Planning to put out a press release to publicise your latest business development, promotion or event? Hoping to stand out against the hundreds of releases each of your target journalists receives every day?
Stop, take a deep breath and read these five steps to killing it stone dead before you even hit send.
1. Mass mail your entire address book
Don’t waste time tailoring your release to be relevant to the target publications. In fact, don’t even bother building a database of journalists to whom the story should be interesting. Just drop your entire little black book into the BCC field and hit send! Better yet, use the CC field so that every editor can see just who has received your bit of PR gold. Your release is sure to hit the bin faster than you can hit Select All.
Or, if you’d prefer not to be blacklisted by half the publications in the country:
- Decide on a target market (those you want to reach).
- Figure out which publications they read.
- Write a release which is relevant and interesting to those publications and therefore, their readerships.
- Create a distribution list that targets only the specific journalists at said publications who actually cover that kind of story.
- Never ever use the CC field. For multiple recipients, always, always BCC.
- Ideally, send individual emails that show an awareness of each journalist’s interests, preferences and recent work.
2. Waffle
Journalists have jobs like the rest of us. When they get your email, they may well be on deadline and they’ll almost certainly be pushed for time. If you want to be ignored, waffle for all your worth. Make your release several pages long and be sure to avoid getting to the point until well past the bottom of the first screen of text.
Of course, if you don’t want to kill your release, you might try coming up with a clear headline that highlights the main point, keeping your release under one screen of text, and using bullet points at the top to pull out the most salient points.
3. Pile on the jargon
So you’re sending this to small business magazines and your business is IT. In that case, you shouldn’t explain any terms. Keep the acronym soup thick by piling on the ILMs, MDMs and NFCs and throw in an unhealthy helping of near-meaningless phrases such as ‘synergistic architectural solutions’. If your release can’t even be understood, it’s sure to be DOA.
No one, anywhere likes to read unintelligible ramblings disguised as promotional material. Unless you’re purposely writing your release for a specialist publication where it makes sense to use certain industry specific terms, then aim to use words that someone with no prior knowledge of the subject would understand.
4. Don’t fact check or proofread…at all
This is a simple one. To ensure nothing you say in the release is taken seriously in the least, DO NOT read through to check for errors. A few glaring errors can neatly cast doubt on the whole thing and your release will be safely ignored in no time.
In reality, of course, you should always get someone else to read through your release before distribution, correcting spelling errors and fact checking references so that it is totally error free. Mistakes will still happen, so I’m not suggesting your release will bomb with one tiny typo in it, but if it’s full of them, it’s to the detriment of your credibility, so check, check and check again.
5. Write about how great you are
If you really don’t want your release to be considered for even a moment, make sure it contains absolutely zero news, but plenty of information about how great your company is, including info on how your last few customers said they loved your new pencil promotion, and a few paragraphs on the fact that you have a dress down Friday. To totally bomb, remember to include real housekeeping details, such as how you always get your tax return in on time.
Incredibly, to be considered newsworthy, a news release needs to contain some element of…news. It’s never possible to be 100% sure a release will be of interest to your recipients, but research helps.
- Go back to those target publications and have another read, and another, and another.
- Get to know what represents a real story, and what doesn’t.
- Think about whether you really believe readers would be interested in your story. The answer should always be a confident, yes!
In writing this post, I’m not in any way implying that I’m perfect, or that you need to be. Journalists are not finicky villains and they will forgive small mistakes – but they don’t have the time to plough through impossible releases.
We all have a job to do, so let’s do it the best that we can.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Great post Emily!! This should be sent out to anyone thinking of or starting out in murky world of public relations.
Also – don’t forget to send them a fantastically grainy unsolicited photo of about 5MB which is covered in company branding and with at least two people looking in different directions. works a treat!
Very pertinent points Emily, and worth reiterating over and over no matter what profession or industry you’re in.
The untargeted approach must come from those who live their lives by the mantra “it’s a numbers game” ..
Some great pointers – you should send every potential client to this list before they ask you to write a ‘press release about how fab we are’
When attaching a photo, make sure it’s too large so it crashes all the journalists’ in-boxes as this will ensure they remember you (or too small to be of any use). And also, if you decide to copy the photo to the picture desk, be sure to use a photographer who doesn’t bother embedding a caption – then the picture desk staff can have great fun trying to work out which of the hundreds of press releases the picture relates to. Great article Emily.
Very pertinent article. Bit of a shame about the typos and literals
but worth me pointing some of my clients to.
Hi all,
Nikki, Rachael and Tim – Thanks for commenting. Glad you found it useful.
CopyChameleon & Simon – Ha! I’m guessing that’s a common one, then?
Em