Category Archives: Email

Got two pitches? Send two emails.

It’s easier to forward pitch emails around if there’s only one pitch per. Also, it makes you look cheap if you send one e-mail pitching two (or more) separate clients.

For some reason I don’t quite get, there’s nothing that gets under the skin of journalists more than an email pitch that’s cc’d to a lot of people at once. Do this and you will get killed on the cc list itself as writers whine and complain via “reply to all” about your email etiquette transgression, and to make things worse you might also get killed in the press itself: See TechCrunch and ZDNet .

Instead, use bcc. Better yet: Use a mail-merge app that sends individual emails. Best option: Don’t blast a ton of people with the same crap. Pick and choose your media targets, and write personal notes to them.

And a side note to my compatriots in the media: Chill. If you get one of these bonehead PR spams — and we all do — just delete it. Nothing good ever comes from a vitriolic reply to all, and if you think you’re doing the world a favor by replying to all with the high-minded advice that everyone stop replying, you are fooling no one.

When you send a query asking about a pitch you previously sent in an email, attach the original. Or at least remind me of the topic. The message, “Haven’t heard from you, wonder what you thought of my previous pitch,” is somehow not enough to go on.

Emailing a pitch? Put your company or product name in your first paragraph. Better yet, first sentence. Best: first word. I’m not reading to the end of your pitch regardless, so why take chances?

Unless you want it to be all I read, make sure your email subject line gets your point across. 

Bonus tip: pay attention to the “from” line too.  You can do better than, “Relations, Public.”

Every now and then, press releases work.

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The flag on your email says, “Urgent.” My brain says, “Meh.”