What Is Opening Day?

It’s “Opening Day!”  For baseball fans, it means the beginning of the Major League Baseball season.  For hardcore baseball fans, it’s often celebrated like St. Patrick’s Day or Cinco de Mayo.

For communications professionals who play in the media relations arena, it can be a day to remind ourselves how to make sure our e-mails to members of the media actually get opened rather than deleted without even a peak.

Here are some reminders, right out of the game-day program:

• Be familiar with the starting line-up. While not always possible, try to have an established relationship with the reporter before sending an e-mail, which could otherwise be perceived as random. Familiarity goes a long way.
• Double-headers are mostly a thing of the past – more isn’t always better. Don’t mass e-mail. Most people, including reporters like a personalized approach rather than a one-size-fits-all message.
• Rain delays are a part of baseball – but shouldn’t be a part of your e-mail. Don’t send PDFs as attachments.  In today’s world of viruses and spam filters, this is just one more potential snag.  It also makes cutting and pasting more difficult for the reporter.
• Know the difference between the coach’s bunt sign and steal sign. Don’t send Word documents as attachments.  That is, unless you want to chance it that your e-mail ends up in the spam filter before even getting to the intended inbox.  Including attachments is a bad idea all the way around.
• Home plate is 17-inches wide. Make sure your subject line is succinct. No need to be verbose, but be descriptive.

It’s not an opened and shut case but playing to your strengths can help get those e-mails looked at before being deleted.  And remember that not every pitch results in a home run.