Magic number 8

Emails with a subject consisting of eight words get 21% more CTR. I believe that it is best to use numbers, questions, and colons. Numbers grab attention, making the subject line more concrete, questions spark curiosity and encourage the reader to open the mail, while colons make text more readable and structured. One company segmented their client base and tailored subject lines in order to fit the interests of each one of them increasing their open-rate by 50%. This demonstrates that by carefully using subject lines, great results can be achieved.

Eight word subjects are a perfectly balanced way to convey what you want to communicate, without being too long to the point of the reader being overwhelmed with text. The research by Retention Science says “Use six to 10 words in your subject lines to get the best open rate” making eight a perfect middle ground.

Remember about quotes

My experience shows that any text can be elevated by the power of a strong quote, like a cherry on top of the cake. A well chosen quote can boost your argument, provide credibility, and make your message more persuasive. According to research by eReleases, quotes provide human voice, bringing a personal touch to the text, control over messaging, bring expert insight, and create an emotional connection. There are cases of non-profit organisations using quotes by their beneficiaries and increasing the engagement in social media by 75%.

Smart usage of the quotes can highly improve the quality of your text, making it standout, resonate and be more memorable for both audience and journalists.

400 words is a perfect length

In my experience, what journalists want in their work is clarity. You don’t need to write a 2 page long essay for your press release. 400 long text is a perfect sweet spot for an average release. A story that is easy to quote, simple enough to understand and which can be covered quickly is what journalists will look for.

According to Empathy First Media "this concise format respects journalists’ limited time (70% spend less than one minute reading releases) while still allowing comprehensive communication of essential information.” In 2025 everything moves so much faster, that no one, journalists especially, has the time to read long texts, full of explanations. Respect both your time and the time of journalists by keeping your text focused, clear, and easy to understand.

Power of shorter pitches

Just like with texts and headlines, the principle ‘less text, but more clarity” is applicable to pitches as well. Shorter 50-150 words pitches bring more results, with an average response rate of 7.51%. I believe that shorter pitches like that allow journalists to quickly understand what you are trying to communicate, making it more likely for them to answer.

According to Propel Media Barometer “more focused and personalised pitches get better results” because they don’t overwhelm the reader and makes it easier for journalists to identify the most important information, lowering the cognitive load.

Timing is the key

While size of your text and its quality are very important, you must never overlook timing. In my experience, more often than not, when you send your text, determines whether or not your press release will be published. Perfect times to send your press releases are on Thursday from 10am to 2pm and for pitches on Tuesday and Wednesday for pitches from 10 to 12. You never send anything on Monday or Friday.

Article by Prolly explains that by the time of Thursday, journalists have crossed off the most important tasks and can finally read their unopened mail. On Friday their minds are on weekends so assignments are left until Monday. Be wise with your timing in order to achieve the best results.

30 miss and one hit

The sad reality is that most of your pitches won’t be read. You can send 30 pitches to multiple different media outlets and only one of them will be responded to. Average response rate is 3.43% according to MediaPost. Journalists receive many emails and most of them are not relevant, not to mention the time constraints. This leads to most of the pitches you send being ignored. In 2015 Grammarly sent 100 of pitches to journalists and received no response. Only after they started to make personalised pitches prioritising educational and tech media, their conversion rate increased.

Practice shows that the one way to deal with this is to be smarter about the way you pitch. Send personalised, concise pitches, are more likely to be read. In my opinion what is important is to do research, understand the journalists you want to pitch your material to and prioritise quality over quantity.

Use visual

Sixty-three percent of press releases use multimedia, but 37% are still sending plain text. It is better to stand out by using visuals. Visuals are attention grabbing, they make your message stronger and provide context. In my opinion, plain text is less likely to keep the attention of the reader, while visuals like imagery or graphics/pie charts are instantly noticeable. People have a short attention span and they will likely close your material after skimming it a bit. A PR agency from central Asia, used visual and multimedia in their press releases, leading to 8.9 million views and +67% increase in new PR services inquiries.

Research by PR Newswire shows that press releases having video receive 4.3x more views, while those with images get 1.8x more views. Video has both imagery and audio, from which we can conclude that the more instruments of media is used in the material, the more chance it has to be noticed, shared and published.

Relevance matters

While there are multiple reasons for why your press release or pitch can be ignored by the journalists, like timing or text length, another reason is that your material is not relevant for the media you are trying to get released in. From my experience, in order to avoid that you have to work smart, study what this media you are pitching to usually publishes, their requirements, and any other relevant details. Then look at what you are trying to pitch and understand whether or not it will be relevant in this media. Careful targeting and personalisation increase the chance of your material being noticed and eventually published. A wallpaper company Wallsauce, tailors their press releases for each individual location, adapting language, price tag and format depending on where they send their product.

Cision’s State of the Media Report says that 86% of journalists say that the reason they reject pitches is due to irrelevancy. Carefully tailor what you pitch and personalise it in order to get published.

Solid case without follow-up

While follow-up is usually an effective tool to achieve media publication and it certainly should be considered, what often happens is that a solid release can stand on its own, without a follow up. Not every time, but 25% of press releases get published without any follow-up at all. A well written, relevant release can work on its own. Often the name of brand and its reputation

If your material has a solid structure, storytelling and visual, along with some quotes sprinkled here and there, there is a higher chance of your material getting noticed immediately.

The SEO influence on press releases

Press releases can provide a significant SEO boost, it all depends on the way links are placed, that can generate backlinks, therefore increasing your website’s traffic.

According to the article by Business Wire, press releases having links inside have 77% more traffic in comparison to those without. In a scenario like that press release provides a double advantage, serving as a both PR tool and SEO tool, increasing visibility. All it takes is a careful placement of the links in order to utilise this advantage to its full capacity.

Keep an eye on AI

Bonus insight – 60% of PR teams are already using it for their press releases. The key thing is to use AI as an assistant, not to make it write your press release for you. A well made press release should be enhanced using AI.

AI can be used for analysis, to suggest key words for SEO optimisation, but the creative part should be done by a person. Journalists are trained to see an AI written text, so they won’t be tricked. Submitting an AI written text can damage your reputation and credibility and harm you in the long run.

Note

A good press release is a product of multiple smaller factors. Timing, text length, relevancy. Whether or not you master those determine if you get your media publication. The key, in my opinion, is to continue working. Take note of the factors you missed this time, maybe you were unlucky with timing or your pitch was not relevant enough for this particular outlet. Keep producing a high quality work, polish it, do your research on journalists, personalise it and keep pitching until you secure your publication. It is important to remember that press releases and PR in general are a long term game, in which consistency is a key to achieve your results.

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