A badly written email to pitch your story can ruin all of your chances.
This is a great problem to solve and get right. You want to send the right email at the right time in the hope that your story idea or pitch will be read and considered. But you only have one chance to do this right so what do you do? How do you approach it quickly but in the right way so you catch the eye of a reporter, segment producer or writer?
Well here are 7 great PR tips for putting that email message together:
1. What is your story in 5 words or less and make it as current as possible. The media has to get your message instantly to want to click on your email and read your pitch. Make sure to craft your pitch in a way that the media will care enough about it to possible cover your story. Relevance here is key, as the recipient needs know that the possible audience out there will care about what you have pitched. Make sure to add the substance to your with facts and connect all the dots in the story. The who, what, where, when and how. Also connect your story to anything being covered in the news, online or current in pop culture now.
2. Put together a media list that are the right contacts for this specific story. Once you have figured out your specific and unique story angle then build a solid list of media contacts that make sense for your story. Only contact those media that cover your story specifically.
3. Don’t be too pushy. The media every day receives way too many emails. Some are good stories and the rest is junk to them. Don’t become annoying or the junk in their minds. Make sure that you will standout in minds of the media you are contacting.
4. Short and sweet. In today’s overburden world of receiving emails, you want to make sure that you can tell your story quickly without a lot of scrolling down in your email to the media. Be informative, get to the point and edit and re-edit your email message before you press, “send.”
5. Read your email out loud before you send it. Take the time to read your email out loud as you will be surprise to still find typos and problems.
6. Find a way to be clever or humorous if possible. There is humor in everything and just maybe you can find a way to deliver part of the message with some smiles.
7. Get your subject box message part real simple. The first thing the media will read and see is the subject box of your incoming email. So figure out how to grab the media’s attention in this instance.
For more info: www.PublicityandMarketing.com or BestPRguy@gmail.com 310 920-2424