Don't Waste Precious Real Estate With Bloated Email Pitches

Be concise. Tell the journalist how your pitch will help them do their job, in the crucial first words of an email pitch. Customize your outgoing email address, if you have to, to make it more recognizable and user-friendly. Bottom-line: every character counts, and you have zero to waste.

That is the key-takeaway from today's Bulldog Reporter PR University audio conference on email pitching: make every character count.

LA-based journalist Gary North of Variety had a couple of key tips: your subject line should contain an active adjective, a noun and a verb that your recipient might care about. As in, "Doctor Wins Nobel Prize." Contrast that with: Interview opportunity with Dr. Frederick Smith, M.D., on New Research into Cancer Treatment." Which one would you open?

North also suggested that senders make sure their email addresses mean something, too -- that just like we all do when sorting our postal mail, he and other journalists look at who sent them something as they decide how much importance to give it.

A few other takeaways:

• Think about the recipient -- you are filling space in their life with your email. Are you adding value or just spamming them? (from Richard Laermer, BadPitchBlog)


• No client names in the subject line -- it's a dead giveaway that you are seeking publicity rather than offering a story to the journalist (from Heather Hamann, Dr. Dean Edell radio show)


• Every email pitch should answer this question: what can I uniquely offer that no one else has? (from Kim Metcalfe of Weber Shandwick)


• Write for the Blackberry! Meaning, short and pithy, not wordy! Example: "Inventor Helps Seniors Plug In." (from Nancy Brenner, MSL)