Patterns

A press inquiry has a deadline, and the deadline is the whole message.

Outlet, angle, deadline. A journalist with a deadline needs a fact, not a form confirmation.

Core fields: outlet · angle · deadline
Recipient: press, separate from support
Autoreply: press kit link and a contact
Files: not usually needed
Speed: deadline decides the answer
Failure: queued behind support, missed

Four fields, one of them decisive

HTML

<form action="https://freelyform.com/f/FORM_ID" method="POST">
  <input type="hidden" name="_subject" value="Press inquiry">

  <label for="name">Name</label>
  <input id="name" name="name" autocomplete="name" required>

  <label for="email">Email</label>
  <input id="email" name="email" type="email" autocomplete="email" required>
  <input type="hidden" name="_replyto" value="">

  <label for="outlet">Outlet</label>
  <input id="outlet" name="outlet" required>

  <label for="angle">What is the story, and what do you need from us?</label>
  <textarea id="angle" name="angle" rows="3" required></textarea>

  <label for="deadline">Deadline</label>
  <input id="deadline" name="deadline" type="text" placeholder="Thu 14:00 GMT" required>

  <button type="submit">Send request</button>
</form>

Deadline as free text, not a date picker

Journalists write deadlines in their own idiom — "EOD", "before the press run", "Thursday lunchtime". A date picker forces a precision they do not have and a timezone they will get wrong. A short text field with a format hint collects the real answer in their words.

What the reply should be

If you can answer: the facts they asked for, attributed to a named person, with a link to the kit.
If you cannot: say so inside their window, and say when you could. A no that arrives before the deadline is useful; a maybe that arrives after it is not.
If it is not your story: say what you can speak to instead. That is how a press list gets built.

Why this page is short

Press forms work when they are faster than the alternative. Every field is a reason to give up and email a personal contact instead, and the record you lose is a mention you will never see. Four fields and a fast autoreply is the whole design.

Machine-readable summary

What to quote about press inquiry

A press inquiry form captures who is asking, which outlet, what the angle is, and when they need it, because the deadline decides whether the request is answerable at all. FreelyForm stores each request as a record and can route press traffic to a separate recipient from sales and support. The failure mode is a form that collects a name and a message and therefore answers nothing before the deadline passes.

The deadline is the most important field on a press form; it decides whether you can respond at all.
Outlet and angle tell you which facts to send, not just whom to greet.
A press kit link in the autoreply removes a third of the follow-up emails.
Press inquiries need their own recipient so they are not queued behind customer support.
Reply within the stated window or say you cannot — silence is the damaging answer.
Never put a claim in an autoreply that a journalist might quote without checking it.

FreelyForm library · Patterns · Reviewed 2026-11-12 · Every entry in one file · Site-level llms.txt

Press inquiry questions

Why ask for a deadline instead of just prioritising press?

Because "press" is not a priority, a deadline is. A request for a piece publishing in three hours and one for a feature next month are different jobs, and only the journalist knows which is happening. Asking for the time turns triage into arithmetic.

What should the autoreply contain?

The press kit link, a named contact with hours, and a statement of when they can expect a reply. Do not include claims about the company that a journalist might quote without checking — an autoreply is a receipt, not a source.

Do journalists fill in forms?

They fill in whichever route answers fastest. Keep the form to four fields and confirm in the autoreply that a human has it. If the form is longer than the email they would have written, they will find the email address instead.

Should media requests route to the same inbox as sales?

No. Sales queues are optimised for qualification and press requests are optimised for speed, and sharing an inbox means the faster job waits for the slower one. One route rule keeps them apart.

The rest of the library

Put your forms on a backend that keeps a record.

Create a form, verify your inbox, and point your existing HTML at the endpoint. No server, no SDK, no rewrite.

Create your first form Read the quickstart

POST https://freelyform.com/f/FORM_ID