Press release emails are crafted for the attention of journalists/media outlets/social media influencers to inform a big audience of an important development that concerns your company. The essence of a press release email boils down to describing details of the news you want to share, and why you think more people should know about it.
A good rule of thumb would be sending it to your friendly journalists or influencers, who you’ve done previous business with and have a good relationship with. This way you know they’ll pay attention to your email, and you know they’ll be more inclined to share it.
However, if you don’t have any media contacts like that, don’t despair: all that means is that you’ll have to do some research, dig up relevant people in the field your press release is about and send them an email. It’s harder, but certainly not impossible. And when it works out, you WILL have friendly contacts for the future.
Assuming you are going down the road of cold outreach, writing to people you don’t know, putting together a well-designed email is paramount. It might make the difference between your press release getting published and getting archived. Or worse, landing in the spam folder.
Here are the most important things you should keep in mind.
The essential part. Based on what you put into the subject line, a media contact will either open it or not.
In short, your subject line should contain the part which your media contact and outlet’s audience will find most useful. Why should they care about what you have to say? Does it solve some kind of problem? Does it come with an interesting experience? Is there a freebie or some kind of perk they might love?
Start by making your subject concise and interesting. Explain why something matters. Only then will your contact click to see what’s inside. And avoid going with the subject line “Press release about X company” at all costs. Journalists are busy folks with hundreds of emails per day: they won’t have the time to read your press release in the hope something useful resides inside.
Using a person’s specific names plays a huge part: it increases open chances by 15%-35%. Starting with a name shows that you care, you’ve done your research, you know the person you are writing to. Not personally maybe, but by their work.
A good way to introduce yourself is referencing the person you are writing to. If you’ve had precious contact, start by reminding them when and where it happened. If you didn’t meet/e-meet previously, then talk about their work, compliment it maybe.
“I’ve been reading your articles for a while now and just wanted to let you know how much I love them. In your recent piece you mentioned…”
Such an approach shows thought, research. You are not sending an email blast to anyone and everyone who might care: you’re approaching someone as a person, knowing exactly what they do, and explaining how your interests might align. More on that point, by the way…
Here you progress from introduction (i.e. knowing why you contact someone) to how the topic is relevant to the recipient and their audience. A good idea is to include your press release here entirely, so that the media contact will be able to do a simple copy-and-paste.
Remember to write it in an interesting — and concise — manner. So that you keep the journalist’s attention and give him only the info he and his audience will need and find interesting. In short, your body should answer the questions “Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?” That’s how journalists are taught to separate the newsworthy stuff from the white noise.
This is where you add your contact details, for two reasons: 1) to show you are genuine, not a bot 2) to be on hand should the journalist or his editor have questions — or require additional info about your press release.
An optional part if you included it in your email body. However if you only presented the gist in 1-2 sentences — a perfectly valid approach to keep your email short — type up your press release in full below. Then your media contact will only have to copy and paste it.
Depending on what kind of news you want to get across, your press release emails will look different. The reason you are writing does not negate good rules of thumb discussed above: they are important and applicable for every email.
With that in mind, let’s get into it.
Much like when designing your email sequence and creating an email marketing checklist to keep you on track, there are a few things you should pay attention to before sending a press release email to dozens, maybe hundreds, of contacts.
There are 2 reasons why you shouldn’t: it will force your contact to take an extra step and it might mean your email ends up in spam.
An extra step is burdensome. Think of your contact as your customer: you want to make their experience as smooth as possible. One of the ways to do that is removing extra friction: and an email attachment represents that extra friction.
With spamming it’s even simpler. First, people are reluctant to open attachments — or click on links — sent to them by strangers. Such is the world we live in, it’s full of different kinds of fraud.
Secondly, some inboxes are advanced enough to understand that attachments might represent danger to the recipient — especially if it’s a bulk email — and send such emails to spam automatically. The algorithm sometimes gets it wrong of course but do you want to take the risk with your email?
Well, that’s just simple email etiquette and respect for your contact. Journalists and influencers receive dozens of emails daily — and they still have a job to do outside answering emails. Getting to the point will show that you respect your reader’s valuable time.
You should answer three simple questions for them and cut the rest from your email:
This means don’t send emails on the weekends — no surprises here — but also taking into account that open rates fluctuate during the week.
Research on the matter differs according to where you look, but most companies believe Tuesday and Thursday are the best days of the week, with the highest open rates. Research tells us the best time of the day to send your email: after lunch, between 12 noon and 9 p.m.
We’ve touched on that before, actually: personalization matters. Why should your contact care about your news if they know this news is not exclusive to their publication?
It’s just bad manners, shows you haven’t done your research and underlines you don’t care if someone publishes it — as long as someone does. You can kiss a potential relationship with this publication goodbye.
Seems kinda obvious, so we are putting it last on our list. If your email is sloppy, full of errors, it will show lack of professionalism and cost you the reader’s interest. Mistakes divert people’s attention and stand out like a sore thumb. So make sure to carry out a simple spell check before hitting “send”.
A press release is a way to share important info about your product with a wide target audience. Having your press release published in a major outlet will increase your visibility and get your point across.
However, first you’ll likely need to get the attention of the journalist/social media influencer you want to share your message with first. For that to happen, you’ll need to follow a certain email structure, keeping one thing in mind: your email should be interesting and concise.
Depending on the type of news you want to get out to the masses, the type of person you ask to do so will also vary. It can be an event you are promoting, a charitable cause, a collaboration, a launch of a new product or even a study.
Whichever type that is, think about your media contact and his/her audience, what’s interesting to them. And don’t forget to proofread your email before sending, drop any attachments, time it well and keep it personal — you should be well on your way then.
