement press release or a routine company update.
Access and placement are guaranteed there — the outlet will see the story. Whether Business Insider runs it stays Business Insider's editorial call, the same as it would with any legitimate outlet. No honest service will tell you otherwise, and you should be skeptical of any that does.
What Should A Comms Team Do This Week?
If an institutional moment is coming — a raise, a launch, an earnings call, an IPO — the prep work starts now, not the week of.
- ■Write the release like a reporter, not a marketer
Lead with the material fact, source every number to a filing or dataset, quote the CEO exactly once. - ■Separate your two tracks
Know which parts of your story are paid, self-authored press release, and which parts you are pitching for editorial coverage. Never conflate the two, internally or externally. - ■Match the story to the reporter, not the outlet
A generic pitch to "Business Insider" fails; a pitch to the specific reporter covering your vertical, at the right time, succeeds. - ■Build the access before you need it
Companies covered fastest during a real news moment are usually the ones with a press process, and a warm journalist network, already in place before the moment arrives.
The company that gets into Business Insider is rarely the one with the loudest pitch. It is the one that made the reporter's job easy — with a real number, a real quote, and a channel that put it in front of the right desk before the news went cold.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you get featured in Business Insider without paying for coverage?
You cannot pay for a Business Insider article — editorial decisions stay with the outlet. What you can do is get access: a well-sourced pitch, framed for the reporter's beat, delivered through a channel that puts it in front of the right editor at the right time.
What's the difference between a press release about my company and a Business Insider article?
A press release is self-authored, paid, and on-record — the definitive statement of what you say about yourself. A Business Insider article is written by a Business Insider journalist under the outlet's masthead, using their own editorial judgment, which no company or agency controls.
Does an IPO or earnings announcement help get press coverage?
Yes. Institutional moments give reporters a built-in news hook. A well-built IPO announcement press release or earnings call press release, leading with the material fact and sourcing figures to the filing, gives a reporter everything needed to move fast — which improves your odds of coverage.
About the Author
Marcus Whitfield — Contributing Writer — Corporate & Financial Communications at MXNN Media. 20 years in financial journalism — former CNBC segment producer, then corporate comms lead at a Fortune 200.