4 Steps to a More Effective Email Pitch

For PR pros, the success of their media outreach and, thus, the results they are able to deliver to their clients, often depends on how well they are able to engage journalists with email pitches. After all, unless your emails are opened and read by reporters, there is little chance your story will receive media coverage. This is why the art of email pitching is so important in the PR industry.

There is a lot of conflicting advice out there on how to write the most engaging pitches. For this post, I will focus on four basic steps that should help anyone make his/her media outreach more effective.

1. Do your research

Before emailing your pitch, make sure to familiarize yourself with the reporter and their publication. Read some of the journalist’s previous articles and see if your story would be a good fit for their particular beats and topics of interest. If your contact has written on a similar subject before, mention it in the beginning of your pitch. This will let the journalist know that you’ve done your homework and your story may indeed be worth considering.

2. Write an engaging subject line

Many young PR pros spend a lot of time perfecting their email pitches, but then completely overlook the importance of an engaging subject line. In most cases, the subject line is the only piece of an email pitch that actually gets read. To prevent your pitches from heading straight from the inbox to the trash folder, make sure that your subject line stands out and convinces the journalist to learn more. Be careful, however, not to turn your subject lines into “click-bait.” Rather, think of them as the headline of a newspaper article that sounds particularly interesting. 

3. Be concise

Journalists literally receive hundreds of emails every day, and they rarely read through entire press releases just to find out whether a particular story will be a good fit for their coverage. This is why brevity is one of the most crucial elements of an effective email pitch. Condense your news or existing press release into just a few lines of text that would give your target reader an idea of what the news is and why it would be interesting to readers. 

4. Don’t include attached files

Finally, avoid attaching any files to your email pitches. Emails with attachments are more likely to end up in a spam folder. If a reporter likes your story and wants to know more, he or she will contact you for additional information.

Good luck! And once you have used these key tips to your advantage please drop me a line to share your success story!