The next time you send an email pitch to a reporter, take an extra minute or two to send the email to yourself first so you can see what it looks like on the screen.
Laura Lorber, the Wall Street Journal’s assistant news editor for WSJ.com, blogged about an email she received from an unidentified PR person.
The email message, apparently the victim of Microsoft Word’s quirky email editing, shows that the pitch accidentally includes at least one paragraph of information on a separate topic that had been part of an earlier release. Rather than starting from scratch, the writer took the old release and edited it to conform to the new topic. Problem is, all the original copy that the writer edited out shows up on the screen.
Yikes.
The pitch is typical of many I see–and quickly delete. See if you don’t agree. You can read the entire email at http://tinyurl.com/2kw72u
Laura, by the way, says she was inundated with pitches from Publicity Hounds who read here Dec. 5 that she was looking for story ideas on how small business use public relations. She’s still sorting through all the emails.
Dan Janal of PRLeads.com asked me to share my best pitching tips during an interview we conducted call “Secrets of Perfect Pitching to Reporters.” I discussed the one word you must never use in a pitch, things you can do to sweeten your pitch and encourage a reporter to write about you, and how to avoid major mistakes when pitching by phone.
It’s available as a CD or an electronic transcript that you can download and be reading as soon as your order has been approved.
Read more about what you’ll learn at http://tinyurl.com/s3tyx
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