In October 1906, Ivy lee has issued the very first Press Release and this is quite some information.
If you have started a new organization or business, le we just congratulate you for that. There must be a lot of eagerness on your part to get your name in front of as many people as possible.
This leads to the advertising of the services that you have got. Once you have checked around, you might have learned it quite fast that radio and television advertising is not very cheap and since you are starting out afresh it is premium to have capital resources and money. One needs to advertise and reach the maximum number of people and everything has to be done on a budget that is very tight.
Although, this sounds quite impossible when you are considering a press release the goals related to finding out and selecting and henceforth, recruiting customers can be achieved quite easily.
Press Releases can be approached in two different ways. Let us just put some light on each one of them.
The first method or way is termed as ‘Call To Action’ press release. This kind of press releases is written normally so that the potential customers are encouraged to buy the services and goods. These press releases are often tied to some kind of special denominator like a seasonal activity, grand opening, going out of the business, and sale.
In the distribution services, the acceptance of Call To Action releases is very rare. Call To Action releases are often very similar to classic advertising and all these newswire services are not going to run advertising like releases for their customers. There are also other venues for advertising as it has been mentioned above.
The more effective and the second press release is a release that mainly focuses on the news-worthy element or item. Advertising is not done and instead the focus of the release is on someone or something within the organization or business. The release enthusiastically praises how either of them has done something great that stands out and the likes of others and is very new. This is very much the release type that many of the newswire services will publish and wish to see.
So, once we have got a somewhat understanding of the basics of the fact about what a press release is let us just have a look at writing one of the press releases. Proper formatting is required to begin with for writing a press release.
In every press release, there are some basic parts. However, some rules have to be remembered when a press release is written. Let us just go through some of the basics:.
- The length of a standard press release varies between 300 to 500 words and not more than that.
- A standard font has to be used. One of the most used fonts is Times New Roman as it is a good one and the standard font size used is 12 points.
- One has to write the press release in the third person. This implies that there will be no ‘I, You, We’.
Let us just move into the basics now:
Logo
If there is a logo, it has to be put at the top center of the press release. In the print media, there is a saying that ‘Pictures Sell’. The press release is essentially a part of the print media.
Contact Information
A customer will get all the information over here if they visit the website and feel the need to contact you. At the minimum, a contact name is needed in the first place and lastly, it has the email, website, and phone number. Emails should not be used from disposable accounts like Hotmail, Google, and Yahoo. In an ideal case, the contact email is going to use the business name and there have to be something standards like your name, contact, sales, and info.
Header
The lead or header is the place where the reader will come to know about the topic of the press release. This has to be very short and should not be a complete sentence and on average it should not exceed 10-12 words on an average. The only purpose of a header is to attract a person to publish the press release and read it.
Body
This is actually the meat of the press release. This is the place where newsworthy information is shared about the services and products. The body of the press release should not exceed three to four paragraphs. Most of the time, a location name is at the beginning of the body as the reader can connect with the press release. It is not indispensable as it is not going to hurt by adding it to the body of the release.
Boiler Plate
In the about page of a business website one can get the boilerplate information. The boilerplate is just a piece of brief information about what the organization and business do. It has to be very short and must contain enough information that can be shared with the customers. At this moment, the press release is very much done. Some of the releases are going to have at the bottom center of the press release a three number signs (#) like this: ###.
In this way, the release can be ended nicely, but it is not 100 percent necessary.
If anyone is still not very sure about how to write a press release there are two things that are necessary to know.
- Read the press releases
- Write the press releases
As the saying goes that practice makes one perfect and this is true for writing a great press release as well. Thank you very much and have a great day.
