10 Top Tips for the Perfect Press Release

A press release is one of the most important tools that your business has for marketing. Not only does it get the word out about your business, it helps you to present your business in the best possible light. Even when you are new to the business world, you need a little help to get people to hear all about you and you can only do that with the right marketing. 

Securing positive coverage about your business shouldn’t be too hard, but often it takes learning how to write the perfect press release to help you to get there. You can start out with a press release template, but what do you put on that template? What do you write about your business? It’s important to know what the golden rules are to write the perfect press release that shines your business in the best light.

With this in mind, we put together 10 top tips for the perfect press release so that you never have to mess when it comes to speaking about your business in a positive way.

• Don’t go overboard. When you are writing a press release it has to be short and snappy and not a journal. You should aim for a maximum of two pages, but you can condense it down to just one page. Using the template, it should give you a good idea of how long this pressure should be. Journalists and editors don’t have the time to work their way through a book load of information.

If you keep everything concise and simple, especially when it comes to things like jargon, then people want to read what you have to say and not find it too long or boring. That’s the key – it has to be worth reading.

• Watch your language. When it comes to writing a press release, you really have to consider the language that you use. Not only does this matter in the body of your text, but your titles and your headings online should be nothing.

The heading of the press release should some up the story in one line and it should be engaging. You want people to click on the link and you should consider the way that click bait works to make this happen. If you have a marketing guru ready and waiting in your business, they will be able to tell you exactly what you need to write to get the most amount of traffic.

• Don’t forget the dates. A press release has to come with a date because otherwise journalists and editors will have no clue when you’d like to put the story through or how old the story is. If you have a timeline on the news you’d like to be revealed, make sure that you’ve written that the date should be embargoed until you’re ready. Journalists will be happy to do this, because it allows you to delay it until you’re ready.

• Include all of the facts. When you’re writing a press release you need to make sure that the information is out there about what you’re trying to say without going around the house. The reason we say that press releases should be clear and concise is that people want to read short bursts of information and not get pulled into a long report but then lose interest.

The very first 100 words of your press release should offer the key facts of what you’re trying to convey. Treat this as if you would be writing your very own elevator pitch. This is what draws people in.

• Say it all but say it quickly. There’s no point in adding information to a press release just for the sake of it. As we keep drumming in, you need to keep the story lean but make sure it’s fact-rich and not waffle.

Things can become very tangential when you go off on one, and you want them to really get to the end of the press release. They should know exactly what’s happening and answer every single question. The story has to be able to answer those questions from the reader otherwise there’s just no point.

• Don’t forget to add some quotes. A proper press release has some quotes or comments from you or a representative of your business. This will make writing the story far easier for the journalist because they can input the quotes in a casual way. They should be interesting and informative and they shouldn’t just waffle through about how great everything can be in your business. You need to ensure that your press release matters.

• Include some information about the business itself. At the end of the press release, you should have some need-to-know facts about your business such as when you formed and where you are located. You could even talk about the key markets and products and services that you deal with. It doesn’t have to be very long, but it can help the editor craft your press release and that’s why it’s needed.

• Always add an image. Illustrating the story is important but it has to be a high-quality image. Don’t put it in the press release, just attach it as a link so that the journalist can upload it online for you.

• Proofread and proofread again. If you want your business to look good and you need to make sure there are no grammatical or spelling mistakes. All this does is make it sloppy or unprofessional and this is not what you’re trying to achieve. Once you have gone through the press release and run the spelling check, ask somebody else to read it through for you and they can double-check it.

• Send it. The very last tip that you need for the perfect press release is having people actually receive it. Emailing out your release to targeted contacts will help you to reach your audience in a bigger and better way – on top of what the general before you.