A University of Wisconsin study found that daily newspapers discarded 72% of press releases. If your release is guilty of these common flaws, it might be time to learn how to write your wrongs.
6 Things Not To Write
The number one reason for press release fatalities was “limited interest to readers,” followed closely by “no reader interest at all.” According to the study, no real news in the release, poorly written material, and inaccuracies or duplication are no-no’s that keep your information from getting into the right hands, or in front of the right eyes.
On the other hand, there are some things you can do to get your story picked up.
Develop Relationships With Media Contacts
As Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound, and Mickie Kennedy of EReleases will tell you, regularly submitted newsworthy content has a much higher chance of being picked up. Why? Relationship. Media contacts are people, too, and they become familiar with the names of the writers and the companies who submit quality press releases often.
How do you position yourself to more easily communicate with journalists? We believe a press kit is a simple way. Here are a few necessary components:
- Develop a press kit page in your Web site navigation with thorough, updated contact information including your name, phone number, and email address. Keep the navigation title simple, like Press Room, Press Kit, or Media Kit so that it’s easily found by journalists.
- Include a fact sheet about your company and a small bio picture of your company contact.
- As you accrue stories, list your topics.
- List links to other press releases you’ve submitted online, or post the actual release.
- Keep links to photos readily available for shared use. Name them by topic and it will be easy to attach them to the info when needed. Make sure there is sufficient detail in your pictures for download, and sufficient size, usually a minimum of 1MB – and possibly much larger, to be used if requested for print publications.
- Include supporting information, like annual reports, newsclips, and ads.
This resource will serve you well because readily available information makes everything your media contact needs easier and faster to produce when the time comes to submit a release.
You can see samples of some of our releases on our Media Kit page.
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