Five Steps To More Effective Press Releases
An effective press release gets a publication’s attention, consequently compelling them to write about your product or service. With that result in mind, what are things you need to do to improve the chances of your press release getting positive coverage?
- Keep it short and informative. Don’t use the press release to promote fluff about your company or your products. Instead, maximize every paragraph, filling it with relevant information about the subject. The shorter and more concise the release, the easier it will be for publications to cover your material.
- Use a news style. The standard news structure, which answers all the immediate questions on top, works best for press releases. Not only does it immediately let the recipient know what the release is about, it also makes it easy to cut-and-paste the actual press release to fill up space in a publication (since it’s already in a standard news format).
- Don’t be a pesky spammer. Take the time to put together a proper mailing list — choose publications that actually feature products like yours and put just one person from that publication in your list.
- Call the recipient. If you want to increase your chances of getting coverage, give the recipient a call before sending the press release. This will ensure they don’t just pass it over it while reading through their email headers.
- Include photos. Either append high-def photos as part of the email or point them to a website where they can easily download them. The less hoops publications have to go through to feature you, the more likely they are to give you coverage.