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E-mail subject lines in 8 words or less
Short and punchy is the way to persuade a reporter to open your e-mail
The subject line of your e-mail pitch may be the most important piece of writing you create in your media relations work—and the shorter it is, the better. Given the attention spans of your media targets (right up there with gnats), and the tidal waves of e-mail that come flooding into reporter mailboxes, the onus is on you to be brief and clever.
So, how to convey the timeliness and brilliance of your pitch—in no more than seven or eight words, and preferably fewer? Here’s how several PR professionals managed the job.
“Why my acquisition failed”: Shawn Whalen, senior VP at Schwartz Communications in Waltham, Mass., used this subject line in a bid to woo reporters covering management issues. The client, XcelleNet, was acquired by another company but the deal hadn’t gone well. XcelleNet was eventually spun off from the parent company.
“The goal was to show how the company had survived and become independent again,” Whalen explains—hence the subject line. It worked so well that The Wall Street Journal, which did a story on the company’s lessons learned (as did Forbes), used the same wording in its own headline.
“Pearls and paychecks/Sapphires and salaries”: The Gemological Institute of America’s career fair and open house, held annually in both New York and Carlsbad, Calif. is a vehicle for connecting job seekers to employers in the industry and also to attract anyone interested in gems. “Even if you’re the only career fair in your industry, which we are, it’s hard to get coverage,” says Laura Simanton, senior PR manager for the institute.
Simanton decided to tie in the two themes of the fair into a short and sweet pitch subject. (Pairing two seemingly disconnected ideas in a pitch opener is always an attention-getter.) In addition to the two subject lines used above, Simanton used “Rubies and resumes” and “Emeralds and employment” for various pitches and media advisories. The result: more mainstream coverage in New York and Carlsbad, and great trade ink.
“Weather to pack sunscreen or an umbrella”: This play on words was useful in driving up media responses to the pitch that Justin O’Neill, senior account executive at Ogilvy PR in San Francisco, sent out on behalf of Weather Underground. The online weather service had previously launched a Trip Planner service which allowed users to check out average temperatures in the cities they planned to visit.
O’Neill’s pitch helped land an Associated Press article, which then ran in 19 dailies. “We were extremely pleased with the results, given the fact the coverage was not news-driven in the normal sense,” he says. “I credit the subject line for getting so many responses, regardless of whether or not the reporters ran with the story—and getting them to read the pitch is half the battle.”
“Colorado: Help bring a cow into the world”: This kind of subject line is hard to resist—and Greg Morton, group director of PR for Praco PR in Denver, was counting on just that reaction when he penned this subject line for his client, the Colorado Tourism Office.
“The e-mail pitch then went on to talk about spring being calving season in Colorado, how visitors could experience a calf birthing at a local dude ranch and other things to do while on vacation,” explains Morton. The pitch won a story in the New York Daily News and also generated interest from The New York Times and USA Today.
“Researchers take ‘Fantastic Voyage’ through the human body”: William Dube, senior news specialist for the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, N.Y., was asked to get coverage for a faculty/student project at the school. “They had created a 3-D, virtual tour of the human pancreas down to the microscopic level for use in teaching and diagnostics,” Dube explains. “We had DVDs of the tour for the media that I knew would be very impressive, but I needed a catchy title to get reporters hooked in.”
Dube then hit on a tie-in to a favorite movie. “Given that the movie ‘Fantastic Voyage’ was about a miniaturized crew traveling through a human, the line also had nice symmetry,” he says. “Anyone who had heard of the movie had an instant image in their head about what the research was going to show.” Stories ran in The Washington Post and on the syndicated TV program Discoveries & Breakthroughs Inside Science.
“Veggies for dessert? Blue cheese gelato!”: With a flavor combination like this, journalists couldn’t fail to take a peek at the pitch, written by Claire Bloxom, senior account executive at Cooper Smith Agency in Dallas. Bloxom was charged with pitching new fruit and vegetable flavors from Paciugo Gelato, an ice cream store chain.
“Blue Cheese Gelato sounded like one of the grossest combinations I can possibly think of,” says Bloxom. “But what reporter wouldn’t be able to open the e-mail after knowing that someone would create such a flavor?”
And it may seem rude when we can't answer your e-mail, but we receive so many each day that's it's just not possible. But I try to answer e-mails that are somewhat personalized to me, particularly ones that show that the "pitcher" is actually familiar with our publication or rarer still what I write for the publication.
That reminds me, if you don't have time to personalize the pitch e-mail with my name, then please remove the pseudo-personal greetings, such as "I hope you're doing well." Better to just get right down to business.
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