How to write a press release
Lucy Griffiths
Business Growth Strategist ?? Make Money While You Sleep author?? Sold 50,000 courses?? Helping business owners & solopreneurs scale without trading time for money?? Live More, Work Less?? Former TV Journalist ??
When you want to tell news organisations about your new product, new business or launch, think about the impact that your story will have on others.
Try to be as impartial as possible, and have a straight think about your business.
IS YOUR STORY NEWSWORTHY?
Will anyone CARE about this launch?
What’s newsworthy about this product? Is there anything NEW or different?
Will anyone outside of my business actually give a damn?
Start looking at the organisations that you want to cover, and start thinking about the types of stories that they cover, and if your story will fit there.
YOUR HEADLINE:
The headline for your press release, and email that you send the press release on, has to be short, snappy, and catchy!
Imagine that journalists get hundreds of emails on a daily basis, and many of the press releases get deleted as soon as they land.
Your email needs to stand out, and look interesting to the journalist.
Write something that stands out, but is not too “clever” that it’s wit is missed on the journalist, and they don’t understand the story. Ensure that you have fully explained the story, e.g. “New App Launches to help curb roadside pollution for babies in buggies”
YOUR TAGLINE:
Your tagline is a little more detail than your headline. It expands on the facts, and provides more data.
This tends to be a sentence long in length, and quickly tells the journalist more about your launch, or product or business.
YOUR TOP LINE:
Once you’ve successfully got a journalist to open your email, you then need to draw them in with what journalists refer to as your “top iine.”
The “top line” is the key to any news story, and the most important parts of the story should be in the first sentence or two. Journalists will talk about “burying the lead” and you want to make sure that you’ve talked about the newsworthiness of your product, high up in your press release e.g. Brizi baby product enables you to reduce and monitor pollution levels in the buggy as you are out walking with your baby.
As a press release writer, you need to include this in the first sentence or two of the press release.
WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY…
Journalists are trained to answer the following questions when they write a news story:
Who – who is involved?
What – what has happened?
When – when did it happen?
Where – where did it happen?
Why – why did it happen?
Try to answer those questions in your news release.
INCLUDE YOUR CONTACT DETAILS:
Include the phone number and email of the person to contact at the top and bottom of the press release.
WHY WRITE A PRESS RELEASE?
A press release and a news release are basically the same thing, a press release is an older word when the main form of journalism was the written or printed word.
Press releases can be useful because it gives the journalist an overview of an event, and a broad sweep of the facts.
A press release is not a great way to ensure coverage, and you are much better to target individual media organisations, and journalists, rather than hoping for coverage from a press release.
WHY DON’T WRITE A PRESS RELEASE?
Many press releases go unread, and are simply deleted. In my 20 years working in journalism, I rarely read a press release.
I would however read a well written email that addressed me, and thought about the TV news program that I was working for.
If you’re trying to get coverage, focus your attention on the email pitch that you send to a few specific journalists.