PRESS RELEASES
Press releases use that thing we call free publicity, one of the most powerful and cheapest forms of advertising. They announce your company's news to journalists in the hope that they will publicise your story. Many times journalists will cut and paste your press release, other times they will follow it up as they would any other story. Unfortunately everyone knows this now and journalists receive loads of these every day. That's why it's worth putting some effort in to making yours as good as possible.
Press releases can be mailed, faxed, or e-mailed to assignment editors at newspapers, magazines, radio stations, television stations, and/or television networks. Quite a few people even hire PR agencies to help them get closer to editors and give their story a better chance.
Reasons for sending out a press release might include winning an award, announcing new products, reporting excellent testimonials or recent successes and forthcoming events. This has now become big business, you can buy books on press release techniques and can even study it at uni. Lets have a look at a few you shouldn't forget.
First, get your information in the right order - use the same 'inverted triangle' model that journos use to write their own stories:
All press releases should begin with one sentence that sums up the story
Keep your writing simple and avoid long words and jargon
Short sentences and paragraphs are easier to read
Don't Overuse Capitals: they're for names, months, days of the week, titles (Professor Jones, International Monetary Fund) nationality words (Welsh, Russian, etc) and that's it
Check your grammar carefully: if you're not confident doing this, find someone who is
Your press release shouldn't be longer than two pages of A4, 1.5 line-spaced, in a clear font like Times New Roman
Find out when the paper goes to print and make sure your press release is there in time for the edition you're aiming for
Put a release date at the top if you're timing your press release to coincide with some event or announcement
If the information can be used immediately, put 'for immediate release' at the top
If there is more than one page, put 'more' or 'continues' in the middle of the bottom of each page
Make sure you've included contact details in case the paper wants to talk to someone or get more information
At the end, put 'ends'
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INSPIRATION & EXTRAS
Each week I throw up things I find that relate to what we've been discussing or working on that week. Sometimes it might be things that relate to your major assessment and sometimes just stuff I thought was worth seeing. If you find something you think we should be showing or something we just have to see let us know in class or throw an email over to me at matt@billyblue.com.au and I'll get it up here or on the Bluni inspiration site.
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