The headline is the most important line in your press release. Reporters decide in under two seconds whether to open or skip, and the headline is all they see at that point. A good headline gets the release read. A bad one sends it to the archive unclicked. This post covers what works and what doesn’t.

The reporter’s inbox

To write a good headline, understand the context it appears in.

A reporter covering your beat gets 50-200 pitches and press releases per day. They scan their inbox on a phone, reading subject lines. Each subject line gets about one second of attention. The headline has to earn the next second.

Reporters aren’t looking for cleverness. They’re looking for news they can write about. The headline’s job is to signal: “This is news relevant to your beat, and here’s what happened.”

The headline formula

The formula that works for most press releases:

[Company Name] [Action Verb] [Specific News], [One Key Detail]

Examples:

Each headline has: who did it, what they did, and one detail that makes it specific.

What makes a headline work

Specificity

Specific headlines outperform vague ones every time.

Specific: “Acme Corp Raises $40M Series B Led by Sequoia Capital” Vague: “Acme Corp Announces Significant New Investment”

The specific version tells the reporter the amount and the investor. They can assess newsworthiness in one second. The vague version tells them nothing, so they skip it.

The news verb

Strong news verbs signal action:

Weak verbs signal marketing:

Numbers

Headlines with numbers get opened at higher rates:

Relevance signal

Reporters assess relevance by scanning for keywords related to their beat. Include the industry, category, or topic word that signals relevance:

Headlines that fail

The non-headline

“Acme Corp Announces Exciting News”

This tells the reporter nothing. They won’t click to find out what the exciting news is. They’ll move to the next email.

The marketing headline

“Acme Corp Revolutionizes the Future of Compliance Automation”

“Revolutionizes the future” is marketing language. Reporters skip it reflexively.

The jargon-heavy headline

“Acme Corp Deploys Proprietary NLP-Driven SaaS Solution for GRC Workflows”

Too many acronyms and technical terms. Even a tech reporter will skip this.

The too-long headline

“Acme Corp, the San Francisco-Based Provider of AI-Powered Compliance Automation Tools for the Commercial Construction Industry, Today Announces the Completion of a $40 Million Series B Funding Round Led by Sequoia Capital”

That’s a paragraph, not a headline. Cut it to 15 words.

The question headline

“Is Acme Corp the Future of Compliance?”

Press releases don’t ask questions. They state facts.

The creative headline

“Building Tomorrow, Today: Acme Corp’s Next Chapter”

Save the creativity for magazine features. Press release headlines are factual and direct.

Sub-headlines

A sub-headline (also called a deck or subhead) expands on the main headline with additional detail.

Main: “Acme Corp Raises $40M Series B to Expand Into European Markets” Sub: “Round led by Sequoia Capital; company plans London and Berlin offices in Q3 2026”

The sub-headline adds the investor name, specific cities, and timeline. Reporters who were interested by the main headline now have enough information to decide if they want the full release.

Sub-headline rules

Headlines for different release types

Funding announcements

Format: “[Company] Raises [$Amount] [Round Type] to [Purpose]” Example: “Acme Corp Raises $40M Series B to Expand European Operations”

Product launches

Format: “[Company] Launches [Product Name], [One-Line Description]” Example: “DataFlow Launches HealthSync, an AI Analytics Platform for Hospital Networks”

Executive hires

Format: “[Company] Hires [Name] as [Title]” Example: “CloudSync Hires Former Stripe CTO Maria Santos as Chief Product Officer”

Partnerships

Format: “[Company A] Partners With [Company B] to [Purpose]” Example: “Acme Corp Partners With Procore to Integrate Compliance Automation Into Construction Workflows”

Milestones

Format: “[Company] Reaches [Specific Milestone]” Example: “Acme Corp Reaches 10,000 Customers Across 45 States”

Research or data

Format: “New [Company/Organization] Report: [Key Finding]” Example: “New Acme Corp Report: Construction Compliance Costs Hit $2.3B Annually”

Testing your headline

Before sending, run your headline through these checks:

  1. Does it contain the company name? (Usually yes)
  2. Does it contain a specific news verb? (Not “announces”)
  3. Does it include at least one number? (Amount, percentage, count)
  4. Would a reporter know the beat relevance in one second?
  5. Is it under 80 characters?
  6. Does it read as news, not marketing?
  7. Would you click on this in a crowded inbox?

If all seven pass, the headline is ready.

The AI extraction angle

Headlines matter for AI products too. When AI products browse press releases and news articles, the headline is a primary extraction point. Clear, specific headlines help AI products correctly categorize your news. Vague headlines create ambiguity that AI products resolve by moving to a clearer source.

The bottom line

Press release headlines work when they state the news in specific, factual terms that reporters can assess in one second. Company name, news verb, specific details, and a relevant beat signal. No marketing language, no vagueness, no cleverness. The headline that gets opened is the one that tells the reporter exactly what happened and why it matters to their readers.