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Five tips for writing better press releases

The press release is still very much and live and well – but it is only effective if it is well written. Here are five tips to make sure your press release is fit for purpose.

Remember to begin the first paragraph with the relevant information – who, what, where and when. If you don’t get the point in the first paragraph, a busy journalist may not read any further.

Remember the so what? rule. In other words – is your press release actually news or just a fluffy piece about your business or service? If it’s the latter, you can still use the information on your own social media – but don’t send out to external sources.

Take control of the story and don’t let every man and woman in the business have their say. Just you and one other person is enough. Too many people involved and it’s likely the story will get lost as everyone provides an opinion or a quote.

Is the press release the best tool for the story? How about picking up the phone and asking a journalist to meet for a chat? Will the story work better with a video rather than words?

Avoid using the scatter gun approach – sending the same story to every outlet in the hope that something will stick, is lazy. Find out what type of news each outlet runs with and the style it likes. Ideally, you should be crafting every news story slightly differently.

For practical advice on press release writing talk to us about our #prtraining courses.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Republic Relations .