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1. A Press Release is not an advertisement. Do not use your press release to try and make a sale. In fact many times it is more powerful at less cost. It should be written in 3rd person. Any hint of Spam and it will be rejected by readers, if not the reviewing editor of the Press Release agency. There are many opportunities to do a Press release, such as those listed above. Make sure the topic is "newsworthy", or don't waste everyone's time.
2. The first line of your press releases should include:
" FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE" (Date inclusion is optional) .
3. Craft a compelling headline. Grab reader attention immediately, create interest. Keep it to the point and short, usually 10 words or less. This is the best chance to command attention. Do not use all capital letters, italics are preferred.
4. The 1st paragraph - Hook the reader with the first paragraph. A first paragraph should summarize the five W's: who, what, where, when and why. Most readers will bail out if you haven't "hooked" them in the first short summary paragraph.
5. Put the most important information at the beginning. This is a "tried and true" rule of journalism. Think "Top Heavy" when composing the Release.
6. Don't sell but answer questions! Do not hype of over-inflate anything. Write a release that answers questions about your business. Most of the adjectives can be left out. No "flowery" conjecture or marketing hype allowed here! Marketing "Fluff" is out!
7. Don't say it, show it. Avoid using terms such as "unique" or "the best". Instead, focus on the benefits such as how to; save time, save money, make their life easier, etc. Consumers don't buy products and services anyway. They buy the "perception of benefits". Forget decorative adjectives, you want action verbs and adverbs!
8. Use a Word Processor to develop your Press Release content, not the Press agency text form input windows. This is an iterative process meaning that it has to be written, reviewed and edited, several times usually. The pre-press product should be grammatically correct and have no spelling errors. Don't trust your word processing program to catch errors in grammar and spelling only. Have others read the release and offer suggestions before sending it to a reporter or news agency.
9. Provide all possible contact information including mailing address, telephone, fax, and website. Do not include an e-mail address in an on-line release in the body, unless you like Spam. Most agencies don't allow any kind of links within the body anyway. The News Agency will require it in a different non-published form field.
10. Do not include any HTML in the body including links and anchor text. These are handled in separate form fields.
11. A well written Press Release should be between 200-500 words in length.
12. Your press release should end with a short paragraph (company boilerplate) that describes your company, products, service and/or a short company history.
13. End your press release with "###" (without the quotation marks) after your last line of text. This symbol lets the editors know they have received the entire release, successfully. It denotes an end.
14. Make sure and develop a list of keywords and phrases just like you would for a web page. PRWeb and other online News Release Agencies use them to submit to Search Engines and also optimize your Press Release on their Site. |
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