Although it pains me to repeat myself, I post the beginning of an email pitch I received this morning. It’s the perfect example of why I wrote Tip #98: Make it snappy, Sweetheart.
Subject: Everyone loves a good pitch in the morning
Rafe,
Who am I kidding, no one truly enjoys reading a press release; much less being bombarded by them hourly. If you don’t mind hearing mine, then keep reading… and if you don’t, then feel free to click the shiny red X or red circle at the top of the page anytime.
[Our company] is releasing a new service called…
By this point, you’ve lost your audience. Look, it’s your job to pitch. It’s my job to be pitched. So let’s do our jobs — quickly, please — and move on.
Rafe
Pro PR Tips 
RE: Tip #167: Don’t bury the lead
Amen! Inexperienced PR folks often sacrifice a strong pitch for being cute or chummy – or, worse, by projecting themselves into the story, as this person did. Stop talking to yourself and stop wasting my time. Instead, do your homework, identify my interests, then address them in one short, succinct sentence or two. This is good advice for any kind of business email correspondence. I get some doozies (like this one) from people trying to market business services to me.
Strategic PR = placing the right words into an online-distributed press release so that your business pops up in a search engine. http://www.prnewschannel.com
Those long and tiring pitches belong in the history. I surprised someone sent you something like this, I thought we were passed that long ago… Apparently not. Short, quick and breezy pitch will do the work just fine.
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