As a blogger for VentureBeat, I have received a lot of pitches in person and via email. While I meet many talented entrepreneurs, a large percentage of them have no idea how press coverage can be used to build their businesses. A lot of PR reps don’t either.

Here are a few tips for pitching reporters via email. 

1. Your subject line is the headline of your email. I’m only a contributing writer and I receive a ridiculous amount of pitches everyday. Too many times I’m bombarded with pitch emails with subjects like ‘Story idea’ or ‘Urgent News’.

And…delete. 

It’s generic and lazy. Since there’s no context for the pitch, you will be immediately banished to the trash. You need to create a subject line that will appeal to a reporter.

Everyone has a story idea, that’s why they’re pitching me. I’m a human being damn it, pitch me something interesting. Say something funny in your subject line and I’m far more likely to open your email.  

2. Figure out which reporter at each news outlet is most likely to love your product and pitch them. At VentureBeat, for instance, if you are doing a comic book related application, Anthony Ha is a comic book fan so you should be sure to pitch him. If you’re doing a location based app, you might want to pitch Cody Barbierri. I get pitched social gaming products a lot, despite the fact that we have one of the best gaming reporters on the planet in Dean Takahashi. 

A lot of reporters are generalists, but they have their sweet spots. Search for stories about competitors and other people in the space and see who covered it. Pitch to that sweet spot and your more likely to get a hit. 

3.  Give us some time to write the story. Nothing irritates me more than being pitched an embargoed story the night before (an embargo is when a company gives a reporter a story that the reporter agrees to publish after an agreed upon time). If you get a reporter to open an email and decide they want to write a story, he/she still needs to research the product and marketplace. If you don’t give the reporter enough time, optimally a couple days, you’ll either get a superficial article that won’t really help you or no coverage at all.

4. Attach a company logo, screenshots, and other images. People are far more likely to click on a story with images and reporters know this. If you give the reporter some art for their story, they’re are already more inclined to write it because they don’t have to go searching for an image. If a journalist has to work less on the mundane stuff, you’re more likely to get some coverage.