Every day, journalists are bombarded with people pitching stories or suggesting topics that they should cover. If you want your press release to get noticed, you need to make it unique enough to stand out. The only thing about your press release that should be normal is its format. Other than sticking to the basic formatting guidelines, however, you should do everything else in your power to make journalists sit up and take notice.
Here are eight strategies that you can use to increase the chances of your press release getting picked up by more media outlets:
1. Choose A High-Impact Headline
When a journalist picks up your press release, the first thing that they will see is your headline. If it is well-written, exciting, and intriguing, it will draw them in, making them want to learn more about your story. The only thing to keep in mind when crafting your headline is that you should never sacrifice accuracy. Instead, focus on creating an attention-grabbing headline that makes people want to keep reading while still accurately describing your story.
2. Get To The Good Stuff Right Out Of The Gate
Reporters have incredibly busy schedules. That means that you need to put the most relevant information right at the beginning of your press release. Your first sentence and your first paragraph both need to be extremely compelling. They should include the most important details of your story so that the journalist can get a solid idea of what it is about simply by scanning the first paragraph.
3. Focus On The Facts
Creating a press release isn’t about using flowery language to dress up the information that you are presenting. Instead, it is about giving solid facts and figures to journalists so that they can write their own stories based on that information. Anytime you make a statement in your press release, make sure to back it up with a fact. For instance, if you are talking about a growing trend, make sure you provide statistics that clearly support your statement. Using facts to backup all of your data is a great way to lend credibility to your press release.
4. Don’t Allow Spelling Or Grammar Errors To Take Away From Your Message
Never submit a press release that has spelling or grammar errors. Few things erode trust and undermine your credibility more than presenting a document that is filled with errors.
5. Take Advantage Of Quotes
Adding quotes from important people at your company or from industry experts is a great way to give your press release a human touch while at the same time providing the reporter with more valuable information that they can use when writing their story.
6. Make It Easy For Journalists To Contact You
One of the biggest mistakes that people make is submitting a press release that doesn’t contain contact information. A lot of times, journalists will have questions that they would like to follow up on before writing a story. Make sure to designate a contact at your company for the story, including both their phone number and their email address in a conspicuous place on the press release. Here is a good piece on how to pitch a press release.
7. Limit The Length Of Your Press Release
A good press release should be as short and to the point as possible. Set a goal of keeping it to a single page. If absolutely necessary, you can stretch it to two pages. Never include more pages than that, however. One of the benefits of writing short press releases is that it makes you fine-tune your writing so that it only includes the most relevant information.
8. Make It Easy For People To Learn More
Even though your press release should be limited to a maximum of two pages, you can always provide a way for people to learn more. Include links in your press release where journalists can find additional information about your company or about the topic of your press release. That way, they can dig deeper to get more information for their stories if they need it. Make sure to identify what type of information they can find at each link that you provide so that it is easy for them to locate exactly what they are looking for.