Your Email Pitch to the Media: How Long is Too Long?
Michael SmartWhen clients push me for a one-size-fits-all guideline for email pitch length, I usually say 150 words.But in this post I’ll share evidence to justify the special circumstance when your pitches can be effective even if they’re twice that length.First, the justification for 150. That guideline came from:
- looking at my successful pitches
- asking the most successful and prolific media relations pros I know
- asking journalists.
About 150 words kept coming up. This is the 75th word of this post, to put that in context. So you see that with proper organization and use of white space, bullets and other formatting, you can fit a lot of meaning into half your generally “allotted” amount of content.
Here’s where it gets really interesting. I went back and looked at the winners of the “Best Pitches of the Year” contest that I hold annually for members of my Inner Circle.This sample of winners landed the likes of the WSJ (three of them), USAT, TheAtlantic.com, and Ad Age. I was surprised to see that the average word count of these winners was 283!Then I looked at the distribution and saw that the average was misleading. The pitches naturally sorted themselves into two groups. Here is that pattern that emerged:Three of the winning pitches were 163, 177 and 180 words long.The other three were 367, 378, and 435 words long. What accounted for the difference in the two groups? The shorter pitches were sharing an asset, while the longer pitches were introducing a self-contained new idea.Sharing an assetThe shorter pitches were about: a study of breastfeeding habits, a list of the seven best forests to visit, and a survey of millennial spending habits.You can see how a short pitch would be all that’s necessary to pique the target reporter’s interest and get them to look at the “asset” – the study, the list, or the survey results. Same principle would hold if you’re sharing a video or other piece of content.Introducing a new ideaThe three other pitches faced a tougher challenge. They took an abstract concept and shaped that into a newsworthy angle.One was about a training program that helps NYC doormen identify elder abuse – but the program is a bit dated so the pitcher used some creativity to make it timely. Another was a bold suggestion for a positive profile of an ad agency that shared concrete examples of why the agency deserved that treatment. And the final one listed similarities between an episode of Game of Thrones and actual medieval history to make a point.You can see why these would require longer treatment.Now, here’s an important caveat. The longer pitches were expertly written. After all, they were the best of the year.So now you have some evidence for a more nuanced approach to determining the best length of your pitches.When your story idea is good enough and can’t be reduced to a concrete asset, then you can “go big.” Just make sure you do it well.Want to dive deeper into Michael’s tips for landing more media coverage? Check out his Secrets of Media Relations Masters workshop or his Crafting the Perfect Pitch online course. [author] About the Author: Michael Smart teaches PR professionals how to dramatically increase their positive media placements. He’s engaged regularly by organizations like General Motors, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Georgia Tech to help their media relations teams reach new levels of success. Get more media pitching knowledge from Michael here. [/author]
This article was originally published on Content Connection, PRSA's new digital hub. https://bit.ly/2tinDvA
