Perfecting Your Press Release

We recently had David Trinko as a speaker at a PRSSA meeting. David talked to us about how to pitch to a reporter. In PR, it seems like we are always writing press releases. There are so many important elements required and a good press release can determine whether your story is used by the journalist you have sent it to or not.

A recent article entitled 5 Press Release Gaffes PR Pros Should Avoid outlined the five blunders most frequently made by even the best PR pros. Are you making any of these mistakes with your own press releases?

1. Forgetting the title: If you spend too much time perfecting the body of your press release and forget about crafting the perfect title, not many people are going to want to read the body. Yes, the body is important. Your title is vital to catching your readers’ attention and encouraging them to continue reading. An ideal title for your press release is concise, enlightening and interesting. If your title is confusing or boring, you’re going to loose the attention of your readers and they won’t want to read the rest of the release.
2. Using the wrong voice: Press releases must be formal and impersonal. Deviating from this format by using personal language more appropriate for social media posts will only get your press release ignored.
3. Not editing enough: After spending valuable time writing the perfect press release, you don’t want to ruin your chances of getting it published if you don’t take the time to edit. Scanning through the release once is not enough to catch all of the potential mistakes. Take the time to edit multiple times and even ask someone else to take a look with a fresh set of eyes that might be able to catch mistakes you are missing.
4. Trying to do too much: Ideally, focusing on one thing in your press release will keep your readers paying attention to the information you intended. Too much information will only confuse the reader.
5. Sending it to the wrong people: Sending your press release to anyone and everyone is not the appropriate approach. If you send your press release to the wrong people and your content is irrelevant to them, you will be rejected. If you have a press release that actually pertains to those people in the future, they’ll remember you sent them irrelevant content in the past and they’re likely to reject you before even reading your new press release.

Keep these in mind the next time you compose a press release, craft the perfect pitch, follow the tips I shared from David Trinko in a previous post and you are bound to get your press release published!