When it comes to helping your business succeed there are a few things that you can do. At the end of the day though, all that matters is that you can do what you need to well. So, if you’re looking to get media coverage for your small business, then you need to know How To Write A Press Release and how to write it well. This is an essential skill that will take some time for you to learn, however, it’s very important that you can manage this.
You can’t just write anything and hope for the best. If you do this then it is likely that it will not work, and your press release will be a failure. You need to know how long a press release should be. What sort of information should you include? Ultimately, it’s not just a ticket to earn you news coverage though, you should also be thinking of your press release as a valuable piece of marketing content that can help your business succeed. So how do you write the perfect press release though?
Make Sure Your Story is Newsworthy
There’s no point writing whatever you feel like. Before you even start writing a press release you need to think about what people will actually want to read about. If you don’t know what to start with then think about what you like to read, watch and listen to what is on the media, this should help give you a good indication of what will work well. If you are still struggling to think of something after that, then most people will generally be interested in something that they haven’t heard of before, or something that surprises them, or even something that can help them solve a problem.
So, before you start writing your press release you need to ask yourself a few questions: is there anything “new” in your story? Is there anything unexpected about it and would anyone be interested in this? You need to think about the people who are already aware of your business, but also you shouldn’t forget about the people outside of your business. So, if you are a small gardening company, how can you impress people who have limited gardening skills, or hire a personal gardener to do the work for them? Will your press release interest them or only people who like to garden?
Write Killer Headlines
Even if you write the most perfect press released ever, you won’t get very far if you have a boring headline. You need to stand out from the crowd and entice people to read more. When you are sending your press release to journalists to review, you need to remember that they will probably go through a hundred emails a day, so it’s a good idea to label your email with something like “press release” and then also have a great subject line as well.
Don’t try and be too clever though, you need to make sure that they can understand it. So, if your subject line is too complicated and means that they’ll have to think about it for more than a few seconds, they will probably just bin it and move on. You need something that is catchy and draws in people’s attention. Writing a killer headline is a sure way to get seen, and you’ll soon have plenty of people interested in reading more about you and your business.
Be Concise
When it comes to writing your press release, you might be tempted to show off your business and just waffle on. This would be a mistake. The ideal length of a press release is about an A4 side, or about 300-400 words in length. If you go much longer than this, then you probably have a load of unnecessary things in it, that won’t add any value to your story. If this is the case, then you need to edit your piece down and get rid of a few words or paragraphs.
You will also want it to look good as well. You need to have the same number of lines in your paragraphs. You will also want to include things like sub-headings and bullet points to help the person read it with ease. Bullet points make all the information a lot easier to digest particularly if you’re including statistics and figures. Don’t forget it’s not just press releases that can help your business – why not check out these small budget advertising strategies for your business here to help you take that next step!
