For Starters – PRESS RELEASE Part I

Press releases aren’t dead or outdated. They are still a tool that’s very much alive and useful. If done properly. A press release may not have an instant massive outreach like a post on social media. But that is not its purpose.

You want to create media coverage, not just inform people who are already interested in and connected to you. You want to get in touch with the gatekeepers of this trade, namely journalists and other bloggers.

So how do you write a killer press release and how can you get it heard?

Above all, be precise and concise.

Keep in mind that those gatekeepers, depending on their current status, most probably get bombarded with press releases everyday. Be concise and picky.

Let’s start off with the proper structure of a press release, which overall looks like this:

pressreleasetemplate

The main title is your headline. If this doesn’t grab attention immediately, you might as well not bother writing the rest of your press release.

But unlike advertising, this is the place for giving the most boiled down version of your info. This is not the place for witty semantics. You’ll need those later. Be precise with your title as well as a potential subtitle.

In the first paragraph you make your announcement and give the most important information about it, like benefits.

The content of additional paragraphs should only relate to the content of the first paragraph, of course. Meaning you have the chance to give further information about your product, company or professional network, relating to your announcement.

The use of quotes is often an effective way to share somebody else’s insight on the topic. Unlike testimonials, the use of quotes has a less promotional character, but still has power of persuasion.

It’s recommended to keep your press release on one single page, if yours takes more space (time to read!) you should consider slimming it down.

The boilerplate is the section for your standard description of your company/project, including your tag line, under 100 words.

The press release end with ### or ENDS.

After that only follow the contact for further information and the notes to the editor.

The notes to the editor give information about other people or companies you referred to and/or details on sources you used in your press release.

The difference between a boilerplate and the notes to editor is the fact, that the boilerplate doesn’t change at all, unless you change your company’s operation substantially. The notes to editor can contain similar information, but are written according to the content of the press release.

Send in a press release for individual review if you like! nocheapthrills@gmail.com

Now you know what to do, but how should you be timing your press release?

There’s one golden rule: Forget the weekends as well as the one day before (friday) and the day after (monday). That leaves you with a time window of three days. Sending your press release at a time when everyone’s winding up or down, like the morning or afternoon is reasonable.

Now that you cleverly crafted a great pr, and know when to send ot out, who do you send it to?

There are pleny of distribution services that you could use, paid and for free. It may not be a bad idea to use a service like that, if you think the media contacts you’re trying to reach, use it to get information.

My advice is to build your very own personalized media contact list. We’ll discuss how to do that later.

Here’s just a short selection of distribution services for free (found on cyberalert.com http://bit.ly/1FdZmo6) :

  1. pr.com

  2. PRLog.org

  3. Pr-inside.com

  4. OnlinePRnews

  5. Newswire

  6. PressReleaser.org

  7. TheOpenPress

  8. OpenPR

  9. OpenPR

  10. MyPRGenie

Stay in touch for Press Releases Part II!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

error: Content is protected !!