And while we’re on the subject

I never know if press release subjects should be catchy or informative. On the one hand, I realize how inundated journalists are with releases, pitches, and e mails of all stripes, so while I usually tell people to assume writers don’t read beyond your first paragraph, we might be at a point where they don’t read anything but your subject. Should an e mail subject be something that makes journalists open your press release or something that prevents them from having to?

I have this Gmail account where all the nonsense I sign up for is dumped. There are 4785 unread e mails in there now, and I maybe read one, possibly two, of those a day. So let’s look at the subjects:

Hallak Cleaners, subject: Hallak Cleaners Holiday Hours — informative, do not care, not opening [File under “TMI”, I got involved with Hallak after I was so intelligent as to place a huge bottle of olive oil in my leather and fabric purse and then proceeded to somehow drop the purse. I have not dropped a purse before or since. Who has ever dropped a purse in the history of purses?]

Barnes & Noble, subject: 2 Days Left — 15% Store Coupon – informative, possibly saves me money, done with my Christmas shopping so don’t really care, not opening.

Grub Street, subject: Ravi DeRossi to Open Rum Bar, Bobby Flay’s Lawsuit, Gail Simmons on Wings — informative but catchy, involves a lawsuit, involves wings, still not opening. OK well now I am because I’ve typed all that out and want to know who’s suing Bobby Flay, but I didn’t open it when it arrived.

Ling Skin Care, subject: Happy Holidays from Ling Skin care — not informative, but opening these e mails have saved me money in the past, so yes, open.

Natalie Foster, BarackOb., subject: Amanda — send this to your friends — not informative, but opening because it has my first name in it (I have never seen a classical press release that auto-fills writers’ names like all the e mails from the Obama camp do. That would be exceedingly useful. “Jim – Hilary Hahn is playing a CD release show 1/12.” Love it.)

Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day [where do I find these things to sign up for??], subject: Reminder: 25% off Iowa Pine — informative, not opening, don’t care about whatever “Iowa Pine” is.

Those are the top six in that Gmail inbox, and the two I opened were from senders whose e mails have served me well in the past, regardless of subject (though, as mentioned, recipient-name-in-subject trick does get readers’ attention). Perhaps, then, we can take from this exercise that the Sender field is the more important one; if journalists have been happy with previous press releases and pitches they’ve received from a publicist, his or her e mails will be opened whether the subject is informative, creative, or both.

I am often tempted, however, to steal Time Out New York‘s e mail subjects for my own press releases. I always open those e mails, even though I already subscribe to the magazine and rarely click through them.

Seriously, what would the classical music writers of New York City do if “Free burgers, Scarlett Johansson and your best holiday ever” was my e mail subject, and they opened the press release to find “Called ‘consistently charismatic, theatrically and vocally’ by New York Magazine, American bass-baritone Eric Owens will perform an evening of standards at (le) poisson rouge on January 5, 2010.” Would I at least get style points?

Here’s another:

…and you open it to find, “On January 11, 2010, Sondra Radvanovsky will bring her lush musicality and incandescent interpretations of Verdi’s works to the Metropolitan Opera in Stiffelio.”

Back in September, Anne Midgette wrote a great post, “What’s in a Name?“, about creatively naming albums:

This reminded me of a CD that came across the transom the other day with the deliberately provocative title “Razor Blades, Little Pills and Big Pianos.”
It looked like yet another pop CD sent to the wrong critic, but in
fact, the repertory was straight classical piano: Bach’s French Suite,
Chopin’s Ballade No. 4, Beethoven’s e minor sonata, op. 90, and the
like. The soloist, James Rhodes,
has chosen to feature his turbulent past (childhood abuse, breakdowns,
drugs) in his presentation, baring everything in interviews, on his
website, and in conversations with his audience when he performs.

Not the same thing about blatantly lying about the subject in the subject of an e mailed press release, but related food-for-thought nonetheless.

Don’t forget to nominate people/places/things (cough::cough Anne’s blog…) for The Pitchies.