High-quality press releases give your company the opportunity to influence what the media says about your company and its products. Read our simple how-to.
By Jim Peterson, Senior Copywriter & Transcreator at steelecht
According to The Guardian: “Press releases are a presentation of facts, written for journalists in the hope it gets published.” If you’d like to hope less and see more republications, here are a few tips we’ve accumulated through many years of writing for corporate clients.
If you want to cut to the chase, feel free to jump ahead to the 10 tips and 5 common mistakes at the end of this article.
Good press releases get passed around
Basically, you’re trying to leverage your press releases (owned media) to generate positive coverage in third party outlets (earned media). If it’s done right, several outlets might cover your topic. If you prepare your release very well, journalists might even republish it verbatim. Plagiarism is no good for students, but when it comes to press releases, you want to get plagiarized.
As a boutique writing agency, steelecht has decades of experience writing, translating and editing press releases for companies. We also have experience in adapting press releases for republication in journals. This has taught us that many companies overlook the needs of their most important readers: the journalists*.
*NOTE: for the purpose of this article, “journalist” covers traditional journalists, as well as industry-specific reporters, bloggers, editors of trade magazines, copywriters and anyone who wishes to use or republish a press release or the information it contains.
Driving the narrative
I’d really like to drive this point home: The practice of republishing press releases is extremely common. My colleagues and I have experienced it countless times while researching input for articles or other company publications. We often run across the same paragraph or longer text repeated – verbatim – by several sources as if they wrote it themselves. Those texts often trace back to a successful company press release.
Imagine the potential here. By sending out a high-quality press release, you have the opportunity to set the narrative and define what other people will read about your company or its products in many different channels – blogs, online magazines, trade information services, social media and more.
So how do you write a press release that is (1) interesting to journalists and (2) easy for journalists to use?
First, let’s break down the target group into two basic types:
- Skimmers – journalists who use press releases to find specific details (i.e. they skim the text for bits of information)
- Republishers – journalists who are looking for content that’s easy to reuse with as little effort as possible (i.e. they want to take the whole press release, or a part of it, and republish it)
Writing both for skimmers and republishers
Taking these two main target groups as a starting point makes it easy to see how a press release needs to be organized. First, journalists should be able to glean the most important information with a quick scan. This is usually achieved through strong headlines, summarizing bullets, a strong introductory paragraph and sublines that give journalists a quick understanding of the content in each section.
Second, the overall content of the press release has to be well written in a journalistic style with a logical structure. It should not read like a marketing text or an obvious translation. These common mistakes will require journalists to do heavy editing – and they will quickly abandon the idea of republishing your article.
Finally, all of your press releases should read like texts written by a neutral journalist. All too often, companies fall into the trap of inserting opinions into their texts or being overly self-absorbed. This can be annoying to journalists, who don’t want your opinions put into their mouths. This creates additional work for them.
“If in doubt, consider the golden rule of Who, What, Where, When, Why and How – ask yourself if you’ve answered all these questions before sending the release.” Creative Boom and Katy Cowan, part of the Guardian Culture Professionals Network
Effective press releases made easy
Below we summarize 10 of the most important things to take into consideration when preparing a press release.
10 success factors for press releases |
1. Interesting contentThe single most important success factor is “what” you want to release. If it is an earth-shattering discovery (or the latest iPhone), it will get republished even if it is poorly written. But let’s not get lazy! Good writing is always important. This article sheds some light on what journalists tend to be interested in. |
2. Well-organizedKeep your press releases “frontloaded”. That means that all the most critical information is contained within the headline, then fully explained within the first paragraph, or “lead”. Further details on each main point are relegated to subsequent sections with strong sublines that make the whole text easy to skim. |
3. Well-written (in every language!)There’s no substitute for good writing. Your press release should first be written in the language that is most important to your primary target audience. This might not be the main language spoken at your company. For example, a German company that sells primarily to the US market should write texts in English first for the best results. For other languages of importance, your translators should have experience in writing press releases in their own languages. Most translators (or machine translations) focus on factual accuracy. If they’re writers, they’ll also care about style and tonality. Here are some ideas of how to get better work from translators. |
4. Tonality (defining your writing style and voice)Press releases should have a neutral, journalistic tonality. Avoid opinions and superlatives. If you must add an opinion or any self-praise, put it into a quote by a company executive. Defining a writing style for your company’s press releases is not always easy. One simpler option is to identify the ideal external publication in which you would like your article to appear. Whether it’s The Economist, Elevator World Magazine or Gizmondo, try to emulate that publication’s style as closely as possible. |
5. HeadlineThe headline should explain almost everything in maximum 60-90 characters (8-12 words). REVEAL EVERYTHING in the headline. It’s the only way to ensure that the right journalists read (and use) your press release. |
6. Subline, lead-in and/or bulletsIf the headline couldn’t state absolutely everything – which is the best practice, but not always possible – use an additional subline to add the next most important details. If that’s not enough, you can use multiple sublines in bullet-point format (common practice for listing the KPIs in financial press releases). Another common option is to use a very short summary or lead-in (often in italics) that precedes the actual first paragraph. |
7. QuotesQuotes are a nice touch. Journalists want to look as if they’ve interviewed someone. Furthermore, quotations provide the only opportunity to get a biased opinion re-printed, because they are the only texts in press releases that journalists will most certainly not change. |
8. BoilerplateIf you’re not as big as Apple, Google or Adidas, journalists might need to explain who you are. Still, even the biggest corporations have an “About us” boilerplate at the end of their press releases. This article explains how to approach writing a boilerplate. |
9. High-resolution images (via download) with sublinesThese are especially important for online articles. It’s nice to break up an online text with pictures. Provide sublines (including source/copyright info) for these pictures to save journalists the effort. When possible, the sublines should include your main keyword for the article, which can improve SEO performance. |
10. Local contact personJournalists might want more information or an exclusive quote to differentiate their articles. Try to provide a different contact for each market or language. |
From dos to don’ts
It’s always great to focus on the positive side of life, but if no one ever points out the mistakes, progress will be impossible.
5 common mistakes in press releases – and how to avoid them |
1. Don’t follow your instinct to advertise |
| As an employee, you have an instinct to promote and brag about your company. But journalists will hate that. Consider preparing a separate style guide for press releases, as your corporate style guide might lead you astray. |
2. Don’t use cheap translators |
| Honestly, not even expensive translators are the right choice. You should insist on copywriters who have experience writing press releases in the target language. Then ask them if they also translate. You can also use machine translation and give that text to an experienced writer for improvement. |
3. Don’t write from your company’s perspective (avoid “we” or “our”) |
| You should avoid phrases like “our solutions” or “we”. Pretend you are a journalist writing for your target publication. If you want to add an emotional statement, an opinion or express excitement – do it in a quote. |
4. Don’t write too much (keep it simple) |
| You may be tempted to flesh out every detail of your particular piece of news, but ask yourself: “Would I want to read this about another company?” Also consider saving some news for later (see the next point). |
5. Don’t announce more than one thing (think strategically) |
| Be strategic about your publishing schedule. You don’t want to say everything all at once and then drop off everyone’s radar. Publish one story at a time. |
Need help with your press releases? Contact us!
Feature image courtesy of AbsolutVision on Unsplash.
