Traditionally, the press release was a company’s way to deliver a piece of important news to the media. Now, through the changes in the way audiences consume media (think Facebook rather than broadsheets) and the highly accelerated product cycles of many brands, the press release has become the means with which to detonate specific conversations at a specific time in highly targeted audiences (not just journalists).
The Basics
Remember to keep everything in context and be brief –who, what, when, how and why; and make it obvious.
Don’t use jargon, and remember that a press release is a document that lives in the public domain and should be treated as such.
Don’t blindly send releases to a database, target them specifically. There’s nothing worse than receiving irrelevant information.
Considered Communication
Think about what your audiences want and when. It’s important to build a communication calendar that safeguards against saturation but still builds a constant narrative.
Product launches, prizes, mergers, opinion pieces, seasonal storytelling are all great reasons to communicate. But be wary of the time of year as well as the general news commentary to make sure your content will not cause a crisis for the company.
SEO and It’s Effect on Press Releases
It’s best practice to provide strong headlines and visual content but break the distribution of releases into various groups with distinctive headlines and varying content as Google’s robots punish repeated headlines and visuals.
Building Relationships
Build relationships with key journalists and offer them exclusive information under embargo to support the story.
Journalists and influencers often want data and statistics to support their editorial.
Don’t be scared of picking up the phone to pitch important ideas to key journalists, but be sensitive of their time. Make the call, but keep it short and clear.
Make sure you know the top journalists in the industry within which you work.
Tracking Results
Track who opens and reads the releases through widely available tools.
Over time, build a database of which journalists are more aligned to your content and who aren’t and work on building relationships with them.
When somebody publishes it’s important to share, let the media know that you’ve read and appreciated the effort and bring the story back to your own branded platforms.