Before starting to write your press release, you should know the basic rules. The premise. Write it as if you were a newspaper reporter, within the well-known framework and journalistic style of a news story. If it’s still hard for you to resemble their style of writing, choose a major daily newspaper and try to read some stories. Surely all of them have three things in common; an eye-catching headline. The lead paragraph will cover the five W’s (Who, what, when, where and why) and an ‘inverted pyramid’ information presentation strategy.
Don’t be surprised if your release will end up in the wastebasket particularly when you’re trying to promote a new MLM opportunity or a get-rich-quick scheme. The product you want to introduce must be decent. If you want to promote its service, it should be worthy. In sum, the press release will be published if it’s newsworthy.
The first thing to focus is the headline. Make sure it summarizes the content of the release. Moreover, it should catch the editor’s attention. Those editors are very busy and if they don’t find your text stand out from all the other releases on their desks, they will succesfully throw it on the garbage bin.
The essence of your message should be performed in the first paragraph. it should be able to communicate almost 100% of what it is you are trying to say. The message should contain something that attracts your audience and makes them want to read the rest of the story. In general, it must be in some way newsworthy and relevant to the reader.
To make it easy to edit, your press release text are supposed to be double-spaced. Your full contact information–include your name, address, phone, fax and email–should be put in the upper left hand corner. A press release has to be printed on a company letterhead.
Next, pay much attention to grammar, spelling and punctuations since journalists and editors won’t spend the next hours to check an awful press release. Don’t write too much. You only need not more than five short sentences per paragraph and avoid fancy language. It is enough to write only four or five paragraphs. All you have to do is to position yourself as a journalist reporting a news story. Details are presented in order of importance after the lead paragraph.
Tags: press, writing