I started to write this post about the importance of creating a great pitch or headline for your press release, and I realized a its just as critical to be able to craft a compelling concise email subject line or blog post title.
As Shakespeare said, “Brevity is the soul of wit”
A great pitch or headline can also make all the difference in your business. Consider this. In our age of information overload, we scan article headlines and email subject lines and decide in the flash of a nanosecond it takes to scan the letters and words making up our opener, if we are going to open it right away, or perhaps not at all.
The #1 skill to master for successful publicity and content marketing, is the ability to craft a great and concise pitch.
As you can see, while great pitches, compelling press release headlines, and email subject lines are key to getting media coverage, this goes beyond Publicity. It impacts pitches to new prospects, partners, investors, journalists and potential partners.
When a journalist, or you yourself, scan your in box, it’s the subject line and possibly the first line of copy that gets seen in the preview window. It’s got to be attention grabbing or it gets deleted. It’s that simple.
In addition to being attention grabbing and compelling people to want to know more, it has to be short and communicate your message in as few words as possible. I know, no easy task.
Your existing email newsletter subscribers and blog readers already know and love you, and yet, they too may be ignoring you – only because of a less than compelling headline amongst a sea of headlines or subject lines in their inbox.
You can think of your headline or subject line as a tough gatekeeper – that can keep you from being in direct communication with your dear/cherished audience. It’s your job to charm the gatekeeper.
How Twitter [X] Can Teach You to Pitch Better
X, formerly known as Twitter, with its 140-character constraint, is a great way to hone your writing skills. You have to say what you need to say within the proscribed character limit or be cut off mid-thought, which is not a good option and can look unprofessional.
Sometimes, getting the words to fit into your tweet is trial and error. Sometimes, a bit of compromise. It can be done successfully, as there are over 400 million tweets sent daily, as well as people who have built massive followings by honing the art of communicating well within the word limit.
Google cuts off news headlines and articles, at 70 characters, so your press releases, blog posts and article titles display best within that even smaller number.
Ready to master the art of concise headlines and pitches?
First of course, you need a story idea. Then, to tell it within 70 or 140 characters, you sometimes need just a bit of help coming up with other words – synonyms or alternate ways to say the same concept or idea.
My favorite tools are the excellent old Thesaurus and the more updated version – Visual Thesaurus– which is actually an online interactive thesaurus and dictionary in one. It’s pretty, fun to use and very useful.
Other tools I find helpful are:
Wikipedia – under any given topic, they have related topics or ideas. This works as a brain jumpstart for me, sometimes giving me just the new word I need.
Photo libraries – sometimes the images that come up for a keyword search provide new ideas and ways I hadn’t yet thought of to voice my idea.
You may have to try a few to find what works best for you.
There are some other cool headline tools out there – watch for my list of them in the next week.
In the meantime, remember – a pitch or a headline is meant to be an irresistible invitation to read more. Its not intended to tell the entire story. In this instance, being a tease is a good thing!
In case you were wondering – My subject line for this post is 52 characters so that it would work well on Google, As an email Pitch, A press release headline, or on X!
It also has another success factor in it. Do you know what that is? Post your answer below. I’ll be giving a prize to the first person to get it correct!
Related Content:
How Not to Be One of the 45% of HARO Media Pitches That Suck