Let me tell you a dirty secret about press releases: 99% of them don't get used.
When I was an editor and reporter, half of the press releases came by e-mail and half by fax. We preferred the faxed ones -- because during especially cold winters, you could roll them into Presto-Logs.
Most releases are written by public relations professionals who've been doing this for years. So how can a rookie succeed where the pros usually fail?
I'll write for a bit in the format of the Typical Boring Press Release and show you why journalists kill it on sight:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 16, 2010
Contact: Guy Bergstrom
guybergstrom@gmail.com
202-555-1212
CEO of BigCo celebrates fourth quarter earnings report that beats Wall Street expectations by 4 cents a share
NEW YORK -- The Typical Boring Press Release makes three fatal mistakes that are easily avoided, with a little thought and preparation.
"If you google 'how to write a press release,' you'll get the same obsolete advice," said Guy Bergstrom, spokesman for BigCo. "They'll tell you every press release should be about 500 words, with FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE on top, then your contact information and the date."
The first mistake is putting all that boring boilerplate on top of your headline, because it only hurts your chances.
"You have maybe five seconds to get a journalist's attention," Bergstrom said. "They swim in a sea of e-mail, wading through hundreds of press releases every day. Why make them scroll past junk to find your headline and story? It only annoys them into hitting DELETE."
The second mistake is having a long, boring headline.
"Your headline has to sing, and it should fit in the subject line of your e-mail," Bergstrom said. "Try for eight words, max, and you'll avoid a double-decker sandwich of blah."
The third mistake is in trying to cram every press release into the 500-word mold.
"Open the newspaper and find the section your story would fit," Bergstrom said. "If you hire a new employee, your release should be about two paragraphs with a black-and-white photo. If you're opening a new business in a small town, you could go a lot longer than normal, maybe 900-word release with three or four photos."
# # #
So How Do You Write a Better Press Release?
Below is a simple, stripped-down format for press releases. It's easier to write and harder to delete.
Got junk? New local business wants it
SPRINGVILLE -- If you walk down Main Street, you'll notice a new sign painted onto an old piece of sheet metal.
"Trash into Treasure is about second chances," said owner Tim "Tiny" Jacobsen, who retired after thirty years of hauling garbage for LeMay Enterprises. "It's crazy how much the American family throws away. A lot of those things don't belong in the landfill. They've still got life left in them, like this Huffy bicycle here. All I needed to do was fix the front tire."
(And so forth...)
# # #
Contact: Guy Bergstrom
guybergstrom@gmail.com
202-555-1212
I left off the date and the business about FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE because in the age of e-mail, your release already has a date stamp. And unless you want the release to be held (journalists say "embargoed") until a certain date, they know that you meant for them to use it right away. Contact information can go at the bottom.
Three more tips before you hit SEND:
1) Photos are your secret weapon.
Papers are always short on photos. For a feature story like this one about the recycled junk store, editors would love a shot of Tiny outside the business, a shot of the most interesting piece of merchandise and maybe Tiny talking to a customer at the counter.
Some papers, especially weeklies, still have slow Internet connections. Sending them 20 megabytes of photos in an e-mail may make them remember you in a bad way, so post your photos someplace like flickr.com and include links to the photos at the end of the release.
2) Short press releases work.
A common example is a release about a meeting. A newspaper won't run a 500-word story about the regular monthly meeting of the Rotary Club -- but they will run a two-sentence brief publicizing the meeting in the calendar section. If you're having a famous speaker, sure, then you can do a full press release and send a photo.
Radio and TV won't run your press release at all. They might read a one-paragraph version on the air, so it makes a lot of sense to condense your release into a paragraph for radio and local TV.
3) Send it to a person, not the slush pile.
The final place people trip up is when they hit SEND. Instead of emailing it your release to the generic address newspapers use as a slush pile -- it's usually something like news@localnewspaper.com -- find the editor of the section your story would fit. If it's a business story, send your release to the business editor directly.
Send the release one by one instead of blasting it out to everybody in the TO line of your e-mail.
Will these things take a little more time? Yes. But you'll get much better results. Press releases and guest columns are called "earned media" because you're not paying the newspaper to run something. You have to work hard to beat the competition and earn the right to get published.