Wondering how to write a pitch email? In this guide on best email pitches, we cover the meaning of pitch emails, pitch email subject lines, pitch email follow-ups, and pitch email examples and pitch email templates.
Are you having problems pitching your product, service, or solution to new clients? A well-written pitch email will provide an effective strategy to engage with new clients, customers, and collaborators.
Creating the perfect pitch email is challenging. Your email pitch must package up your proposition quickly, or your audience will click off. But you can't rely on templates. The best email pitches are personalized, passionate, and quick to get to the point.
In this guide on how to write a pitch email, we describe the pitch email meaning. Then, we provide some practical examples of how to start a pitch email and pitch email subject lines. Finally, we'll also cover pitch email examples and introduce you to MailMaestro's pitch email template to help you nail your email pitches like this:
What is a pitch email?
Don't think you've ever received a pitch email? You probably get at least 10 a day if you are a decision-maker in any business.
A pitch email is a collective term for any sort of cold email you receive from someone proposing something to you.
It could be someone trying to sell you a product or service. It could be someone asking for work experience or inquiring about a job. For example, it could be someone pitching for a business or asking you to invest in theirs.
Pitch emails aren't about promotion, but about problem-solving says marketing expert Jason Zook. "One of the early mistakes I made was sending the same email to a bunch of people (cold). Those emails weren't personalized, were strictly copied and pasted, and ended up being ineffective," he warns.
The answer? Pitch emails aren't just about listing the specifics of your product or service; it's about digging deeper to create an emotional connection, argue experts.
A successful pitch email is personalized and professional, identifying the pain points you can solve.
Before we go on, we should explain that we're not describing how you write an elevator pitch in this guide. That's up to you. Instead, we provide a helpful guide that explains how you use that pitch and take the next step in engaging an audience.
How to write an email pitch
Writing pitch emails, particularly 'cold emails' (to people you've never met), is challenging, says Tucker Max in the Harvard Business Review. They're hard for two reasons: "You have no relationship with your audience yet, and you lack non-verbal feedback, so you can't modify your approach in real-time," Tucker says.
So, how do you write a pitch email? According to Tucker, the best pitch emails are five things:
1. Be tailored to each recipient
2. Validate yourself – explain why you, and your proposal, matter
3. Focus on pain, providing something your audience wants
4. Make messages short and actionable
5. Expresses gratitude for their time and consideration
These five core aspects provide a framework for a compelling pitch email, helping you engage more effectively with customers, clients, stakeholders, and leaders.
Writing a professional pitch email is simple if you follow the rules and use appropriate email etiquette. You need to:
• Understand and use the correct email format
• Keep things simple, and focus on essential information
• Be professional and polite in your messages
• Remember always to ask and never demand
• Set expectations for a response and a follow-up
Let's explore these best practices in greater detail.
Pitch email format
The pitch email format is the same as any standard professional email and includes:
• Subject line
• Greeting
• Body Copy
• Sign-off
• Signature
We've created a series of guides to help you on how to write a professional email, so if you need to brush up on the basics, start there.
How to start a pitch email
Pitch emails are slightly different from a standard professional message and can include a whole range of varying email greetings.
Traditionally, when writing a professional email, you would use Dear << person's name>>. For some pitch emails, we'd still recommend that, including:
• Pitching for a job
• Pitching for a guest post
• Pitching to a journalist
• Pitching for investment
• Pitching a new business idea
However, you can be more creative when working on a customer-facing outbound marketing campaign. You can use a job title, first name, or some of the following:
• Hi
• Hi there
• Hello
• Allow me to introduce myself
In some cases, you may not even want to engage the person; instead, provide a more generalized greeting:
• We've never met, but…
• I hope you're doing well
• I want to ask your advice on…
• You probably get hundreds of these emails, but…
When pitching, you should always look for new and effective ways to engage an audience. The trick is to find a greeting that grabs attention but doesn't cause offense. If you need more help with how to start an email, we recommend that you read our blog post on the topic.
How to end a pitch email
In formal messages, the decision on how to end an email is related to how you started it. For example, if you know and have used a person's name, you'd use "yours sincerely". If you didn't, you'd use "yours faithfully".
That principle still applies if you're sending the type of formal emails outlined above.
However, email sign-offs can be personalized, functional, and in some cases, even funny (as long as it works).
Examples of less formal sign-offs include:
• Look forward to hearing from you
• Hope to catch up soon
• Contact me if you need more information
• Let me know if I can help
• Hope you're having a great day
Email pitch subject lines
Email pitch subject lines are the first thing that your audience will see, and if it doesn't resonate; the only thing they'll see.
The best subject lines focus on generating the interest and enthusiasm needed to encourage them to open it.
A Polish team of writers has developed seven points for writing a great subject line that we really like:
1. Keep it short
2. Don't impress with style
3. Beware of spam filters
4. Mention a connection to what's inside your email
5. Personalize subject lines
6. Use "PR" or "Press release" in your subject line (or not?)
7. Mention multimedia elements
Use these seven points as a guide to writing better pitch email subject lines, and check out our examples below.
Email pitch subject line examples
There are loads of different ways to create email subject lines. Using the principles outlined above, some successful email pitch line strategies include:
• Tackling pain points ¬– "Are you getting the best deal on your XXX?"
• Personalize it – "David, can we save you money?"
• Saving money – "We can save you 50% on your call costs. Interested?"
• Creating urgency – "Last day to access our exclusive discount!"
• Offer value – "I help you reach you smash your sales target"
Pitch email examples
In this selection of the best email pitch examples, we tackle 10 email pitches you might find yourself sending. These pitch email examples are a great place to start, but personalization is critical to creating the best pitch emails, so use these as a starting point and guidance.
1. Sales pitch email examples
Sales pitches (and follow-ups) are among the hardest emails to write, with click-through rates often in single figures. This sales pitch email example focuses on a pain point and provides a solution. See how it works below.
2. Photography pitch email
As a photographer, pitching your work is essential to finding opportunities to showcase your style. This photography pitch email template includes information on you but an appreciation for the publication and the person likely to book you.
3. Email pitch to a journalist
Pitching a story to a journalist is a great way to get your business or brand exposure. Still, you'll be competing with hundreds of others for their attention, so it'll need to be well-written and compelling.
A media pitch email, or PR pitch email, contains enough information for the journalist to get a taste of the story. This email pitch to journalist example must be personalized for your own stories.
4. Business pitch email sample
We've written a detailed guide on how to write business emails, but in this business pitch email, we're pushing the benefits of our product.
5. Investor pitch email
An email pitch to investors can be an effective way to generate the capital you need to expand. But, of course, you're not going to secure a significant investment with an email, but it can start the process. So here's how with our investor pitch email example.
6. Influencer pitch email
Influencers, like journalists, play an essential role in modern product promotion and sales. In this collaboration pitch email, we provide a value-based approach. Check out our influencer outreach email example below.
7. Product pitch email example
A product pitch email is a valuable promotional mechanism in your marketing strategy to get your product out to a broader audience. You want to include information on the product attributes but focus more on the problems it solves for your potential customer.
8. Brand pitch email template
Partnering with a brand can help propel your business or social profile forward. In this email pitch to brands, we focus on the mutual benefits of collaboration. Check it out below:
9. Email pitch for job application
In this email pitch for a job application, we briefly introduce your skills and experience as a lead-in to your CV. The idea here is to demonstrate how you can positively benefit the organization. Here's our email pitch for the job application below:
10 Wholesale email pitch
If you're wondering, how do you write a pitch email to a retailer? Here's a template for you. Getting a retailer to wholesale your products can help accelerate growth and increase turnover. So here's our wholesale email pitch template:
11. Guest post email pitch
Getting a guest post published can get you extra traffic and increase website visibility. We've written a detailed guide on how to get a post published, but check out our guest post pitch email template for some more inspiration.
Email pitch template by MailMaestro
MailMaestro is an AI email assistant that turns your instructions into ready-to-send emails and messages, like this:
Our browser extension and web app take care of the email format, capitalization, grammar, spelling, punctuation. In other words you can focus on the message, and MailMaestro will take care of the delivery.
We dare to claim that it's the fastest way to improve you email pitches. Our AI template collection features dozens of email templates to help you.
Conclusion
Learning how to write pitch emails is a skill that takes practice and some trial and error. Over time, you'll develop strategies for success that are effective for your audience. The pitch email examples provided here are a basis for your experiments. Use those in combination with the principles outlined above to help power your pitches to access new opportunities. You can also power your email elevator pitch with artificial intelligence to write the best email pitch possible, thanks to MailMaestro.
follow-up on our previous call, ask if he’s ready to start cooperation let him know that our discount ends tomorrow ask him if he had time to calculate roi
