Make Your Press Release a Success

by Erin Cochran

Advertising is only one way to get publicity for your business.

You can spread the word about your business in a more subtle fashion by sending press releases about your news and events to local, national and trade publications.

But how do you write a press release that editors will read? You can do some of the work for them by coming up with a unique "angle," a conceptual axis on which to center the story, and writing your press release around this axis. Sometimes this is embodied in the story itself, but other times you have to dig for it. It's worth the effort, however; anything that makes less work for the editor helps pave the way for your story to be included in the publication.

 

Making Yourself Newsworthy

Possibly the best way to call attention to your business in a press release is to participate in the community and do something that editors want to share with their readers. An event, sale or tie-in with a holiday can have the makings of a story that catches an editor's eye—or lands you a spot in your local paper's "community calendar." If your town hosts a summer festival or the equivalent, would hosting an open house draw welcome attention to your business?

Sponsorship of a community program—think kids' baseball or soccer teams—or supplying a product to be raffled off or sold in a charity auction can pique community interest as well. Does your local library have a rotating display of artwork and other collections of note? How about going to them with a display illustrating the how-tos of cardmaking, complete with samples you've created yourself?

(It's best to bear in mind that hosting a charity event or providing a community service should be done only if your heart is in it; coming across as though you're only in it for the promotional aspect won't leave a positive impression in the public mind.)

Of course, what's "newsworthy" varies a great deal from publication to publication. Introducing a product that you've managed to distinguish from the competition might not make the community newspaper, but your industry's trade magazine could very well eat it up.

If the company news you wish to share isn't obviously newsworthy, one way to nudge it in that direction is to frame it in terms of its most unique aspect—for example, by going for the most local angle you can, or by tying it in with a historically audience-pleasing topic. If one of your employees was acknowledged with an award, for instance, consider what's unique about that employee or the circumstances surrounding her achievement. Is the proud recipient one of the oldest workers in the community? Is she unusually young to have won that particular award? Maybe she's even one of your own kids. (Kevin Nunley of Pertinent Information at www.pertinent.com notes that kids are a perennial topic of mass interest.)

Above all, make certain the story is potentially interesting to the readership of the media outlet you've selected. Local businesses that supply PR can be a great boon to editors, who are trying to come up with a steady stream of interesting content. However, you have to show what's in it for them. PublicityInsider.com notes that "the reporter isn't interested in helping you make money or driving visitors to your website. He's looking for a story that will be interesting to his readers and pleasing to his editor. He could care less about your great selection, super customer service and commitment to quality." Obvious advertising is more likely to annoy than get you published.

Mark Gebbie of Pertinent Information says that you should "use releases only when you have something worth taking an editor's time." Even if a publication doesn't bite initially, if you continue to send worthwhile, newsworthy press releases to the publications of your choice, they may become familiar with your name over time and therefore more inclined to run with your story.

Building a name for yourself always takes time, so don't give up.

 

Writing the Press Release

As we've observed, when writing your press release advertising should not be your primary focus. Using too much promotional language can sabotage your purpose, making it seem uninteresting and self-serving. Nunley notes that press releases should generally be news stories that are "slanted a bit to cover your goals"—not the next thing to advertising copy.

Press releases should be written using the same format by which newspaper articles are put together: third person, inverted pyramid style, along with the five Ws and H.

• Inverted Pyramid: the journalistic style in which the most pertinent facts are established first, with corroborating details added in the order of importance. The challenge can lie in figuring out what's most important! Consider which facts are essential to telling the story and proceed from there.
• Five Ws and H: Who, What, When, Where, Why and How. Who are the principal actors in this event? What is the event? When did/will it happen? Where did it take/will it be taking place? Why did it occur? How did it unfold? Answer these questions in as much detail as you can muster; though you might not use it all, it will help you realize the parameters of your story.

Brian Moore of The Write Market (www.thewritemarket.com) also recommends keeping the following questions in mind when crafting your press release. Who would want to read it? What are you trying to convey? When is your information available? Where can they learn more? Why is the information valuable? How does it stand out from every other press release?

The final version should be free of grammar and spelling errors. Remove any redundancies and courtesy titles, as well as industry-specific jargon if you're mailing this to general-interest publications. When contacting trade journals, of course, technical terms are fine. You may even want to consider buying a copy of the AP Stylebook or Chicago Manual of Style, the stylebooks most commonly used by periodicals. With these, you can learn how abbreviations, capitalization and alternate phrasings are handled by the publications you're contacting, which saves them work and smoothes the way for getting your article published.

Try to trim the release to two pages or fewer. If it does end up being more than one page, make sure to number them and type "—more—" at the bottom of the first to make sure the recipient won't miss the last half of the release. If you're mailing it conventionally, rather than folding it like a letter, fold it so that the first thing the recipient sees upon opening the letter is the headline.

One final tip: it's best to tailor your release to suit the publication. Trade publications are not looking for the same things as general-interest publications, which are not looking for the same things as trade-specific Internet newsletters. Trade publications and especially general-interest publications will be skeptical of advertorial language such as "breakthrough," "state-of-the-art" or "leading supplier," as well as repetitions of catchphrases. In Internet newsletters or other online venues, however, there are different rules—for one thing, the bar for publication isn't usually as high. While you don't want to go overboard with hype-heavy language, you do want to use repetition to land information about your company near the top of search engines, which can be a powerful business tool. Marcia Yudkin at The Write Market advises against simply using your company name over and over; decide on a key phrase that describes your product (nature-art stamp, for example) and use it several times in the body of the release where you would normally use a pronoun. That way, people looking for a particular product but not your particular company name will be more likely to run across your company as a provider of that product.

 

The Nitty-Gritty

Now let's get into the nuts and bolts of building your press release. These elements should always be included when you put your article together.

• Date and Contact Information: When time matters—and it often does—you may want to have a "For Release" line to specify when the information you're relaying is most optimally released. If the information is being kept confidential until a particular date—for instance, a business merger that will be finalized on January 5—type "For Release After Jan. 5" at the top of your release. Likewise, if your news has some deadline associated with it—for example, if the raffle tickets for the item you provided to the local school for fundraising must be bought by a specific date—use "For Release Before." Make sure to include as much contact information as you can at the end of the release—e-mail, cellular phone, fax, etc. This makes it much easier for your target to get back to you. Also include one or two specific people as contacts, and address the envelope to the specific editor or reporter you're trying to contact. Gebbie recommends a little paragraph called called a trailer at the end of the press release that tells the recipient how they can get supplementary material, such as photos.
• Headline: Many professionals recommend that your headline should be 10 words or less; at any rate, it should definitely be short and to the point. Any big claims that involve words along the lines of "best" or "only" should be backed up by the facts. When you're trying to come up with a descriptive, attention-grabbing headline, it can be hard to resist the urge to slip into promotional language, but it's best to tone it down. "Make it benefits-oriented," recommends InternetBasedMoms.com—as when trying to decide on your angle, try to highlight the aspect of the story most likely to appeal to readers of the publication.
• Lead: The lead is the opening paragraph of your press release. Summarize the article in as little space as possible—make it a condensed version of the five Ws and H. Keep it clean and don't try to cram in too many details. This is where you can first cast your story in the terms of the angle you've chosen.
• Body: The body is the meat of your release, where you flesh out the details encapsulated in your lead. Tell your story in a logical order, most important details first (remember your inverted pyramid), organized by relatively brief paragraphs. Don't tell the story in broad generalities; pack in lots of pertinent detail: specific descriptions, anecdotes and quotes from those in the know. Make sure to back up your data; Moore recommends detailing the credentials of those quoted in the attribution for additional support. Go easy on the adjectives—too many can sound excessively promotional. Use active verbs, keep the paragraphs short and tight and again, back up any claims you make.
• Closing: The closing is a way to wrap up the article; summarize the article briefly. One way to make the closing more effective is formulating it as a "Call to Action"—a pointer for the readers that enables them to find out more or even get involved—but be gentle about it. After the article proper, include a canned paragraph (boilerplate) that contains contact information and anything you want readers to know about your company. This should be separated from the article portion of the release with a blank line. Finally, your last line should be a ### or -30-, commonly used symbols that signal the end of the release.

Hooking the Editor

Getting your press release printed isn't just about writing appealing copy, but about making sure it makes it into the hands of the right people. Now that it's been written and edited, it's time to send it out into the wide world of publishing. But whom should you target?

It's probably best to discount the big national media unless your story has big effects beyond your region or industry. In addition to being much more likely to print your press release, media outlets with a smaller readership—local and trade publications in particular—can actually be better contacts in terms of business. For one thing, they're more likely to target readers who are likely to buy from you. As already discussed, the relevant trade publications will often publish relatively inconsequential, industry-specific news that wouldn't necessarily attract general-interest publications. Local alternative newspapers are another possibility—sometimes they have trouble finding material, so you may be able to command a relatively larger portion of their attention.

One good way to increase your press release's chances in the local media is to read those publications regularly and figure out, from the material they cover, which reporters and columnists would be most likely cover your story. If you're holding or participating in an event, is there a columnist who compiles a community calendar? If you've won some kind of industry award, is there a feature reporter who from time to time writes stories about local businesses? Focus on them. If you can't find anybody relevant, Gebbie suggests doing some research to discover who at your local newspaper screens the flood of press releases it almost certainly gets. "Learn who it is and cultivate that person," he says. At the very least, decide which section your story best fits into—news, features, business, etc.

Whoever you decide to target, send the release to only one person per publication. "Any problems that develop from duplicate coverage and effort will be blamed on you," warns PoeWar.com's John Hewitt. Calling ahead of your press release may give them a voice to go with a name, but Kevin Nunley (also of Pertinent Information) recommends planning in advance; you could be ignored if you call in the middle of the afternoon, which tends to be deadline at many daily and weekly newspapers.

Speaking of deadlines, it's essential to find out when they are. Weekly newspapers have deadlines at least three or four days in advance of publication, while magazines and newspaper feature sections' deadlines can be as early as three or four months before the issue hits the streets. This will vary with individual publications, of course. If you're afraid that you'll be forgotten if you send out a release too far in advance, Hewitt recommends sending a second release closer to the date.

Whether you fax, e-mail or use conventional mail to send your release depends on your goals. The general consensus is that mailed releases get more attention. E-mail is easy to delete unread, and Hewitt goes so far as to advise only faxing in an emergency or for fast-breaking news, but physical mailings are also more expensive. If you send photos with a mailed press release—Hewitt recommends doing this only if it adds something to the story, but a picture can make editors more likely to notice you—you can minimize damage in transit by sandwiching them between two sheets of cardboard. If you choose e-mail, don't send pictures or other attachments unless the recipient is expecting it or is generally OK with files attached to press releases; many institutions delete any unsolicited e-mail unread if it comes with an attachment because of virus concerns. It may be better to provide a link to the pictures in question (and they should be high-resolution for publication purposes).

E-mail does tend to be an appropriate method of communication when dealing with online publications, a venue that should not be overlooked in the process of sharing your press releases. Online newsletters, industry websites and e-zines may reach a smaller audience, but it will be a more specialized one. Newswires are another electronic way of getting the word out; they will send your PR electronically to the publications of your choice. This can also gain you more hits on search engines and potentially more sales, according to Yudkin: "Post your release at your own website on its own page, linked from your home page, in addition to submitting it to your favorite press release distribution service."

 

The Aftermath

When you cast your lure, a number of things can happen. Unfortunately, as with fishing, "nothing" is one of the possibilities; regardless of the prep work you've done, editors sometimes do ignore the bait. If an editor bites, though, there are a number of ways they may use the provided release. First of all, they may simply run it as you've sent it. Secondly, they may run it with changes to either form or content (cutting out less-essential paragraphs, for example). They may also call your contact person to follow up on it and eventually write a full story. If this occurs, stay calm and prepare yourself for the interview physically, mentally, and factually—it's one of the possibilities you were hoping for.

Sources:

• AllPro BizOps (www.allprobizops.com)
• FrugalMarketing.com (www.frugalmarketing.com)
• InfoScavenger (www.infoscavenger.com/prtips.htm)
• InternetBasedMoms.com (www.internetbasedmoms.com)
• Pertinent Information (www.pertinent.com)
• PoeWar.Com (www.poewar.com)
• A Publicity Primer (amar.colostate.edu/~hallahan)
• PublicityInsider.com (www.publicityinsider.com)
• theWHIR.com (www.thewhir.com)
• The Write Market (www.thewritemarket.com)

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