When you send a snail-mail or email pitch to a journalist, does the copylook like a big block of gray? Or do you flag the journalist to the most importance elements of your pitch by using things such as sub-heads, boldtype, indented paragraphs, underlined text and a post-script?
Publicity Hounds who borrow those techniques, used by the world’s top sales copy writers, will probably get better results than those who don’t. Yet too many publicists fail to realize that a great pitch isn’t made up of only words and phrases. A pitch letter, for example, should include an enticing postscript that offers other sources for the reporter, or tells a reporter that you’re offering the idea to her first.
Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero, an expert in how to write sterling sales copy, says her techniques are as effective for news releases and pitch letters as they are for direct-mail pieces. When she appeared as my guest last year during a teleseminar, we offered three before-and-after examples. We took a wordy news release and turned it into a one-page attention grabber. We edited vague copy on someone’s home page and turned it into a crystal-clear explanation of how the website owner can help visitors. And we turned a news release that the media would never have printed into an eye-catching pitch letter.
Those are the handouts you can download when you buy the cassette tape, CD or electronic transcript titled “How to Write Red-Hot Sales Copy That Woos Journalists.”