With the world stepping into the digital age, almost all major areas of business have changed. This creates a need for change in modern public relations strategies. Press Release does this for the businesses and marketers by informing their audiences, generating leads and boosting conversions.
Today, your potential customer is no longer opening the morning newspaper to find out about what is happening in the world. The morning newspaper has now been mostly replaced by trending news on twitter or news apps.
With such changes, businesses definitely need to adopt some new practices to optimize their public relations.
Digital PRs are very effective in doing this in an efficacious fashion. The are result driven in spreading your business news to the niche audiences.
As per a recent study, more than 75% of journalists check press releases on the web to follow the news.
This makes Press Releases to be very important public relations strategies for the businesses, marketers, and advertisers.
In this article, we are going to address the prerequisites of writing a brilliant press release that effortlessly translates into marketing success for the company.
First things first, let’s begin the journey of writing that perfect press release by starting with the basics.
What is a Press Release?
A press release is a compelling short story written by a company’s PR professional that is meant for some targeted journalists or media houses. It is created in the hopes of building relationships with some prominent journalists and garnering the mind-share of people over time.
It is known by various names some call it news release and press statement, while others prefer to address it as a media release. Whatever be the name, they all mean the same thing.
Nevertheless, it is a written or even recorded official statement from a company that is meant for the news media and the rest of the world. The ultimate objective is to draw the attention of publication or journalist.
While talking about the importance of PRs, Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson, a British business magnate, author, investor, philanthropist and founder of Virgin Group says-
A good PR story is infinitely more effective than a front-page ad.
For that purpose, a great press release must disclose the Who? What? Where? Why? and How? questions to make it easy for journalists to craft their own stories on the announcement.
Actually, users have a tendency to instinctively trust authoritative content more in comparison to the different forms of advertisements. Whether PRs are a piece in a publication or via word of mouth, it is important for businesses and advertisers to come up with more stories than the ads.
It should be created in a news story format, have sources and quotes, and must be penned down in the third person. This is the ideal press story format.
Actionable words in the heading and easy to understand language are other important requirements for a great press release.
Let’s discuss how to write a press release in more detail in the following sections:
5 Tips on How to Write a Press Release
1. Give a Catchy Headline
A catchy headline is vital to an ideal press release format. Without a captivating headline, you can be sure that your press release may never see the light of the day.
Media houses get tons of press releases every day. For your story to be picked up a good headline is necessary. Therefore, do not hesitate to put in the time and effort to craft that perfect headline.
While coming up with the headline do keep in mind to keep it short, as short headlines are favored by both search engines and people. Action words are another element that a headline must contain.
Perhaps the most essential part of a headline is the message it conveys. Choose a headline that can capture the essence of your announcement.
Further, simple, easy to understand, and plain English must be used for writing the headline.
2. Express What Value the News Holds
As mentioned before, reporters and influencers usually do not have so much time to dig in deep to find all the details of an announcement. Therefore, be sure to gather your story and its details at one place without scattering important information everywhere. They get thousands of press releases, so it’s just not possible for them to sift through every part.
This particular scenario demands that you tell your story upfront. Make sure to hand out the essence of the story to the readers. For this, you need to mention everything and provide all the answers to some probable questions in the press release copy. This greatly reduces the chances of skipping vital parts of the announcement by the reader.
Once you have presented the story nicely in a section, do not introduce any new crucial information in other parts of the press release.
3. Provide an Impressive Quote in the Press Release
Quotes give a press release story more weight.
Therefore, be sure to add some quotes in your press release. Quotes should come from positions of authority of the company. Preferably from someone who played a role in the story or announcement.
While searching for quotes do not go to every person in the company. The quotes should come from the executive team or the key stakeholders in the company. The press release should also accommodate quotes that come from sections of the population or the industries that are affected by the news.
When you have got a suitable quote, remember to weave the press release story around that quote. Try to understand the perspective of the person who gave the quotes and craft the story in that light.
This will bestow the press release, beautiful description and will provide a complete picture of the story.
4. Disclose the Who, What, Where and Why Answers
It is absolutely essential that your press release is understood by people. The story, the objective of the story, the quotes, and the need of the announcement must be clear to the reader. For this reason, your press release copy must answer the who, what, where, and why questions.
Drop a link to the company’s home page. If the press release contains crucial data be sure to cite sources.
You may even want to provide a reference link to that data source. Further, always mention the titles or designation of the person whose quote has been used in the press release.
One way in which you can test if you have been successful in drafting the perfect PR release is by testing it out. You can ask someone to read the Press release and request them to answer the following questions:
(a) What is the announcement/story?
(b) Why is there a need for this announcement?
(c) What does your company do?
(d) Why quotes of the executives have been included in the press release?
If the person is able to answer each question satisfactorily, then well done your job is done. The press release is ready to be sent! If not, then it’s time to create a new press release.
5. Offer Enough Background Information Behind the News
In the press release provide all the necessary background information so that becomes easy to get the whole picture. However, do not keep on extending the write-up and include unnecessary details.
It needs to be short and succinct. There is no need for a meaningless extension of the story.
Resist talking about details about the company that has nothing to do with the story. Include elements in the press release that you think will improve the narrative. This can be anything like your company’s unique approach to the completion of a project.
You may also mention the outcome of your actions in the coming years.
Different Types of Press Release
Following are the major types of a press release:
(b) Product upgrades
(c) Acquisitions and mergers
(d) Forming new partnerships
(e) Accepting an award
(f) New executive hiring
(g) Events
(h) Rebranding
(i) Opening of new office
Before drafting each type of press release it is recommended to view some press release samples. This will give you a clear idea of how to create a great one that sticks to the context.
It is important that you follow the particular Press Release format for your company. You can also take help from the press release templates available online. This will let your audiences easily recognize that a particular PR is associated with your brand.
Some of the key components that a press release should have is mentioned in the press release sample given below-
Importance of Digital Marketing for PR Professionals
The communication specialists need to adopt modern methods to fully take advantage of digital development. This means possessing the knowledge of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and Social Media Marketing.
Why? This need arises from the fact that the consumer/audience of the PR professionals have shifted to digital modes. They are no longer spending time reading the newspaper and watching TV.
This point can be understood with simple data presented by Nielsen. The data revealed that in a particular month, while 285 million people watched TV, 14 billion people preferred to search on the internet.
Let’s look at some of the major reasons why PR professionals need to adopt digital marketing:
(a) Staying on top of trends will become easier.
(b) Shift to where their audience is mostly spending time.
(c) Create a social and search strategy to amplify their efforts.
(d) Derive the benefits of conducting keyword research and using the right keywords.
(e) Develop the desired search and social personas.
(f) Take advantage of the major platforms where their audience is hanging out like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and others.
(g) To get the knowledge of tools that allows them to scale their reach.
Final Thoughts
With the new digital developments the age-old model of communication i.e. a press release doesn’t need to become redundant.
It can very well serve its purpose and that too in an improved manner if you are able to give it a modern-day makeover.
Again, once you have crafted the perfect press release do not forget to show that same level of dedication in its distribution. If the press release gets picked up by media houses or journalists you can benefit further if you release another press release to prolong the buzz of the first one.
Hopefully, you must have got an understanding of how to write a press release, the press release format, and press release sample.
In case you want to master the art of creating the best press releases, Digital Marketing Course can be the right pick for you. It will guide you about the significance of Press Releases in content marketing campaigns that can help you generate leads, boost sales and ensure conversions.
What are your thoughts about the power of press releases in optimizing online reach? Share with us in the comments below.
