Top Tips For Writing A Press Release
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Moving on to April’s newsletter and this month we are going to be passing on some of our most top-secret tips for writing a press release and then in May's newsletter we will follow it with how you can get it noticed.
It is best that I point out now that every public relations professional has their own way for structuring press releases and what I am going to write is from personal experience so don't be afraid of playing around with the structure to try and increase the response rate.
Before we get started you need to open the template release from one of our clients that you can see by clicking here. I chose this release as it is quite a chunky one and got coverage in every national UK newspaper along with radio interviews and the client was also asked to appear in a film.
The numbers in red on the template relates to the numbered section below.
1
Make sure your contact details are shown in a prominent style in the header.
2 Put a date on, ideally the same date as they day on which you send it.
3 There are two forms of press release, the one as shown which is "For Immediate Release" and "Embargoed Until X Date". Embargoed releases are now very rare and I have only used them three times in my career and this was to do with financial results of listed companies. By embargoing the release you are allowing the journalist to prepare the story but not actually run it until the date stipulated. In all honesty, if your story is very good they will ignore the embargo and this has happened to me before as the journo’s want to run it before their rivals. If you are an SME you can more or less bet that a journo will ignore your embargo.
4 Don’t worry about having the most snappy of snappy headlines. The newspapers and magazines have dedicated people who’s job it is to summarise the story in a catchy title. You need to just make sure your title is vaguely interesting, makes sense and is noticeable. One tip is to use capatalisation in part of the title.
5 This paragraph is a very quick overall summary of the release and usually this is the only section the journo reads to decide if they are going to read on or not. You have to make sure this bit is rock solid, short, to the point and interesting. Note the use of italic font to show it as an overview.
6 This is your first official paragraph for the release and once again you need to basically do a quick overview of the main parts of the story you are trying to get across. You will note that the company name is not mentioned at all in sections 5 or 6. You may think this is odd but many journo’s don’t like to see the company name until further down the release and will bin it if they think it is just a really obvious propaganda piece.
6a. In the second paragraph you can introduce the company name and if you are sending it electronically or putting it on a newswire then use a web link, especially if your brand is not a household name. The journo will often then click through to see what your site is like.
7 If you have covered all the main points off and are happy then you may not need number 7 and you can go straight into 8. Never waffle on for the sake of it. Releases should be to the point and factual.
8. Here is the quote section. Make sure you put the title of the person you are quoting and use their full name. This is your chance to get over a decent sound bite that the media can focus on. The more interesting your quote the more chance it has of being used.
9 If there is a commercial aspect to the story, i.e you are announcing a new product launch or alike then this is the place where you put in how much it costs and where it is available from along with any launch offers etc.
10 Similar to 7, you may not need section 10, but it is a good place to put any other information you think is relevant.
11 Pictures can decide if a story gets used or not, especially if you have a good visual angle. You can also put in here that spokespeople are available to comment. Always best to put your most senior person up for interview where possible.
12 Editors Notes is for anything else you can think of including contact details and I usually put in a company's 5 USP’s. In this case it is factual information but you can also put info such as award wins in here.
13 Don’t forget to reinforce your contact information.
Well, enough from me. As ever I hope this helps and remember if you have any special requests for future newsletters or are looking for advice and help with public relations, marketing and design please don't hesitate to get in touch.