Episode 72: How to Write Winning Subject Lines for Emails
Your pitch is only as good as your email subject line!
No matter what’s inside the body of your pitch and how good it may be, journalists will judge you by your subject lines.
If you want to give yourself a shot at having your pitch recognized, you have to put the effort into optimizing your pitch right from the get-go.
So, the best step you can take now to produce such results is to create winning subject lines that’ll make your PR pitch irresistible.
Now, the big question is this— “How do I write a great subject line for my pitch?”
Well, it takes time and practice to articulate compelling subject lines.
But that can’t stop you from pitching your dream journalists and publishers.
That’s because the best step you can take is to take inspiration from your content ideas!
You can use numerical data, contrarian views, year-end recaps, and many more. From there, your subject lines and the content of your pitch will begin to take shape.
Then, add some interesting elements of specificity and relevance.
Soon enough, you’re ready to hit that send button, see the results yourself, and connect with more journalists.
That’s how I envision your success will be once you optimize your subject lines.
In this special episode, I’ll share with you several ideas on how to create winning subject lines, whether a DM, an email to a journalist, or a podcast host, to help ensure that you have the best chance of getting your email opened.
“Remember, you're only as good as your subject line because if it doesn't get read, the email does not get opened. And you can also repurpose these for any kind of content on your website, contributing to a higher domain authority website.”
-Gloria Chou
Discover how to captivate journalists right at the start of your pitch. Immerse yourself in this brief but practical episode so you can learn how to write winning subject lines for your emails and generate content ideas. In no time, your pitch will finally be seen, heard, and valued!
Topics We Cover in This Episode:
What a winning subject line for emails really looks like
Generating content ideas and inspirations for your pitch
How to use data points for your subject lines and PR pitch
Winning subject lines to become a person of authority
Repurposing subject lines and content ideas to other usable forms
If you want to land your first feature for free without any connections, I want to invite you to watch my PR Secrets Masterclass where I reveal the exact methods thousands of bootstrapping small businesses use to hack their own PR and go from unknown to being a credible and sought-after industry expert. Register now at www.gloriachou.com/masterclass.
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Here’s a glance at this episode…
[01:10] Content ideas and subject lines are really pithy one-sentence structures that tell your audience what you're going to be telling them.
[02:11] If you can use data points, or tie your pitch to a policy angle, whether it's seasonal shopping, or if it's a new graduation story, right around May or June, or maybe it's around a holiday or something that's always going to make it more urgent for someone to want to cover it right then. So, think about all the ways the seasons and the trends can tie into your industry.
[04:08] Another great one are just do's and don'ts. So, do's and don'ts for first-time parents homeschooling their children, do's and don'ts for pet owners who are thinking of feeding their pet raw food. Things that are again, do's and don'ts, juxtapositions, they tend to work really well.
[05:14] Another way that is a great way to write a pitch is ways something is changing something else right. So for you, it could be ways a certain technology is changing things up in your industry. The more specific you are, the more powerful and punchy your pitch is going to be.
[06:30] In order to be an authority, you need to have a point of view, you can't just be wishy-washy, and everything is fine, or you need to have a stance on something. And so that's what these subject lines are helping you do.
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Gloria Chou 0:00
What's up small business heroes, I'm so excited to share with you a little portion of our signature program PR starter pack. This is really helpful because I break down the best subject lines. And remember, your email only gets opened. If the subject line is optimized, I'm gonna give you so many ideas of how to start that email, too. Whether it's a DM, or an email to a journalist or a podcast host that ensures that you have the best chance of getting that email opened. So let's dive into it. Hey, friends, I'm Gloria Chow, small business PR expert, award winning pitch writer and your unofficial hype woman. Nothing makes me happier than seeing people get the recognition they deserve. And that starts with feeling more confident to go bigger with your message. So on this podcast, I will share with you the untraditional, yet proven strategies for PR marketing and creating more opportunity in your business. If you are ready to take control of your narrative and be your most unapologetic and confident self, you're in the right place. This is the Small Business PR podcast. I wanted to come on here and tell you a little bit more about how to use this worksheet, which is the winning subject lines and content ideas for six months. Now when I say subject line and content ideas, they're really kind of the same thing, right? content ideas and subject lines are really pithy one sentence structures that tell your audience what you're going to be telling them right. And so anytime you want to pitch to a podcast, or to get on an IG live, or maybe do a Facebook Live with someone who has subject area authority, or if you're partnering up with an influencer that has a lot of followers, and you can leverage their audience, this is kind of how you want to pitch it to them. You don't want to write anything more than this. You don't want to write like an entire book, you don't want to do like five different pages, they want to know very quickly how you can offer help to their audience, and in a way that's digestible. And so what I mean by that is using listicles, like three ways to do this are do's and don'ts, best practices, really quick and dirty things to give people a quick win, that's always going to translate really well and be a good point of conversation for that longer lasting relationship, right. So I've given you hear all of the ideas that I've written for clients before. And I always say if you can use data points, or tie your pitch to a policy angle, whether it's a seasonal shopping, or if it's a new graduation story, right around May or June, or maybe it's around a holiday, or something that's always going to make it more urgent for someone to want to cover it right then. So think about all of the ways, the seasons and the trends can tie into your industry. So for example, using data points, going back to a survey, you never want to use a yes or no survey, you always want to leave it like from a scale of one to 10. That's the best way to collect data. For example, I worked with a client who made hosiery, and she surveyed her clients. And she found that size 14 was actually the most popular size. So this is challenging, a common belief that retail should cater to women with a smaller size, right? Another way is to survey to different groups that seems similar. So for example, my client, Vincent is a career coach. And he surveyed 2008 graduates with people who graduated in 2020. And he compared their attitudes about the job market and offer that up to a top tier journalist. So he got on Forbes to Tennessee in ink, and he did a LinkedIn live like sharing their perspectives and their optimism or maybe lack of optimism about the job market and compared it to 2008. Because in 2008, we also had a financial crisis, right? So these are really easy ways. You can use data points and surveys to Make Your Pitch super juicy and super relevant. So another way you can write content ideas or pitch is a quick checklist right? So for example, if you are doing a skincare product, maybe it's three ways to combat winter with like a checklist for three things you must have right? It might be an end of the year checklist if you're in if you're a tax person, end of the year, financial wellness checkup, right, or best practices for whatever it is. These are really simple ways for audiences to get a quick one. Another great one are just do's and don'ts. Right so do's and don'ts for first time parents, homeschooling their children, do's and don'ts for pet owners who are thinking of feeding their pet raw food, right? Things that are again, do's and don'ts, juxtapositions, they tend to work really well. Another way is I really like the number three. So like three ways to be more whatever in your behavior, right. So you know, three ways to be more inclusive in your advertising. Maybe it's three ways to be to champion real diversity in your workplace culture, right? Maybe it's three ways to have more vulnerable and open conversation for team building, whatever it is, right. Another thing is calling out what a certain group gets wrong about something like for example, what retail gets wrong about women's side using or what parents get wrong about homeschooling or what tech startups get wrong about investor confidence, right? These are all things that puts two groups against each other because you're not calling out anyone by name, it's not going to be super contentious. Another way that is a great way to write a pitch is ways something is changing something else, right. So for example, I wrote a pitch about how AI is changing insurance and 2020. So for you, it could be ways a certain technology is changing things up in your industry, or you can get even more micro how this technology is changing something for certain demographic, the more specific you are the usually the more powerful and punchy your pitch is going to be. Another thing is calling out something that people didn't know, maybe a blind spot, right? So writing your pitch, like, one thing you didn't know about this, right? For example, one thing you didn't know about the PPP loans and why it matters, right? Like one thing you didn't know about what's in your food or something, or one thing you didn't know about adaptogens, you know, or if you are in the health food space, so that also works. That is similar to this subject line, which is what people get wrong about something, right. So what Millennials get wrong about wellness, or what fashion gets wrong about diversity, or what workplace culture gets wrong about this, and that, as long as you're not pinpointing a certain person by name, you're gonna be able to get away with it and establish yourself to have a point of view, right? In order to be an authority, you need to have a point of view, you can't just be wishy washy, and everything is fine, or you need to have a stance on something. And so that's what these subject lines are helping you do. Another way is challenging beliefs. So miss the biggest misconceptions about something right? So for example, I have a client who has Lyme disease, and she is using our robotic Eastern medicine, to combat line to blind disease. So things you know, the pitch I wrote for her would be the biggest misconceptions about Lyme disease, or like what is out there right now for Lyme disease, or over the counter painkillers for X, Y, and Z, or biggest misconceptions about money, you know, in 2020, are basic, biggest misconceptions about you know, launching your startup in this climate, whatever it is that you can offer help with your insight is super golden. Another thing is, how will something changed something else in 2021. And I really liked this, because you're putting a year on it, right? You're basically telling the journalist, this is a story that's for right now. It's not for five years from now. So you really should respond. Right? So for example, how will our relationship how will our love lives change in an era of quarantine, and stay at home culture, I recently worked with a sex therapist, and she had all different ways for couples to reconnect, because couples were getting into fights and they were having kind of their love life going down the drain because of everything that was happening. So if you can offer ways to help with a certain phenomenon that's going to be relevant to right now, that's going to make your pitch super helpful, right? Another way is to show people kind of a go behind the scenes to see like how something is made, right. And this is really good for like a gifting angle, or if you if you're able to, like if you if you do a digital product, right. And if you have a really cool process to make something whether you are like an architect, or if you're a woodworker, or you're actually building something where the graphics or the process is really cool, you might offer a pitch to tell people you know, I'm offering you a behind the scenes look at how something is made. Right? It could be like if you are restoring, I don't know old coins or old photos, I can go behind the scenes to see how an old photo is restored that's visually going to be very pleasing. Right. Another thing is, what I love is an end of year recap. So if you're launching something like a press release, or an announcement, you can also combine that with an end of your recap, right? So if you're launching something to help people make money by, you know, helping them give opportunities stay at home jobs. It could be about like our end of year recap about what we learned about work life balance and 2020 and how we can solve a specific issue that was brought up right. So an end of your recap could be you know, what we learned about the role of men and women in the household in 2020, or it could be about what Coronavirus taught us about the public school education system or what it taught us about the stock stock market whatever it is, that is really good because that shows consumers that you are on the pulse about what people loved about this year what they hated what they got right and wrong.
Gloria Chou 9:40
And that is great also for an end of the year newsletter blasts to your audience and your investors. Right. Another one is if you are trying to kind of conserve your energy and you want to pitch for next year, you can start thinking about New year, new year, new year new routines for q1 of 2021. Right. So if you are in wellness, that's big right? A lot of people start new habits and new routines in the new year. So if you have something that is a wellness product that could be perfect for that. Or maybe it's something about social media detoxing, right, if you have a product that helps people monitor their usage online more, and tries to give them good habits, it could be a new year, new story. So these are all the ways that you can think about writing your pitch, having a winning subject line, remember, you're only as good as your subject line, because if it doesn't get read, the email does not get open. And you can also repurpose these for any kind of content on your website, contributing to a higher domain authority website. Like I said, all the different ways you can think about contributing value and putting it into a content form. You have any questions? Let me know. I hope this is more than enough to get you started. And I look forward to seeing what you make of this. Hey, small business hero. Did you know that you can get featured for free on outlets like Forbes, The New York Times, Marie Claire Pop Sugar and so many more, even if you're not yet launched? Or if you don't have any connection? That's right. That's why I invite you to watch my PR Secrets masterclass, where I reveal the exact methods 1000s of bootstrapping small businesses use to hack their own PR and go from unknown to being a credible and sought after industry expert. Now if you want to land your first press feature, get on a podcast, secure a VIP speaking gig or just reach out to that very intimidating editor. This class will show you exactly how to do it. Register now at Gloria Chou pr.com/masterclass. That's Gloria Chou c-h-o-u pr.com/masterclass. So you can get featured in 30 days without spending a penny on ads or agencies. Best of all, this is completely free. So get in there and let's get you featured.