Jabari Young, senior writer and editor at Forbes, specializing in the editorial lead of ForbesBLK.
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Anya Meyerowitz is a freelance editor and journalist.
During the episode, Anya highlights what subject lines PR professionals should avoid, her interest in meeting publicists in person, but not after hours, and the process as a freelancer to make a pitch work for the current news cycle.
Follow Anya on LinkedIn and X/Twitter.
Click below to listen to the full conversation and read below for highlights from the interview:
Don't Be Vague In Subject Lines
[0:05:48] BB: Yes. Okay. Yeah, you're masterful now at this level. Okay. You did say that you
had some subject lines that stood out to you. Yes?
[0:05:57] AM: Yeah.
[0:05:58] BB: That you want to share here. Yeah.
[0:06:01] AM: I know people have a past guess of shared the subject lines that they get that
they are less than impressed with.
[0:06:07] BB: Yeah. Very much so.
[0:06:09] AM: Those were the ones that I picked out. Then I'm happy to put the ones that I love. A
couple that stood out when I was going through my inbox having a look the other day. So, the first
one is people that just send something that says, my clients or client update. Then either a list of
their clients just by name and – yeah. No, it was nothing. Also, it cuts off after the first client. I
don't know if your clients are in the wellness space, and the travel space, and the relationship –
[0:06:41] BB: Wait a second. Wait a second, though. You're getting client update, and then you
just get a list of clients, nothing, nothing, like links? Do they get links?
[0:06:50] AM: In the body of the email, not always, actually, but I will just get, you know, "A
refresh on who my clients are," which isn't necessarily unhelpful, but it is unhelpful, if your
subject line just says, "my clients." Very often the people sending those emails, I don't have a pre-
existing or at least not a particularly strong pre-existing relationship with. So, when you say, my,
I don't know who "my" is.
[0:07:14] BB: What we're talking about. Yeah.
[0:07:15] AM: Yeah. It doesn't mean anything to me. I actually, it seems to come into my inbox
quite often. I always wonder with things that with subject lines and particularly bad subject lines
that flow in quite often, I think they must be working somewhere for somebody, otherwise they
wouldn't send them in, but I've had lots of conversations with colleagues over the years. They
don't seem to be working with them either, but I'm sure somewhere in some space they're being
picked up, otherwise I'm sure they would –
[0:07:42] BB: But are they? This is the – you know, I almost think and I need to pick up, I need
to have publicists on here as like a reversed one to be like. Tell me how that horrible pitch, I'm
sorry. Did it didn't work ever or did you just send it, because the boss, boss, boss or whomever
was like, “Hey, you have to send out 57 pitches. I don't care to who.” Like what are we doing
here?
[0:08:03] AM: Or a client, sometimes I can see this.
[0:08:05] BB: Oh, a client. I need to see the list. Did you send a list? Did you send like – it's like,
well, yeah, no.
[0:08:11] AM: I really feel for PR than that. I know.
[0:08:13] BB: I know.
[0:08:13] AM: I can always feel when there's an urgency. Oftentimes as well from junior PRs.
[0:08:18] BB: Yes. Yes, I know.
[0:08:21] AM: I feel for them.
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Insight Into The Story Approval Process
[0:10:40]AM: I think I'm a bit of a confusing one, I think, for lots of PRs, because I'm very often
in house.
[0:10:48] BB: Yes.
[0:10:48] AM: But also, I pitch in as with more of a freelance hat on as well. Sometimes PR
think I'm covering a web director role or a digital editor role. I'm sitting in that one publication.
Sometimes as you say, it's that I'm taking that pitch and then reformatting it and then sending it
on to an editor from home. I guess the process for me, if I'm talking about really freelance
pitching into various outlets would be that I would look at a pitch, see what angle they're
suggesting. I always, always look for what is the hook here, what makes this relevant now.
Sometimes I get pictures that are really interesting, but I just can't find a way to make it relevant
to the moment.
It's actually something that I don't love about journalism. I think we're very focused on news.
Actually, sometimes we just want to read about something, or talk about something, or listen to
something, because it's just interesting, not necessarily –
[0:11:52] BB: That’s right.
[0:11:53] AM: A celebrity said it, or a study said, but that generally tends to be a lot of how the
media worked. You'll know, firsthand. So, I always look to see what the news hook is. If I think
it's a particularly strong pitch, I would sit down and do some research on the news hook myself,
or I really love it when people tell me the search value of something. For example, I once got a
pitch about barn conversions. Barn conversions don't really feature on the radar. I'm not
particularly interested in them. I've never spent much time thinking about barn conversions, but
because the person that pitched this told me that there had been a 300% increase in Google
searches for barn conversions.
[0:12:38] BB: Bond conversions, like the financial bonds?
[0:12:41] AM: No. Barn as in, on a farm.
[0:12:44] BB: Oh, barn. Oh.
[0:12:48] AM: Yeah. Barn, but yeah, totally different thing, barn conversions. I then wrote a
piece for Conde Nast Traveler, for Tatler, and for the Telegraph at different angles. That was
because of that high value piece of information they gave me about search volume, which
showed me that there was a readership there. That was really a powerful hook then for my
editors.
[0:13:08] BB: Yes. Okay. So, using the search volume as an interesting way.
[0:13:13] AM: I think it's really, I think, and obviously that this works mainly for digital, although
arguably if it's being searched for, it's also there's obviously going to be an offline appetite for it
as well. Whenever I speak to PRs, whenever I coach PRs, whenever I give workshops for PRs,
I always talk about it as this really underused resource. Most people will have access to those,
kind of SEO tools. If not, you can sign up to one for free where you get 10 searches a day, that's
more than enough, but it's really, it's so valuable, especially when publishing houses and
publications are being measured on kind of SEO and organic traffic – thing. I don't really
understand why more PRs don't do it.
Rapid Fire Pitching Preferences
[0:14:54] BB: I want to get into our rapid-fire questions, if that's okay. Then we can wrap it.
Okay. Video or phone interview?
[0:15:07] AM: Phone.
[0:15:08] BB: Oh. That's trending, by the way. More phones. More phones. Bullet points or
paragraphs in pitches?
[0:15:13] AM: Paragraphs.
[0:15:15] BB: Paragraph. Also, an unusual answer. Short or long pitches?
[0:15:20] AM: Short.
[0:15:21] BB: Images attached or a drop box zip file?
[0:15:25] AM: Oh, images attached. I can't spend hours going through a drop.
[0:15:27] BB: No, seriously. I cannot either. Email, well, we know you got the inboxes or a DM
of some sort. Do you want any DMs for a pitch?
[0:15:34] AM: You know, I actually don't mind. I don't mind either.
[0:15:37] BB: Interesting. Interesting. Okay. One follow-up or multiple?
[0:15:41] AM: It depends. Sorry. That’s a bit of a cop out –
[0:15:44] BB: That’s okay. That’s okay. Direct or creative subject lines?
[0:15:48] AM: Direct.
[0:15:49] BB: Time you usually read pitches?
[0:15:51] AM: I normally read pitches between seven and nine when I'm sitting down getting my
coffee coming back to –
[0:15:58] BB: London time.
[0:15:59] AM: Yeah. Yeah. London time where there's not so many people needing my time
Then I probably check again just after my lunch break, sort of like 1-2 PM.
[0:16:08] BB: When you say check, you mean you check all five boxes or what do you do?
Because you have five.
[0:16:14] AM: Yeah. Because I have five. If I'm working in-house, I will check the relevant inbox
there, because I'm not going to be sending pictures out elsewhere, but I will in the morning
check across all five, because obviously, there are going to be things that are crossover that are
relevant, whatever the publication is that I'm in-house for. But generally, on any day to day
where I'm not in-house, I will, yeah, check across all five.
________
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