The Basics of Press Releases
May 29, 2008 by John Hewitt
This is day three of my discussion of, Write for the Web! A Beginner’s Guide to Writing on the Internet. This e-book was created by the men behind Men With Pens. They wanted me to take a look at it and give them my thoughts, so I am sharing my thoughts with you.
One of the topics MWP discusses is writing press releases. Press releases can make for a nice little income if you like working in public relations. The press release is a very traditional form of marketing and public relations that has a well-established set of rules. MWP explains a few of those rules such as:
The press release must include the following information: what’s new (headline), date that event happened, name of the company issuing the press release, what’s the story (opening paragraph), quotes (usually from CEO or VP of Marketing), a line or two about the company, and what it does, and contact information, (name of PR officer, his telephone number, email address, and cell/pager number).
I was kind of surprised that they assumed the PR officer is a male. Most of the PR people I’ve dealt with are women. I also haven’t met anyone with a pager in almost ten years. A fax number is more likely, but still decreasing in use. The rest of the advice is spot on. I would add the following:
Write it in a News Style
Put the primary information (who, where, what, and when) into the lead (first paragraph and keep the sales pitch subtle. No exclamation points!!! Use short words and sentences. Make sure what you’re saying is very clear. Many publications will directly reprint (or at least reprint blocks of) a press release as long as it is written in a professional news style. Buy either the AP Stylebook (most newspapers) or the Chicago Manual of Style (almost everyone else) and learn the general guidelines for abbreviating words, writing numbers and capitalizing names.
Show and Tell
If you have good photos, send them or include the words “photos available upon request” with your information at the top of the first page. Only send high quality photos and only send them if they add to your story.
End it Properly
End a press release with either “###” or ” -30-” typed across the center of the page, three lines below the end of your text. If a release has greater than one page, type “-more-”, centered at the bottom of the pages preceding the final page.
For more information on writing press releases (the old fashioned way) read my article: Sending Effective Press Releases.
Nice summary. I wonder how much this will change as technology allows ever increasing interactivity. I often hear colleagues debate the merits of including links to podcast-style quotes and information, or web trailers.
I think that the basics of press releases will hodl true, but the details will continue to change. For example, there are several tipsI give that are based on print versions of press releases, but these days, email is more prevelant, so the tips no longer really apply.
There’s a definite art to PRs. 80% of the ones we see these days are total crap, and people will pay nicely for a well-written *interesting* PR. If anyone goes into PR writing, do everything you can to learn the *art* of PR writing and don’t just slap up the who, what, why, when, where and how. Tell a story. Grip your audience.
On a side note, I want to say that we didn’t assume the PR officer was male. I do want to say that writing a long text with “he or she” peppering the content becomes bulky and that switching between genders as you write (”he” in one paragraph, “she” in the next) is disconcerting.
But we didn’t put in that little “for the sake of simplicity, we’re using he but please don’t think we’re sexist or gender biased” disclaimer”, so I apologize.
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@ James
I would have just taken whe word “his” out. It isn’t needed. I understand the gender neutral dilemma though. I’ve been hit with it a few times.
Also, I think that you can try a little too hard to tell a story sometimes. As an editor, I hated having to fish through a press release for the information I needed. I wanted to see the facts first, then the story.
WHO WHAT WHERE WHEN WHY and the chronology, with pics (motion is best.)
Be concise and have the best information available on topic.
I’m done!
I was trained as a journalist, and I refuse to write ridiculously lame press releases for my clients. “What’s the news here? Why would it matter to people?” I always ask that question and try to look for something timely, interesting, hot-topic centric… something. Just announcing that someone created a new division is not worth the time. Why is the new division important? Does it add jobs somewhere? What impact will it have on anyone else?
@ Beth
I agree completely. The last thing I wanted as an editor was a cute press release. I wanted news.
This is perfect just what i looking for for reference. thank you very much for this inspiration.
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