How to Write a Press Release:
Finding
and Developing Your Story
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Releases
by Peter Cooper
Finding
your story
If you think finding a story is going to be
the hardest part of producing a press release, then you probably don't have anything
interesting to say anyway. If so, how can you expect to make it into a publication
with nothing to say. Simple. You need to 'invent' some news.
Inventing
worthy news about your company, product, or service is easy. It needs to be something
exciting but which also contains enough merit for it to be 'believable' as well
as publishable. If it's not publishable, why would anyone want to run it? That's
the whole point of dealing with the press.
You could sponsor
an event or make a donation to charity. You often see this type of story in local
town newspapers. How many stories have you seen in these papers about a large
company based in your town donating money to the local school or charity? I've
seen hundreds of them, and even though they make you groan, there's a great number
of people who are actually influenced by them.
If there's actually
a major story surrounding your company, service or product, then 'finding' the
story is a trivial task. However, what you need to do after finding a story is
to develop it further and get some different 'angles' on it.
Developing
your story
Anyone could sit and write press releases about
the mundane news they want published. This doesn't produce desirable results
though. Of course there are some companies who issue press releases about every
single thing they do, and those press releases rarely make it any further than
their own corporate Web site. The truly useful press releases are always well
thought out and prepared, and actually give the press benefits in using them.
"Whoa!"
you say. "I'm supposed to write a press release that benefits the press?"
Yes. Most definitely!
Unless you're planning to only send your
press releases to the editor of your in-house magazine you must satisfy other
people's needs with your press release. After all, can you expect a publication
to waste its valuable time and space to publish a story not worth its while? Of
course not. In business, things are rarely done for free.
The
first stage in developing your story is to address the needs of the publications
you want to feature in. Without doing that, your press release ends up in
the trashcan (or Recycle Bin!)
Reasons why your story would
be published:
- They're short on content and will
publish anything
This is a rare occasion, so don't bank on it!
- Your story is particularly relevant to their readers
- Your story fits into
a topic they've been planning to cover or run
- Your story backs up another
one they're going to publish
- The news is so important that it just has
to be published
- You have 'connections' or influence over the publication
The most likely reasons are that your story is both
relevant to their readers and makes at least mildly interesting reading, so make
sure it is! The reader relevancy point depends mostly on which publications and
journalists you end up giving your press release to, which is covered in our "Releasing
your Press Release to the World" section.
However, you still
need to make your press release interesting to read. I've seen hundreds of dry
press releases that would even make the company's CEO cry. To make your story
more engaging and press-worthy you need to look at it from a different.
Developing
different angles
For example, imagine that you name is
Joe Bloggs and you run a company that sells chemical toilets and waste disposal
units for use at construction sites. You've launched a new product that actually
destroys 99% of the waste entered into it, making emptying easy and increasing
efficiency.
In 'dry speak' this doesn't sound particularly
exciting. Who really wants to learn about the latest scientific advancements with
chemical waste disposal? I sure don't! However, since you're a press relations
savvy, you dress the story up in different ways for different publications.
- Construction trade newsletter
"Losing too much money with waste disposal?
Our product rapidly destroys 99% of your waste." - Chemical industry journal
"Bloggs'
Chemical Corp. beats competitors to market with radical waste disposal unit guaranteeing
99% waste removal." - Waste industry magazine
"Our new waste disposal
unit can eradicate 99% of industrial waste in days due to a radical chemical breakthrough.
Is this the future of waste disposal in general?"
As
you can see, that's three sample outlets for your story. I highly doubt that your
story is as boring as developing a new chemical toilet, so you should be able
to come up with at least 5 or 6 different angles on your story. You could
then implement all of your angles into a press release or separate ones if you
wanted.
Don't worry about thinking in glossy 'market speak'
terms while developing your story, despite the experts claiming this is a bad
idea. When you're thinking of angles on your story, you're not actually writing
the press release for all to see. You're just coming up with ideas and options
to use to push your press release further.
Once you're certain
that your story is one which press organizations would actually want to hear about,
you're ready for one of the most important phases. That is, actually writing the
press release.
