NEWS RELEASE, PRESS RELEASE, MEDIA RELEASE
Writing A Press Release By Stu Leventhal
So you’ve heard that writing press releases then distributing them via the internet super highway is an easy, fast and basically free method of getting your message out there to many, many people. Sure, getting your name, brand, products and services exposure to millions of readers is appealing! But, the thing is, your goal is definitely to promote your business but you don’t have anything really news worthy to talk about. And, if you did, you really are not sure how to properly write up a news release so it doesn’t end up in someone’s delete file or an editor’s trash basket. You are correct to be cautious, first off, media exposure is not always good. Let’s face it, most news agencies love to publish bad news more than they publish good news. So simply calling attention to your brand, product or whatever you are trying to promote can and does backfire. It may spark an idea for an expose on a negative aspect of your industry that you were not thinking of and your company or cause could get caught up as collateral damage. Keep in mind bad press can leave a stigma on your company in people’s minds that is hard to erase. Writing a media release takes tact, skill and experience. But once you’ve mastered the technique there is still no more cost effective means of gaining public awareness and making masses of people stand up and take notice! Hollywood and the movie industry have known for years the power of a well plotted publicity stunt. Now, I’m not going to suggest you go to such lengths as paramount Pictures went to promote the opening of Clark Gable and Doris Day’s block buster ‘Teacher’s Pet’ back in 1958. Since the movie was about a newspaper editor. To guarantee publicity, Paramount decided to cast 50 real Hollywood newsmen sitting at their desks and even gave a few of the real reporters a line or two in the film. Can you think up any better way to get news reporters, not just the ones in the movie but reporters all over the globe, to pay extra attention to the premier of your movie than to put a bunch of their own contemporaries in the film? Did it work? The New York Times placed Teacher's Pet in its top ten films of 1958 and Teacher’s Pet received two Oscar nominations! Do you see how even a lucrative corporation, as big as Paramount was back in the 1950’s, could never afford to pay for the amount of advertisements necessary to equal the exposure and publicity generated by that one simple, well thought out, publicity stunt of using real life reporters in their film. Tons of articles were written for free promoting their movie! Radio shows talked about ‘Teacher’s Pet’ freely for months before and after the film debuted. TV news anchors talked about it. Again all free! This is the concept of what you want to achieve for your company when you design your press release campaigns. Hit on just one clever angle to present your position or message to the world and you won’t even need to place paid advertisements! It is a stone, cold, fact that when reading an article in a newspaper or magazine or even when browsing websites on the internet, people pay much more attention to real articles than they do to advertisements. Most people, at best skim over advertisements. Many have trained themselves to ignore ads completely. When they do take the time to read an ad, people are naturally skeptical of the advertisement from the start. There is a better chance that readers will believe what they read in an article rather than an ad featuring the same information because a reporter or author is given assumed credit for being a professional with some authority on the subject of which he writes. A reporter or staff writer also has a vested interest in telling his readers the truth. After all, he wants his readers to come back and read his column again and again. And it is also assumed that the author of an article writes without bias because he shouldn’t have any vested interest in the promotion of the products, services or brands he discusses in his writing. Therefore, a news story or magazine article has far more credibility with a reader than any ad which is promoting the same thing! Now, factor in the cost of just one advertisement then compare that to the fact that if you write a press release yourself you can submit it to thousands of online and offline news agencies, magazines, business journals, industry related blogs and websites, online discussion journals, local radio stations and maybe even local TV stations all for free! And, you quickly realize the benefits of promoting via news releases compared to the expense of marketing by purchasing advertisements. With an advertisement you have to pay and pay and pay for every place it is placed! Thus, a well written press release, which is either free or very inexpensive to produce has the potential for creating far more publicity than purchasing even two handfuls of expensive advertisements. So not only are press releases less expensive marketing than taking out advertisements, they reach a far bigger audience and are read all the way through more and paid more attention to! So, what is the down side? There are plenty of obstacles in the way of your news release that can prevent it from getting into the hands of an editor who can approve its use. First, there are rules of etiquette that apply to writing good news releases. They have to be submitted in an acceptable format. If your news release looks amateurish it will probably be ignored, deleted or trashed. Plus, there are acceptable topics that are considered publishable news and unacceptable topics which will never get printed anywhere; online or offline. Often times the negatively received news release just has to be re-worded properly to become effective. You have to know how to word your press release so it gets through all the screeners and onto an editor’s desk who can assign a reporter to cover your story. Yes, you should realize, someone on staff is going to re-write your press release into a publishable story. That is because the news agencies have to put their own spin on your news breaking information so when other news agencies also cover your press release their articles will all be unique. But this is great because you don’t have to spend the time to write out a whole polished article. You first need capture the imagination of an editor with a good idea and then supply enough information for a professional writer to take it from there. This means designing your hook then supplying bullet points and providing contact details so it is easy for the writer assigned to get any more information they might need to complete their article fast. The biggest rule of press release writing is, don’t even bother to send an advertisement to a news agency disguised as a news release. Remember, newspapers stay in business by selling advertisements. They expect to get paid for printing your advertisements. A press release is free publicity in the form of an article they publish. So, they won’t fall for you attempting to slip an advertisement through as a press release. But, all is not lost. Newspapers also need stories and they can’t possibly write all of them by themselves. So, we have come to the gist of it. You are looking for free promotion for your brand, services or products and the news agencies are looking for interesting unique stories that their readers will enjoy. Now all you have to do is think up some unique interesting stories that involve or mention you, your company brand or your products and services, type them up and email them off to the news agencies and everybody wins. You get free publicity, the news companies get free news delivered right to their lap without having to pay a reporter to go out and dig up a story and their audience gets a great story! Well, that is how the concept is supposed to work. Of course it is easier said than done. The problem is finding something that involves your small business that will not be considered advertising and thus be rejected. The news topic will also have to be enjoyable for news readers so they want to read about it. Now how do you do all that as well as still meet you and your business’s marketing needs. Those are three tough requirements to meet, especially if you plan to use news releases as a marketing strategy on a reoccurring schedule, which is the best way to capitalize on this method of promotion. As readers continually see your company’s name, brand and products popping up in the stories and pages of their favorite magazines and E-reading places they naturally become more and more receptive to your messages and causes. But, that means, you have to keep coming up with fresh, new, entertaining stories featuring your company continually! And, you are having a hard time coming up with your first news worthy idea aren’t you? The good news is that once you’ve put the time into learning and mastering the marvelous, free technique of marketing via press releases you will have developed a powerful inexpensive method of marketing that will serve you well for years and years. When it comes to promoting your businesses, services and products, nothing compares to news release marketing when you are weighing how much bang you get for your buck! Add the viral potential for promotion and you see how no form of paid advertising even comes close! There aren’t very many effective free marketing strategies out there. And, there aren’t very many free advertising methods that have audiences as large as news agencies which operate via vast, enormous networks. Taking traditional methods of new release marketing that have been used effectively for years before the internet was even born and now adapting it for use online then applying the power of the web, enhances the results of this already powerful platform making it the ultimate promotional method. So, let’s look closer and start learning more about how to come up with news worthy stories to promote our businesses with. Media releases are not as hard as you think to create and it doesn’t really matter what type of company you wish to promote, there is always an angle. It just may take a little ingenuity and creativity to put a twist on the information that is already there so it places your company in the lime light. You will also have to perfect the proper ways to effectively write up your news worthy stories in the proper format so your communications get read by editors and don’t come across as amateurish looking and thus get deleted, scraped or ignored. And of course we must always keep in mind our press releases will never, ever reach publication if they are not deemed interesting enough. So, if you are now as convinced as I am of the remarkable marketing power of writing press releases, let’s get to learning how to consistently write news releases that get read all the way through and are consistently chosen to be published before all the other many stories that get sent in to editors for consideration! *IMPORTANT MEDIA RELEASE WRITING TIP! Add a photo and if you have more photos state where they are or how the writers can get access to use them. Photos capture everyone’s attention and if you have a good photo, it will add value to any reporter’s story, even if he does not use your photo and decides to come take his own or sends a photographer over to take a few or gets an image from the company archives to use. Seeing a photo will get the reporters imagination rolling. He can visualize your tale or message better and he knows the worth photos bring to any piece. He also knows editors love accompanying photographs as much as readers do! |
MEDIA RELEASES, PRESS RELEASES, AND NEWS RELEASES VERSES SEO AND SEM WRITTEN PRESS RELEASES!How SEO and Keyword Optimizing Your Media Releases Can Multiply Your Traffic! by Stuart Leventhal It is widely known how submitting news releases to the many media platforms who need stories to feature, can gain you mass exposure and publicity for whatever you are promoting; products, company brands, services, ideas, new companies, new websites…the list goes on and on. Of course you have to write your news releases properly, so they get past all the screening personnel and filtering mechanisms that are in place to narrow down the many, many submissions competing with yours to be chosen to be published. Yes, writing your news release so it gets past the gate keepers and makes it to the top of the editors’ sludge piles is the first step. Organizing how you present the information so that an editor can see the value in your pitch for why your story is so news worthy, is also an important. Yes, it is tough to convince people that your marketing strategy has real value for their audiences and isn’t just another advertisement. But, since you are going to all the trouble of creating your press releases already shouldn’t you take the extra time to assure your releases will perform to the maximum of their ability? I’d be doing you an injustice if I didn’t at least let you know about the method of using targeted SEO keywords to get the most traffic driving mileage out of your press releases. The goal with an SEO/SEM keyword designed news release is virtually the same as the goals of any other press release; to inform news agencies and other media service companies about whatever you wish to promote, in such a way that they can realize your story’s entertainment, instructional or informative value for their audience. The only difference is the writer of an SEO/SEM Media release considers a websites targeted keyword strategy as he crafts the news release. Regular news releases, use the for more information blurb at the bottom of their news release to get links back to the web real estate they are promoting. Links may also be embedded in the text of the news release. Definitely mentioning a websites name and it’s url a few time throughout the article without over doing it and being labeled spammy, is a good idea. SEO/SEM optimized press releases are also written that way but the text of an SEO or an SEM crafted news release is creatively written to work with the SEO/SEM keyword strategy that is already being used at the website the media release is trying to gain exposure for. Taking the additional time to optimize your media releases so the keywords embedded in their content is an exact match for the keywords your website targets will dramatically increase the performance of your news releases making it easy for the search engines to make the connection between all the articles that your news release produces and your or your client’s web real estate, plus you can point the traffic directly to the exact webpages, products or services you wish to promote. You may have no real influence as to which media agencies and platforms will publish your released story, but you are supplying them, in your release, the bulk of the material they will use to write their unique versions of your released news. There are many ways of which people can say virtually the same things. By writing your bullet points and titles using the same keywords your web real estate, blogs, website, Facebook fan pages, shopping carts, squeeze pages all use, you are in effect multiplying the power of all those articles once they hit the world wide net. Now your press releases are not only valuing you or your client via the many links back to your web real estate but all the published articles are sending you visitors through leveraging the strength of the many search engine searches for your SEO/SEM optimized keywords. Streams of interested visitors are now being directed to all your key web real estate places. Plus, the best part is, with all the added web activity, the numero uno search engine’s algorithm, the sometimes dreaded, often misunderstood Google algorithm, is concluding your web site pages, blog posts, social media presence etc. are all worth ranking a little higher in their search index! Now all you have to do is create a press release campaign that sends news worthy media releases out on a timely consistent bases then watch your promotional results ski rocket on multiple playing fields. SEO/SEM keyword optimization is truly how you take full advantage of the awesome power of Press Release Promotion! 
Press Release
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PROPER NEWS RELEASE FORMAT
By Stu Leventhal
Before one even considers the topic of their news worthy, press release they need to learn the ins and outs of how an effective media release is constructed. News agencies rarely give an unprofessionally written news release a second glance. If you didn’t follow the rules, 9 out of 10 times your work ends up in the trash!
Rule #1 – Type, ‘PRESS RELEASE’ at the top of the page. This will assure that there is never any confusion that yes this is a formal news release and should be handled with respect!
Rule #2 – Be sure to date your news release and add for ‘FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION’, unless your release has a very good reason for being sent extremely early when it is intended to be published at some later date. In which case, you would state ‘embargoed to’ then ad the appropriate publishing date. For example: ‘embargoed to August 13th’ which means fit for publishing on August 13. Bear in mind, it is not recommended to send press release too far in advance because so much happens in a media organization that it is easy for your story to get miss placed and forgotten about.
Rule #3 – Next, list yourself as the contact person and state the company you represent, followed by your contact details. This immediately informs the reporters and editors who they are dealing with, you, a person of authority, speaking on behalf of a professional organization! Follow this format:
Contact name
Company name
Company address
Company phone number
Company Web site address
Contact phone number
Rule #3 – YOUR HEADLINE SHOULD BE IN ALL BOLD CAPITALE LETTERS
Your Sub-Headline Should Have Each First Letter Of Every Word Capitalized
Rule #4 – The beginning of your first paragraph should start by stating the City and State where this noteworthy news is taking place followed by the date
Rule #5 – Don’t indent paragraphs, leave a space between each paragraph. Keep paragraphs short and concise.
Rule #6 – Try to wrap it all up using only one page. Statistics show that one page media releases are accepted much more frequently than long winded pitches because editors are very busy and can glance over a bunch of one page press releases before they make the time to consider evaluating a long, complicated, intimidating looking 2, 3 or more page media release. Long press releases tend to get placed aside to be read later and then never gotten back to.
Rule #6 – Be sure to restate your name as the contact and supply the reporters and writers with any other necessary contact information they may need as they write. So, they can easily check details and ask for more clarity or additional information. Follow this format:
For more Information please contact:
Contact name:
Company name
Company address
Company phone number
Company Web site address
Contact phone number
Contact e-mail address
Rule #7 – Signify the end with these three symbols ###
Rule #8 – You may wish to write a small, one paragraph at most, bio about your company and/or brand if it is appropriate for the type of news or event you are promoting. Use this format:
About (your company name)
Briefly describe your company history and vision. For more info about (your company name) call (name of contact) at (phone number) or email (fill in contacts email address)
Before one even considers the topic of their news worthy, press release they need to learn the ins and outs of how an effective media release is constructed. News agencies rarely give an unprofessionally written news release a second glance. If you didn’t follow the rules, 9 out of 10 times your work ends up in the trash!
Rule #1 – Type, ‘PRESS RELEASE’ at the top of the page. This will assure that there is never any confusion that yes this is a formal news release and should be handled with respect!
Rule #2 – Be sure to date your news release and add for ‘FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION’, unless your release has a very good reason for being sent extremely early when it is intended to be published at some later date. In which case, you would state ‘embargoed to’ then ad the appropriate publishing date. For example: ‘embargoed to August 13th’ which means fit for publishing on August 13. Bear in mind, it is not recommended to send press release too far in advance because so much happens in a media organization that it is easy for your story to get miss placed and forgotten about.
Rule #3 – Next, list yourself as the contact person and state the company you represent, followed by your contact details. This immediately informs the reporters and editors who they are dealing with, you, a person of authority, speaking on behalf of a professional organization! Follow this format:
Contact name
Company name
Company address
Company phone number
Company Web site address
Contact phone number
Rule #3 – YOUR HEADLINE SHOULD BE IN ALL BOLD CAPITALE LETTERS
Your Sub-Headline Should Have Each First Letter Of Every Word Capitalized
Rule #4 – The beginning of your first paragraph should start by stating the City and State where this noteworthy news is taking place followed by the date
Rule #5 – Don’t indent paragraphs, leave a space between each paragraph. Keep paragraphs short and concise.
Rule #6 – Try to wrap it all up using only one page. Statistics show that one page media releases are accepted much more frequently than long winded pitches because editors are very busy and can glance over a bunch of one page press releases before they make the time to consider evaluating a long, complicated, intimidating looking 2, 3 or more page media release. Long press releases tend to get placed aside to be read later and then never gotten back to.
Rule #6 – Be sure to restate your name as the contact and supply the reporters and writers with any other necessary contact information they may need as they write. So, they can easily check details and ask for more clarity or additional information. Follow this format:
For more Information please contact:
Contact name:
Company name
Company address
Company phone number
Company Web site address
Contact phone number
Contact e-mail address
Rule #7 – Signify the end with these three symbols ###
Rule #8 – You may wish to write a small, one paragraph at most, bio about your company and/or brand if it is appropriate for the type of news or event you are promoting. Use this format:
About (your company name)
Briefly describe your company history and vision. For more info about (your company name) call (name of contact) at (phone number) or email (fill in contacts email address)
NEWS RELEASE IDEAS
Press Release Topics For Small Businesses
By Stu Leventhal
Now that we know the correct format for crafting our news release, let’s look at some of the more usual topics of a business news release. Can you distinguish what is news appropriate and/or news worthy information? Think about what people watching your daily, local, news show are interested in hearing about.
1. Is your company opening a new branch in a new town?
2. Have you just finished remodeling?
3. Are you moving to a bigger location to better serve your clients?
4. Does your company have an anniversary coming up? 10 years in business, 25 years, 50 years!
5. Do you wish to announce a change of ownership or a significant change in upper management?
6. Is a key member of your organization retiring?
7. Did you just receive approval of a nice size loan for expansion?
8. Are you approaching serving your 1 millionth customer mark and probably going to surpass that milestone this month?
Any variations of the above situations are all sufficient news to send out a press release. Anytime you can get your name out in front of your potential clients and customers you should take advantage of the situation. When there seems to be no more news worthy stories to tell, you have to dig deeper and get creative!
*Don’t wait too long or your competitors will gain the lime light!
9. Create an industry survey then compile your findings and go public via a press release
10. Put together a bunch of quality industry related tips then send out your press release announcing how people can get those tips for free!
11. Has your company or one of your employees received an industry related award or are they being considered for an award?
*Sometimes you will have to put out some cash to create a newsworthy situation. But the positive exposure can be more than worth the expense.
12. Have you considered creating a scholarship fund for young high school graduates considering going into your field? You could create a competition to win the scholarship which opens multiple opportunities for sending press releases. The announcement of the contest, the selection of the finalists, the final square off event between finalists, the presentation of the award and scholarship check all are news worthy. And the best part is you repeat it all next year.
13. Hosting a charity event is one of the easiest ways to get yourself or your company in the news.
14. Donating your time or expertise to help a popular cause in your community is another great topic for sending out a press release.
15. Donating a large sum of money towards accomplishing anything positive always draws a lot of attention.
*When the well runs dry you need to think out of the box to come up with more ideas. The possibilities are endless.
16. You could do the research then release a report on an industry trend with real facts and figures.
17. Launching a new product or division is newsworthy. So is discontinuing a key product or service.
18. Getting a celebrity to endorse your product is always a way to share the spot light!
19. You could partner up with the local high school and announce your new internship program so students can learn more about working in your industry.
20. Sponsoring a local sports team is a great opportunity for a press release. What is even better is it opens opportunities for ongoing press releases. The team’s winning or losing record is news worthy. Signing a new promising player is news worthy. Getting new team uniforms is news worthy. If you go to the finals, that’s news worthy. And, if your team wins the championship that is definitely news worthy!
Now that you’ve gotten the idea of what to write about it is time to start promoting via news releases.
Now that we know the correct format for crafting our news release, let’s look at some of the more usual topics of a business news release. Can you distinguish what is news appropriate and/or news worthy information? Think about what people watching your daily, local, news show are interested in hearing about.
1. Is your company opening a new branch in a new town?
2. Have you just finished remodeling?
3. Are you moving to a bigger location to better serve your clients?
4. Does your company have an anniversary coming up? 10 years in business, 25 years, 50 years!
5. Do you wish to announce a change of ownership or a significant change in upper management?
6. Is a key member of your organization retiring?
7. Did you just receive approval of a nice size loan for expansion?
8. Are you approaching serving your 1 millionth customer mark and probably going to surpass that milestone this month?
Any variations of the above situations are all sufficient news to send out a press release. Anytime you can get your name out in front of your potential clients and customers you should take advantage of the situation. When there seems to be no more news worthy stories to tell, you have to dig deeper and get creative!
*Don’t wait too long or your competitors will gain the lime light!
9. Create an industry survey then compile your findings and go public via a press release
10. Put together a bunch of quality industry related tips then send out your press release announcing how people can get those tips for free!
11. Has your company or one of your employees received an industry related award or are they being considered for an award?
*Sometimes you will have to put out some cash to create a newsworthy situation. But the positive exposure can be more than worth the expense.
12. Have you considered creating a scholarship fund for young high school graduates considering going into your field? You could create a competition to win the scholarship which opens multiple opportunities for sending press releases. The announcement of the contest, the selection of the finalists, the final square off event between finalists, the presentation of the award and scholarship check all are news worthy. And the best part is you repeat it all next year.
13. Hosting a charity event is one of the easiest ways to get yourself or your company in the news.
14. Donating your time or expertise to help a popular cause in your community is another great topic for sending out a press release.
15. Donating a large sum of money towards accomplishing anything positive always draws a lot of attention.
*When the well runs dry you need to think out of the box to come up with more ideas. The possibilities are endless.
16. You could do the research then release a report on an industry trend with real facts and figures.
17. Launching a new product or division is newsworthy. So is discontinuing a key product or service.
18. Getting a celebrity to endorse your product is always a way to share the spot light!
19. You could partner up with the local high school and announce your new internship program so students can learn more about working in your industry.
20. Sponsoring a local sports team is a great opportunity for a press release. What is even better is it opens opportunities for ongoing press releases. The team’s winning or losing record is news worthy. Signing a new promising player is news worthy. Getting new team uniforms is news worthy. If you go to the finals, that’s news worthy. And, if your team wins the championship that is definitely news worthy!
Now that you’ve gotten the idea of what to write about it is time to start promoting via news releases.
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