Press Releases are the pieces of information that we put out for gaining publicity for our company, business, or brand. By keeping several factors in mind, a company drafts a press release suitable for publishing but yet fails to capture the attention of the target audience. A press release should be faultless and hence requires multiple proofreads before sending it out. While going through the written statements, one must avoid committing a few spoilers that can hamper the overall reputation of your company. Here is a list of all those common mistakes that one tends to ignore while writing a press release.
Uninteresting Headline:
While browsing through hundreds of emails in a day, journalists tend to skip every other headline which doesn’t capture their attention. A headline is precisely the most important factor that decides whether or not they would hit your content. Craft an accurate, concrete, intriguing, and of course relevant headline to frame your press release. If your headline aptly gives the overview of your story in a catchy manner, readers are surely going to engage with it.
Not Sticking to The Journalist Writing Format:
A way that helps the journalists to easily consume your news or story is by writing your press release in an AP style. There are some rules that need to be kept in mind while you use the AP style, they are as follows:
• Always use third-person singular or plural tone while crafting your story. Voicing things as the first person is a strict no. For reference grab a newspaper and check the writing style for better understanding.
• While incorporating figures from one to nine, it should always be spelled and numbers above nine should be written in numeric form.
• Try and abbreviate the words. In most cases, spell out the name of the States unless the name of the particular places in an address with the name of a city or country before it.
• Spacing matters and one must include only one space after placing punctuation.
• Punctuations should be avoided before the end inclusion except when it’s absolutely necessary to clarify some meaning. Always cross-check your content multiple times to ensure it has proper punctuation placed.
Irrelevant and Hyped Stories:
Although a press release may seem to be a good outlet to vent out all news, in the end, it doesn’t turn out to be fruitful. A successful press release is devoid of extra hype and ornamented language that shifts the attention of your target audience and also the respective journalists. Keep the story relevant. Your story must drive more audience to your profile. Don’t include excessive exclamation marks and irrelevant adjectives as it can displease the readers. Focus on the real matter and maintain its accuracy by including interesting details.
Fall Short on Content:
Neither too much nor too little is advisable. While creating your press release provide enough content such that the journalists can well derive all the facts and the details. A press release is basically circulated to let people know about certain things that hold importance to your company. However, do not send out a press release if the news seems invaluable and doesn’t give out all the accurate details.
Focus Solely on Incurring Traffic:
With changing times, the PR game has also changed and it is not necessarily about driving only traffic any more. Neither it is all about SEO. It has come to notice, that new era press releases are sent out for building brand awareness, acknowledging transparency, and healthy audience engagement. Although including back links can be a good way to direct traffic but driving with the sole purpose to build a reputation based only on back links proves that the content is not newsworthy.
Not Every News is Worthy:
Sending out too many press releases creates a negative impact on the viewer's mind and often leads to them thinking your content to be spam. Moreover, it also hampers the credibility of your brand as your valuable readers won’t read every PR for every minute update. In case you want to launch the news, share it on your social media, blog section, or any other segment where you think it can still be discovered by your audience.
Lack of Quotes:
Quotes have always played an important role in distinguishing a press release from a normal statement. Make sure to include quotes stated by any higher designated employee or a stakeholder or any other expert to give your press release the correct punch. Be cautious while you place one, as journalists do not make any alterations in the quotes.
Neglect Proofreading:
Nothing spoils your credibility and reputation as a brand faster than a simple typo that occurs when you don’t bother to proofread the content enough number of times. Even a minute error can damage your image in front of the journalists. Make sure that you get your press release proofread by other colleagues or software like Grammarly, to ensure that you publish an error-free content.
Release at The Wrong Hour:
Don’t rush or hurry to push out your press release at the wrong hour. Just like any other individual, most reporters and journalists are preoccupied with another workload after 6. They are not available on Sundays either. It is advisable to keep such days and dates on mind before you release the news, or else its readability would be far too less. The best day to publish a press release is a Thursday as it boosts your open rate.
Not Providing Valuable Links:
Links offer certain important benefits to your audience, business, and also the journalists. For instance, if your content doesn’t fit within a 600-word press release, you can provide a link back to your website for further information. If you are launching a product via press release then for further updates related to the product, include links back to the website, so that your target audience can enact accordingly. But don’t go overboard with the count, and include a maximum of two to three links.
