{"id":100,"date":"2010-07-20T15:47:35","date_gmt":"2010-07-20T14:47:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/?p=100"},"modified":"2010-07-29T13:45:16","modified_gmt":"2010-07-29T12:45:16","slug":"how-to-write-a-press-release","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/07\/how-to-write-a-press-release\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Write a Press Release"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes : <\/span><\/span>

How do you go about writing a quality press release that will grab the attention of the media and your audience? Here are\u00a0five simple\u00a0tips to help you succeed :-<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Pick a “Newsworthy” Angle.
    \n<\/strong>Remember that press releases are not <\/strong>an advertisement for you – if you want an advert in a paper or magazine you will have to pay for it.
    \nDo not try to sell your product or service. Do not use “hype” in press releases (we sell the best widgets), although if you are the biggest producer of widgets and have signed a big contract mention this fact.
    \nInstead give the media what they want and they will give you what you want which is space in their magazine, paper or website.<\/li>\n
  • What do the media want\u00a0?
    \n<\/strong>This is very simple,\u00a0all they want is a story that is backed up by facts!
    \nJust provide\u00a0 the Who, What, When, Where and How in\u00a0a story format.
    \nWho used your products and or services , what do they use, when and where have they used them and how have they used the product or service.
    \nShow examples of ways that people have used your products and services to their benefit. If you can include some emotions in your story all the better.\u00a0 Ask yourself “Would this be something that I might read in a newspaper?”<\/li>\n
  • Start well
    \n<\/strong>The headline and the first\u00a0sentence of the first paragraph are the absolute most important part of the press release. Many journalists get 100’s of press releases a day and will spend seconds looking at each one. If you don’t catch their interest here within those seconds\u00a0 you will end up in the bin with all the others.
    \nThe best way to do this is to use your most hard hitting information FIRST rather than build to a climax. This may be opposite to what you would normally do but it does work!
    \nOnce you have grabbed the journalists attention the rest of the pres release can\u00a0give the details that\u00a0support your story or theme (the facts mentioned above).<\/li>\n
  • Aim your press release at the media.
    \n<\/strong>Remember your press release is being read by a journalist, editor or reporter, not necessarily a client. It’s not your job to sell them your product or service, it’s your job to give them an interesting story or piece of news that they will be happy to share and announce to their audience.<\/li>\n
  • Tell the media who to contact
    \n<\/strong>Don’t forget to add details at the bottom telling the journalist who to contact for more information – give them an email address and a phone number – if the\u00a0editor is looking for something to fill some space in his
    \npaper or magazine and the press deadline is getting close he may want to pick up the phone to ask more questions and if it’s a choice between two press releases and only one has a contact number guess which one is going to be used.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n

    You may wonder why you should bother with a press release, well consider the implications of one journalist or editor seeing it and publishing it in his paper \/ magazine.\u00a0 Just one feature or a mention in a popular or targeted business publication and you could have your company seeing many new enquiries hopefully leading to\u00a0new sales and extra profits.<\/p>\n

    One further\u00a0bit of advice I would give is to target the press releases carefully (there is very little point in sending out a blanket press release to all the magazines and papers you can think off, send it to the ones that are relevant to your products or services) \u00a0and send them regularly, but only when there is something to announce.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Reading Time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes : <\/span><\/span>How do you go about writing a quality press release that will grab the attention of the media and your audience? Here are\u00a0five simple\u00a0tips to help you succeed :- Pick a “Newsworthy” Angle. Remember that press releases are not an advertisement for you – if you want an advert in a paper or magazine you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[9],"class_list":["post-100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-advice","tag-marketing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}