What Should Your Subject Line Be When Pitching?
Recently, I’ve had a bunch of people ask me the same question: What should I put in the subject line of my pitch emails?!
I hadn’t ever considered doing a blog post about just this, but seeing as it’s clearly causing so many of you doubt, I’m here to help :)
My theory with pitch email subject lines is simple: I want the person who receives the email to know exactly what to expect before they’ve even hit “open.”
Why?
These people are busy! I don’t want to be seen as someone wasting their time.
Have you ever received an email from someone, or even a newsletter, which has a subject line along the lines of: “RE: coffee on Thursady?” You open the email because you feel confused: “Did I have a coffee meeting planned with this person? OMG have I forgotten about something?” queue panic Of course, this is just a “click bait” tactic. What these people know is that they’re catching your attention, and making you open their email.
Sure, you’ll open it. But when you realise that you’ve been fooled by them, you’ll feel angry. I certainly do! I get annoyed, feel frustrated, and actually dislike that person who sent that email quite a lot!
So coming at it from that point of view, I decided to always keep my email subject lines very obvious. They do what they say on the tin!
So what kind of subject lines could you use?
It’s up to you to experiment, but subject lines which have worked fo me include:
Fashion photographer who’d love to collaborate
Fashion photographer sharing her portfolio with you
UK photographer with an idea
things like that…
I hope that’s been helpful, and will clarify any doubt you’ve had over what to send as a subject line in an email pitch
