4 Tips to Building a Better Press Release

I recently shared a little secret: Your press release is awful. It doubled as the title of the article and, most likely, a statement of fact about your recent press release.

To be sure, I’ve written my own fair share of “danish and coffee was served” type press releases. We’ve all done it, often at the specific behest of clients or a senior manager and typically early in our PR careers when we didn’t feel we could push back.

In that same article I also noted I’m not a fan of press releases. As a journalist I found them largely lacking in value, and I haven’t yet been disabused of my opinion yet.

But here’s the catch: my colleagues and I still write press releases and share them with journalists. We don’t rely on them as the driver of our PR work though. Instead, we think like journalists, treating press releases like highlights from our notes and employing the best practices noted below.

Channel Your Inner Journalist

We start by channeling our inner journalists. For our leadership team, this is easy. We were all once journalists. For those unfamiliar with the crush of a deadline, the inverted pyramid or the trauma of achieving four fewer click-throughs than the monthly news site goal, we help them to keep this thought paramount: if you strip away the company name and the product/service/event mentioned, what’s the story? Most importantly, is it a story the reader/viewer/listener will care about? If so, you’re headed in the right direction.

Keep It Short

In the 25+ years I’ve worked in communications, I have not met a single journalist who told me a press release needed more information. To the contrary, journalists decry press releases that are too long and fail to stick to the facts. Why? Because reporters use them as reference material. In fact, more often, reporters "learn" of a story first in conversation with a good PR professional. The press release sent earlier? Lost among the stack of hundreds the journalist already ignored. If you can convince a journalist on the phone in 15 seconds or less that you’ve got a story, you’re telling some good, compelling stories.

Avoid the Fluff and Jargon

Journalists, by and large, are generalists. Very few remain on a single beat. So, keep the industry jargon to an absolute minimum. If a reporter needs to Google every third word or acronym in your press release you’re not going to get a story. With regard to fluff, my best advice is don’t do it. Over-embellished language is seen as a red flag; reporters are hard-wired to believe it’s a smoke screen for a lacking story.

Decide Which Audience Matters Most

There are three audiences for a press release:

• The journalists you want to engage
• The readers/listeners/viewers you need to reach
• The client to whom you answer

If you keep the reader/listener/viewer paramount, the journalist piece typically falls into place. The client piece is harder to navigate.

Some clients “get it.” They know the story can’t be about them and must be about the reader/listener/viewer in order to succeed. However, clients who attempt to dictate terms on how a press release must read fail on two fronts: First, they fail to allow the advice of media experts to guide them toward the best approach. Second, they put their priorities ahead of the target audience they are aiming for. It takes a bit of guts and experience to tell a client his or her approach is wrong. However, those clients who get it recognize that is the kind of expertise they are paying for, either with a PR firm or an in-house communications professional. Anything less often leads to failed press releases

The Hat Trick

Not all press releases are awful, but far too many are. Effective press releases require a good deal of discipline to be newsworthy, a bit of experience to understand you can’t rely on even the best written press release, and the confidence in your craft to attempt to change course when that press release isn’t telling a compelling story. It isn’t the easiest hat trick to pull off; if it was everyone would do it. But it can be done.

Your press release need not be awful. It can be better if you approach it like a journalist.