You pride yourself on your excellent email-crafting skills, and your social media skills are second to none. But now you’re faced with the intimidating beast known as a press release, and you’re not sure how to craft it well while garnering all the attention you and your brand want and deserve. Believe it or not, there’s an art to crafting a good press release. Here are five simple steps to help you create a better press release.
Keep it short, keep it sweet
The faster you and the reader can get to the point of the announcement, the better. Keep in mind, journalists and bloggers receive dozens of press releases a day in addition to their normal editorial calendars. They, much like you, don’t have a lot of time on their hands, so if you can quickly and easily give them the information they need, do it.
Multimedia is a must
Think about the purpose of your press release. Is it announcing an exciting new product or service? A new team member? Some interesting information from a case study? If the release itself would benefit from having photos, charts or other graphics accompany it, then be sure to include those for interested writers. Not only does including graphics make your release more interesting to readers, it also makes it easy for those writers to make their articles about your brand more interesting.
Establish expertise
Don’t give readers the opportunity to question your authority or credentials. Instead, lay them out for everyone to see. Obviously, the information you detail depends on the nature of the announcement, but if you’re introducing the world to your brand’s new CEO, then take the time to detail why they’re such a great acquisition for your team. Their past work experience, years in the industry and awards and accolades not only make them look good, they make your brand look good for recognizing their talent.
Highlight important information and contact information
Make it as easy as possible for journalists and bloggers to write about your brand. Determine a format that allows you to highlight the most important information from your press release in a way that allows readers to quickly scan and glean all the information they’ll need. Bulleting stats and highlighting information by using bold text sets important excerpts apart from the rest of the body of the text. The same applies to contact information. Give readers all the information they need to get in touch with you or your brand ambassador in case they want to dive deeper into the announcement and your brand.
Includes links and URLs to brand sites
Don’t forget that this is also an opportunity to bring new customers, clients and interested readers to your brand’s sites and profiles. Include links and URLs to make it easy for readers to either click or copy and paste and easily redirect themselves to your sites. Include your official site, but be sure to include your Twitter and Facebook profiles, as well.
Have a handle on press releases? Excellent, now improve your brand’s presence by taking a fresh look at your SEO strategy.
