People are more trusting at getting information from news and media outlets than any other medium. This is why press releases are the best performing marketing tool that brings the stories of any business and organization directly to the target audience. Through PRs, you not only reach the niche readers but new potential customers as well because the news is consumed by everyone. Press releases open new and realistic possibilities for your business establishing higher brand awareness. With the expert services provided by the best press release website, companies can easily exceed their sales without spending much on their marketing campaign. But before you opt for a press release, you must be aware of the rules of issuing an effective press release.
1. Rules of Press Release Writing
Press releases follow certain patterns that are recognized universally to achieve maximum visibility. If you are not well-acquainted with these guidelines, you can always hire professional PR writers or services who offer well-crafted press releases that have all the elements that make a PR irresistible to the journalists. Press releases are newsworthy content that needs journalistic touch to get placement in media outlets.
- Keep your headlines short, crisp, and to the point.
- Include most of the important information in the opening paragraph answering the 5 Ws.
- Make sure to not add more than 4 paragraphs.
- Craft a separate paragraph just with the notable quotes from the significant figures of your organization.
- Add a boilerplate copy at the end consisting of contact information about your company.
2. Analyze The Audience
It is highly recommended to find out certain details about your target audience by doing demographical research before issuing a press release.
- Know what they are interested in and try to embed those words or phrases in your content to get their attention online.
- Find out which media outlets are frequented by them to ensure the effectiveness of your press release distribution.
- Understand what they find relevant and newsworthy about your specific industry and go for those topics to make your business stand out in the crowd.
3. Edit
A press release must be edited thoroughly before being submitted to the journalists or bloggers. Journalists go through hundreds of PRs every day and they are not forgiving to the content having even a single error. This builds a bad reputation for your company. Errors like grammar or spelling mistakes are just not acceptable to major media houses as it will make them lose their reputation to their readers. So proofread your content before you approach the journalists.
4. Make A Good Pitching
While you are sending your story to the journalists make sure to make a killer pitching that will attract them enough to go through your actual press release. The things you need to keep in mind to get their attention are:
- Never use the copy-pasted pitching templates that you may find online. They get rejected at the first look.
- Let the journalist know that you are familiar with their work and have done research on the specific industry that they cover.
- Explain how your story is relevant to their readers briefly.
5. Hire Quality Distribution Mediums
Distributing to the right partners is the key to success for press release issuing. An effective PR distribution site must have certain features to meet your expectations.
- An ideal press release service must distribute PRs to different online news sites, portals, databases, and search engines that are relevant to your specific industry.
- They must offer quality press release writing services by experienced PR writers.
- Their site should have smooth operations and 24x7 customer support.
- They must offer you the statistics on the number of views, visitors, monthly page views, and all the details about your PR.
- A good PR service also lets you include multimedia like photos, videos, logos, and audios to your content.
6. Use Social Media Traction
Social media platforms are the latest target for online promotion as people spend most of their time on these mediums. You can use social media to promote your press release generating a greater visibility rate by posting direct links to the PR pushing the vast traffic in your direction.