Marketing

How To Write a Successful Press Release?

As the title suggests, this post is about how to properly write and publish a succesful press release. It is important for you to know how to write a good press release because this is the first line contact between your company and the world. By writing good release’s you will not only gain more publicity directly from the release but you also gain alot of contacts within the News Media which is always a good thing.

What is your purpose?

The most important thing in writing a good press release is a clear understanding of what you would like to achieve with this press release. Albeit it introduce a positive thing linke introducing a new product or something negative like doing damage control to protect the reputation of your company. What ever it is, before you start writing you must know what you’d like to achieve with your press release. I usually write “by the end of this release my audience will……” and fill in the blank with my purpose, before not only each press release but also each post.

What should go within a press release?

News venues will do one of two things once they get your press release. They’ll print it directly as if it where a real article or they’ll use the information in your release and write their own article. You don’t want to write two different releases for the same topic, so within your press release you should have all the information anyone could want about the topic of your release and it must be written in an easily readable fashion that will convey the purpose you established in the last paragraph. Also, notice I said one release for one topic. If when you determined your purpose, you used the word and, i.e “by the end of this release my audience will [blank] and [blank].” Chances are your purpose is not specific enough and you should think about doing two seperate releases to cover each topic sufficiently.

How long should my press release be?

The actuall answer is as long as it needs to be to convey all the information. Though common practice tells us that most press release’s are between 500-700 words but sometimes when a company has quite a bit to release you do get more. But remember what I said in the last paragraph, If your release is excessively long, think again about what your purpose is.

Is there a format I should use?

There is a generally accepted format you should use and it looks something like this……

CONTACT:
Contact Person
Company Name
Phone Number
FAX Number
Email Address
Website URL

Headline That Grabs the Readers Attention Should be Bolded and bigger than body text
<City>, <State>, <Date> - Your first paragraph of the release should be written in a clear and concise manner. The opening sentence contains the most important information; keep it to 25 words or less. Never take for granted that the reader has read your headline. It needs to contain information that will “entice” the reader. Remember, your story must be newsworthy and factual; don’t make it a sales pitch or it will end up in the trash.

Answer the questions “who”, “what”, “when”, “where”, “why” and “how”. Your text should include all pertinent information about your product, service or event. If writing about a product, make sure to include details on when the product is available, where it can be purchased and the cost. If you’re writing about an event, include the date, location of the event and any other pertinent information. You should include a quote from someone that is a credible source of information; include their title or position with the company, and why they are considered a credible source. Always include information on any awards they have won, articles they’ve published or interviews they have given.

Keep your sentences and paragraphs short; a paragraph should be no more than 3-4 sentences. Write your relase in a word processing program,this enables you to properly format and spell check it for errors. Don’t forget to proofread and if possible get someone else to proofread for grammatical errors. The mood of the release should be factual, not hyped; This is not a sales pitch, if it sounds like a sales pitch you’ll ruin your credibility with not only the news venue publishing your release but also the audience you hope to inform with your release.

The last paragraph should have information on how to get more information: For additional information on [Topic of Release], contact “name” or visit www.myawesomeproduct.com. If you offer a sample, copy, media package or demo, put the information in here.

ABOUT <YourCompany> - Include a brief description of your company along with the products and services it provides.

-END- Always put the word End at the end because that lets the journalist know they got the entire release

Where should I publish my release?

You want to get your release read so try and get it published as many relevant places as you possibly can. Here are a few examples of places to place your release.

• In the news section of your companies site.
• Send it to Newspapers both local ones and national ones.
• Send to news agencies(reuters,AP)
• Send it to all relevant bloggers(like me;)
• Submit to social news sites(Digg, Reddit,etc)

There are press release services, though I dont really trust any of the ones I found by googling plus if you use a press release service you aren’t getting the valuable direct contact between news media and your company.