Creating Press Releases
News is one of the most important assets any PR team can leverage to meet client visibility metrics. Having said that, one of the most frequent complaints clients have about their agencies is the lack of writing skills. Often this isn’t about the agency’s use of grammar, but rather a misunderstanding of what the technology is or what the significance of the announcement is. Trainer begins by asking the client to respond to some questions in a template format – either verbally (or ideally) in written form. Trainer best practice calls for the Trainer writer to make an attempt at filling out the template based on the client briefing.
Trainer also recommends researching competitive sites and industry leaders in adjacent spaces to review styles, key trends and techniques. Next, write the headline and the sub-head (these two lines should tell the big story. Often writing the headline and the subhead takes longer than the bulk of the release. Getting these lines perfect sets the stage for the rest of the release. Headlines are customarily no more than two lines and subheads are also not more than two lines.
Press Releases
As a staple of effective PR, releases present both opportunities and challenges. They are news – what the media thrives on – but journalists are inundated by so many releases that it’s sometimes a complex equation of circumstances that leads to coverage. Here is a methodology for maximizing your coverage that is made possible by your client’s news and your ability to “work” editorial opportunities.
Scoring coverage for your release requires a combination of:
Requirements for Effective Releases
Procedure for Writing a Press Release
Note: this procedure can get much more complex and can take much longer for a joint release, such as a release by your client and a partner company. The steps you follow will differ from above, depending on various circumstances. Be sure to take the added complexity and span time into account in your planning.
The last steps of finalizing the release are to determine the SEO key words and to establish graphics, pictures, charts, or videos that will further enhance optimization.
Trainer also recommends researching competitive sites and industry leaders in adjacent spaces to review styles, key trends and techniques. Next, write the headline and the sub-head (these two lines should tell the big story. Often writing the headline and the subhead takes longer than the bulk of the release. Getting these lines perfect sets the stage for the rest of the release. Headlines are customarily no more than two lines and subheads are also not more than two lines.
Press Releases
As a staple of effective PR, releases present both opportunities and challenges. They are news – what the media thrives on – but journalists are inundated by so many releases that it’s sometimes a complex equation of circumstances that leads to coverage. Here is a methodology for maximizing your coverage that is made possible by your client’s news and your ability to “work” editorial opportunities.
Scoring coverage for your release requires a combination of:
- Something truly new and noteworthy. Your client’s news could be new but not noteworthy, or noteworthy, but not new. Usually you need both. A new wireless access platform may break records for performance, but it’s not noteworthy if performance is not an issue to users. A partnership of two design firms could be noteworthy for the unique set of capabilities it combines in one offering, but it’s not really new if the partnership was created to compete with a single company that offers the same set of capabilities.
- Ability to articulate the value of the news. The news may be groundbreaking, but if your release doesn’t convince readers of the value of the news – the benefits to users, implementers, managers, or the company for example – the journalist will stop reading it.
- A complete story. Journalists look for signs that a vendor’s news is actually news and not something masquerading as news. For example, in the eyes of most editors, a new-product press release requires a product with a name, a list of features a release date, a price or price range, and information on how to order it and when it will be sent. If any of these elements are missing, the editor will think the product is not real. Every day press releases are issued that are missing one of these elements and editors will doubt the truth of the news. That can happen when a vendor wants to instill fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) in readers about a competitor’s product, or wants to imply that buying the competitor’s product will be a bad decision because the vendor will have a new, better product available the following quarter. A release with a complete story, on the other hand, says that “this product with these exact features is available at this price today.”
- A story that exemplifies a trend. No matter how much editors want to trump their own competitors, most are not bold enough to issue a story about a true breakthrough product or service. They’re paranoid that they will look foolish if they fall for the product hype, or if their competitors don’t report on the news. But if a new product or service exemplifies a widely acknowledged trend, they’re more likely to go out on a limb. Then the idea of a breakthrough product or service in that category is more credible.
- Good timing. You need to reach editors when they’re receptive. We issue and pitch releases on our schedules, and we want coverage now. But that’s far from the editor’s goal. He wants news he can write about because his readers need to know it. If you pitch him with a “readers need to know this” release, and you make it easy for him to extract what he wants and build a story around it, and you’ve given him the qualifiers – price, availability, customer or analyst quote, etc. – you’re in the driver’s seat.
Requirements for Effective Releases
- A strong head and subhead. They must highlight the business benefit to the intended audience: the organization as a whole, business users, technology workers, or consumers. Ideally, they will make a statement that other vendors cannot make.
- A strong lead paragraph. All effective press releases are written in “inverted pyramid” style, in which the bulk of the story is covered at a high level in the first paragraph and succeeding paragraphs provide details. Ask yourself if your first paragraph tells the entire story in short form. If it does, you’re off to a good start.
- Details that readers need to know. If a detail is important to a reader’s full understanding of the larger story, include it. Otherwise, don’t. Use this as your guide: if you were reading the release, would you inquire about the product or service?
- Benefits in every paragraph. You can cite features or functions of the product until you’re blue in the face, but if you don’t state their benefits to the intended reader, they won’t care. Or, if they do care, they’ll be stumped. It’s simple: if you cite a feature or function, state its benefit.
- Validating quotes. Use quotes where possible to provide third-party validation for the claims in the release. In other words, let others speak to the value of your news. (All other text in the release should be factual.) Or use quotes to express opinions that back up your claims in the release. Most releases need either a customer or an analyst quote so that the release will ring true. A customer quote is preferable because it comes from someone who is a peer of the typical reader. It may as well say: “Hey, reader, buy this product because it worked for me, and you probably have many of the same needs that I do.” The analyst is authoritative about products and markets, but he does not always speak to what customers really need.
- Section heads and bullets. You need to guide the reader to easily find what he needs to find. Use section heads if the release is long, or use bullets to highlight lists. The quicker the editor can find what he needs, the more likely he is to write.
- Quantifiable information. Wherever you can, quantify your claims rather than use adjectives that sound good but say nothing. Don’t say “dramatically increases download times.” Say “reduces download times 30 to 40 percent, as verified in an independent lab test.”
- Call to action. Give readers direction on what they can do now that they are intrigued by your release. Give them as many options as possible: telephone number, website link, etc. Provide options for talking to a sales representative, requesting a demo, requesting a feature sheet, an application note, etc.
- An editorial contact. Let the editor know exactly how to reach you quickly and easily. If he has everything he needs except for one small but critical detail, his ability to reach you can make the difference between coverage and no coverage.
- Photos or graphics. Prepare graphics or photos that editors can download and use in tandem with the release to make for richer coverage. Those should not be included within the text of the release, but uploaded to the wire service as part of the distribution process.
Procedure for Writing a Press Release
- Get the source information you need. At Trainer we use a questionnaire and ask the client to fill it out.
- Begin developing a draft from the questionnaire. As you begin, ask your client to recommend and to get approval from a customer to include a customer quote in your release.
- Work with the client to get an analyst quote. Depending on who can make this happen most quickly, either make contact with the analyst yourself or ask the client to do it.
- Write a customer quote. Write it as you would like it to appear in the release, and let the customer approve it. That puts you in the driver’s seat and takes the burden off the customer. You will get his approval more quickly than if you asked the customer to write an original quote. Follow the same procedure for an analyst quote.
- Complete your draft and have one of Trainer’s professional proofreaders check it over. When that has been done, submit it to your team leader or manager for internal editing.
- Submit the release, including quotes, to the client for approval. At the same time, submit the quotes to the customer and analyst for approval. The idea is to get all approvals going at the same time because that process can often take a week or more. Let the client know the approval status of the quotes.
- Once the text and quotes are approved, proofread the release and check to make sure the release is wire-ready. That includes making sure that SEO coding is included for key words and terms.
Note: this procedure can get much more complex and can take much longer for a joint release, such as a release by your client and a partner company. The steps you follow will differ from above, depending on various circumstances. Be sure to take the added complexity and span time into account in your planning.
The last steps of finalizing the release are to determine the SEO key words and to establish graphics, pictures, charts, or videos that will further enhance optimization.