Ethos Public Relations Manchester

Subject Matters

by Sean

I was talking to a journalist on a local newspaper recently and she was telling me that she only had time to read the subject line of an email to decide whether a story was worth following up on.

On the one hand, I can understand with the amount of emails we all get, that this could sometimes be inevitable, but on the other hand, it is a bit worrying if the local news agenda is being determined by the subject line of an email. This could mean that many good, relevant stories are overlooked and all the work that goes into PR and writing press releases is wasted.

I guess the important thing from a PR point of view is to make sure that the subject line of your email succinctly reflects the story you trying to communicate, and focuses on the appropriate angle for that publication. As an obvious example, if the release is about an organisation in Liverpool and you're sending it to the Liverpool newspapers, make sure you tell them that it's about Liverpool in the subject line. (Generic 'subject' descriptions which don't have an obvious local angle will almost surely be overlooked.)

As a result, my email distribution rules are fourfold:
1) Get the 'subject' description right for the media you are targeting.
2) Carefully summarise the relevant points of the press release in your covering email.
3)Include the full press release, of course, but assume that the journalist is only likely to read if if they have got through stages one and two.
4) Follow up with a phone call (probably most important).

Now, why did I send that press release about Norwich to the Edinburgh newspapers? (Only joking...)

Posted at 1:29pm on 1^st October 2008