One way to write a release is to imagine you are merely an observer of your business and you see this great new thing (event, product, service, charitable act, etc) – now tell everyone out there about it, and remember that they’ve never heard of you or your business. Make the tone neutral and objective.

You cannot craft your way into newsworthiness – news has to have substance. For instance, I am releasing a book on do-it-yourself financial planning right when many people are disappointed with their financial planners’ advice. That is both timely and newsworthy.

Other topics can include release of new products onto the market, the receipt of an award, the release of new software, or the launch of a new business strand.

Leading the Way

Before the first sentence, list the city, state, newswire service, and date of release.
The lead sentence is the most important and should summarise the entire story in about 25 words. It should be understood all on its own without any need to read the headline or summary.

It is good journalism practice to include the “who, what, when and where” in the first few sentences.

Crafting Content

Because journalists may take the release’s bare bones and craft it into a news or feature article, you don’t need to spend time fancying your words. However, be aware that some media outlets will take it word-for-word, so pay attention to spelling, grammar, punctuation, voice, and structure. Some basic tips include:

Leave out industry jargon and explain any acronyms.Sentences should be kept short, and paragraphs should be about three or four lines. Try to avoid the types of phrases that always crop up in spam (e.g. money-making opportunity), as these will trigger the ‘Spambots’ – used to filter out junk releases. If you cannot change the word F.R.E.E. then type it with extra dots or dashes.

In the last paragraph summarise the key points you’ve made, and list when the event RSVP is, or when the product is available. At the end include a short background about the company or the person who is newsworthy. Then list the contact person’s name, email and phone number.

Thinking about what is the essence of your news, now come up with a catchy way to say it – ideally in about 80 characters or 8-12 words. You can extend on the headline in your summary paragraph, which can range from one to four sentences.

Write the summary and headline last, once you have a solid article. The entire release can range from 300 to 800 words.

Once we have completed our short, focussed, and very timely release, what do we do with it? Because we don’t have time to contact every media outlet personally, we can send it to the media via news wire.

What The Devil Is A News Wire Service?

A newswire or press release service is a portal that makes available media releases to various media around the world, both large and small. Large services like Australian Associated Press (AAP) (http://www.aapmedianet.com.au) reach over 5,000 of Australia’s newsrooms. Journalists and editorial staff are scanning the newswire daily, looking for juicy, relevant news to fill their publication.

While most people send out releases in text form, there is also capability for audio and video releases to go to radio and TV.

I have found the online news distributor PR Web is quite an easy-to-use service for the home/small business. PRWeb is a newswire service that has a range of offerings, ranging from a low $80 to about $200 (plus look out for their specials). There is a complimentary online webinar explaining the benefits, a press release template, and editorial tips. You are allowed one hyperlink every 100 words, but do not insert email addresses in the article body.

Newswire services distribute the news to leading online news sites like Yahoo! News, Google News, Ask.com, Topix, and list on their own online news site.

Another way to distribute news is through Real Simple Syndication or RSS. RSS is a way that website managers can provide real time news to their readers. PRWeb also use RSS to deliver news through 20,000 RSS feeds that get drawn down over 10 million times every month. Wow, that’s traffic!

So while you can still approach your local newspaper with a release, you can also leverage your time and release it out to all and sundry.

by Jennifer Lancaster.
Published in Business Mums magazine, June 2009.