Many a business owner or marketer has been balked at the task of having to write a press release for his company. Indeed without any study, experience or training it can be confusing and even upsetting. Especially in the case of the editor from the press release firm who continuously sends back your release, always with a new correction or critique; it can sometimes seem nearly impossible to get your release through. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Let’s examine just a few guiding principals you should use when writing your press release that will improve your outcome.
If you remember to write your release as if you were a third party who had nothing to do with your company and were writing a piece about this news item as if it were to be an article in an encyclopedia, you’d be on the right track. This is really the way a release needs to be written. It cannot be written as a sales pitch or anything seeming overly positive. It just needs to be the straight up facts, without subjective thoughts of how good something is. You must leave the subjectivity and opinions to the reader.
Stay on topic
When writing a release you must keep your article focused on one topic, one news item. Don’t try to tie in various items which are totally un-related. For instance let’s say your company’s product was recently featured in a major motion picture film, additionally your company also helped in a recent disaster by providing humanitarian aid. You cannot put both of these items in the same release. Each one itself is news-worthy however they each need to be in their own release.
Follow the format
Press releases need to be written in the third person for its narratives (with the detached encyclopedic style). Occasionally you should break off from narrative and go in for a first person quote of an employee, customer or anyone else related to the story. Remember when quoting someone to put their name.
Conclusion
Just by following the three principals herein your press releases will improve markedly and you should have less send backs from the editor.
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