Press releases are the ultimate tool for marketing that suits businesses of all scales and from any industry. They have been in use for decades and remain as effective for businesses as they were in the beginning. Press releases are used to get a massive amount of press coverage within a very short time. With this amount of media attention, you can easily convey your brand message to the target audience and create a powerful presence in the market. Press releases are usually a lot cheaper than traditional advertisements and even can be free if you write and distribute the PR yourself.
If you write your own press release, you have to craft it in a way so that it gets accepted by the journalists and media outlets. PR writing follows some strict rules that you need to know before you decide to do it on your own. Here are some effective press release writing tips for entrepreneurs and startups:
1. Be careful with the headline
The headline of a press release is the first thing a journalist or readers are going to observe. Journalists get bombarded by hundreds of press releases every day. They cannot afford to spend much time reading all of them. So they just go through the titles and they read the ones with titles that attract them.
- Make sure to keep your title short, informative, and relevant to the topic of the PR.
- Use action words and the current year to increase its relevancy.
- Do not use complex language, keep it comprehensible for all.
2. Answer the 5Ws in the first paragraph
Most of the time, only the opening paragraph of the press release gets read by the journalists and target audience. So, you have to convey the most important message of your PR to them with just the first paragraph.
- Answer the 5 Ws (Who, What, When Where, and Why) in the opening paragraph.
- Keep it purely informative and not promotional. PRs are closer to news; they are not like ads.
- Use easy language, so everyone can read and understand it.
- Don’t make it lengthy.
3. Add quotes
Press releases are used to increase the credibility of a brand. When you add a quote from an important figure within the company, the readers feel more assured as it adds a human touch to the narrative.
- Make sure the quote is relevant to the topic of the press release.
- Make a separate paragraph for the quotes.
- Try to give some information about your brand or service with the quote.
4. Include multimedia
Press releases are long and most people do not have the patience to read the entire thing. If they lose interest at some point, they will move on to the next one. You can keep the interest alive by adding some exciting elements to the content. You can add images, gifs, infographics, and more in between paragraphs to keep the readers hooked. You can also embed videos in your PR. Just make sure the images or videos are relevant to the topic of your press release.
5. Boilerplate
The last part of a press release is boilerplate. It contains all the information about your company. You have to include the contact information of your company as well. A boilerplate copy can be used multiple times with different press releases as it contains general information about your company. Just make sure all the data is up-to-date when you reuse a boilerplate.
6. Make it SEO-friendly
Press releases are mostly released online these days. So, you have to craft your press releases in a way that helps you establish a powerful online presence. Press releases can also help you rank higher in the SERPs. You must include appropriate keywords so your content appears higher in the search results. Bold the keywords so they are easily noticed by the target audience, increasing the chance of the PR getting clicked.
7. Proofread
The most important part of writing a PR is proofreading. If your press release has some grammatical or spelling error, it will get rejected by the journalists and create a bad reputation for your brand. So, before you submit the PR to a journalist or media outlet, make sure there are no errors in it. You can use various error-correcting applications that are found online to proofread your PR.
After you are done with the PR writing, you need to think about how you are going to distribute it for free. Most people hire a professional distributor to publish their stories. But if you want to do the distribution for free as well, you have to do it on your own as well. This is a very hectic process.
Here are some tips that can make the submission process a little less hassling:
1. Research the media outlets
There are a lot of media outlets that publish press releases. But not every major media house is the ideal match for your story. Suppose you sell sports instruments. Publishing your PR on a music website or media is not going to give you the desired amount of online exposure. You need to find out which media outlets specialize in covering stories from your industry. You must also find out which media houses are visited by your target audience regularly. These are the sites that will be helpful for your success in the market. They can bring you massive online engagement and exposure from the global target audience base by getting featured in these media outlets.
2. Build a media list
After you have done your research on the media outlets, you need to build a media list where you want to submit your press release. Gather the contact information of press contacts in your specific niche or industry. Create a spreadsheet where you can list the name of the press contacts, their contact details, audience information of each media house, and submission guidelines. Try to collect the contact info of as many journalists as you can. You can search on Google to find out the details of the journalists who work at the media outlets you have chosen to submit. Other than traditional media outlets, you can also build a media list with the information of bloggers and influencers who can also publish your content bringing you massive online exposure.
3. Craft an email pitch
When you send your press release to a journalist, you need to write a pitch that will attract them to read your PR. When you write your PR pitch, you must keep in mind that from your point of view the reporter does not know why their readers would want to know about your announcement. So through your pitch, you need to give them a reason why it is relevant to the readers. Here are some tips on writing a killer pitch:
- You must address the journalists by their names. That way you can establish a better connection with the reporters.
- You should explain to the reporters why your story is different from others.
- Tell them how it is relevant to the readers of the media outlets.
4. Do a follow-up
After you have sent your press release to journalists, you will not get a reply instantly. The journalists receive hundreds of content every day. So, they take some time to read all the press releases. They will go through all the PRs they select and then give you an answer. So it might take some time to get a reply. So first, you need to give them some time to reply to you back. Do not do a follow-up the day after you have sent the pitch. Wait at least a week and if you still do not get a reply send a follow-up mail to check. Approach them on the weekdays and during the working hours. They are also humans; do not send them emails on weekends.
5. Promote the PR on social media
After you have successfully got placed on your chosen media and news outlets, you have to do your best to spread the news across the market. The best way to do so is to share your press releases on your accounts on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more. Whenever you share your PR and the links where they are published on your social media pages, make sure to request your existing followers to repost or re-share them if possible. That way, your story will reach a wider group of audience and get massive engagement from them. Sharing your press releases on social media does not cost you anything. You can widen your promotional spectrum that way for free.
From writing to getting your press release published is a hectic task. You have to invest a great amount of time that should be better spent on your brand. All that work does not even guarantee that you will get the desired amount of media and audience attention. That is why most business owners hire professional PR agencies that never fail to bring you massive success with your PR. Issuewire is one of the most reputed PR agencies in the world right now. At affordable prices, they offer high-quality PR writing and distribution services for businesses of all scales. They guarantee placement on hundreds of major media outlets in every industry.
