A press release for a fashion and lifestyle brand serves many purposes, especially when it comes to PR and marketing campaigns. With a good press release, a brand can announce or communicate specific needs to its audience. In some cases, businesses can even use a well-written press release to persuade their clients to take specific actions.
Press releases are quite common in the fashion and lifestyle industries. In fact, it’s a standard tool for many brand managers in this sector, who leverage them to share relevant info, product launches, and brand news. Thanks to the vast network of social media, the news from one press release can spread like wildfire and reach target audiences.
Due to the dynamics of this platform, you can no longer rely on the typical press release format. Instead, you need to adapt to make it flexible and adaptive to changes so that it reaches more audiences.
Addressing the who, what, why, where, and when
Before you start developing the release for your brand, you need to address the who, what, why, where and when of your story. For instance, what are you trying to convey using the press release? It could be an announcement for a product launch, a leadership appointment, or a recent collaboration. Whatever reason you have for creating the release, ensure it answers these questions.
Thereafter, you should highlight the objective of the release. By sharing information through it, what are you trying to achieve? The objectives of a press release can be very diverse. Even so, you must choose a specific goal. For example, your brand objective may be attaining media coverage. On the other hand, you could have reasons other than this. What’s important is that you ensure the press release objective aligns with the type of reaction you’re targeting from the media.
You must also consider the relevance of the information you’re sharing through the press release. Review the info once more before you prepare the final draft and release it to the target media outlets. On average, reporters have to read hundreds of press releases among other emails on a weekly basis.
Therefore, if your info doesn’t reach the threshold of being considered important, they will ignore it. In order to avoid having this happen, ensure your info is striking enough to earn a click. In some instances, the information you’re sharing might be received better in form of a social media post or blog post.
How to write a press release for your fashion and lifestyle brand
Formatting and presentation
You can use press releases independently to earn media coverage and boost the publicity of your brand. You can also use it in a media kit to give reporters more details about your brand. To boost your credibility when mailing the release to reporters or other recipients, use a branded template to present it. Beyond that, make sure you incorporate your brand logo and contact details on the letterhead.
You can also insert your contact details at the end of the press release instead. In fact, many communication managers at fashion brands choose to share their contact details at the end of the document. Pertinent contact information includes telephone number, email, and contact name. Don’t forget to include the mailing address and the full name of the first person they should reach out to for more information.
It’s also important to stick to standard formatting when writing the press release. Doing this will notify your target readers instantly that you’re sharing a corporate message that needs their attention. For example, you can use 1 inch or 1.5 inches for all your margins.
When writing the headline, make sure you include PRESS RELEASE or NEWS RELEASE in all caps or bold letters. To make it more prominent, use 24 pt font. Additionally, incorporate the location and date of your press release.
In the case that you are making an urgent announcement, you should demonstrate this clearly at the top of the press release. You can write “For Immediate Release” in bold letters on the top left corner of the press release. This should capture the audience’s attention. You can also use alternative wording, as long as it communicates the urgency of your press release effectively.
It’s also important to leave a sizeable space between the headline and the subheading. About two inches should be enough in this case. In a press release, the headline needs to be concise but engaging in order to capture the reader’s attention and reel them in. You can expand on the headline in your subtitle, but make sure you don’t divulge all the details of your press release at once, otherwise your readers will have no reason to read the entire thing.
When writing the headline, the goal should be to summarize the entire story by highlighting the main points. Most importantly, it must capture the media’s attention. You should also try to mention your brand name and your chosen keywords in the headline. Make sure your keywords are relevant to the news you’re sharing and add value to your headline.
The press release body
When you are through creating your headline, what comes next is the press release body. You need your audience to be able to comfortably read the press release. 1.5 spacing or double spacing can make your text much easier to peruse. Your language also needs to be as straightforward and accurate as possible. Steer clear of any jargon, metaphors, and play on words that aren’t commonly used. Your press release can be up to 800 words, but industry experts advise that you keep it within 300-500 words for maximum readability.
When your release exceeds one page, ensure you indicate that there is another page at the end of the first page. Typing “Page 1 of 2” is enough to notify the readers that there’s more text to read after that page.
A newsworthy story
The essence of writing the press release is to inform your clients about a new development in your brand. Even so, this doesn’t mean that every story belongs in a press release. As we said before, some of your announcements will be better suited for blog posts or social media updates. What your reader needs in a press release is newsworthy content. This is the same thing the media expects when they click and read your release.
A newsworthy story should resemble a well-written newspaper article. As for the format, it’s best to stick to the inverted pyramid style if you want to retain the reader’s attention while communicating the important facts. This writing style highlights the critical information at the beginning and the least important details at the end. That’s not to say that the readers will not read the end of your release. This writing format simply improves the chances that readers with short attention spans will get the most crucial details of your story before they wander off.
As a rule of thumb, avoid promotional language when wiring your press release. Your content must be objective, precise, and concise.
Proofreading
Finally, make sure you proofread your release. Get rid of all grammatical errors including spelling mistakes. Additionally, ensure the format is right before you submit it to the media. Do a follow-up after sending it, and be prompt when responding to emails and phone calls from your readers.
Conclusion
As you can see, writing a press release for a fashion and lifestyle brand is not that hard after all. The concept is pretty straightforward and everything is within your ability. However, when you’re running a fashion and lifestyle brand, we understand that you might not have the capacity to take on press release writing in addition to your daily responsibilities. If this is the case for you, then you shouldn’t hesitate to hire seasoned press release writers to take care of this task.
The best PR professionals, such as those at Pressfarm, will go beyond writing your press release to identify the best places to publish your press release. Using a targeted media outreach strategy, they will then pitch the news from your fashion and lifestyle brand to these outlets. They will then make sure your press release is published on platforms that will increase your visibility.
The expert writers and certified designers at Pressfarm can also write guest posts and design a media kit for you. With this content, you can boost your media coverage even further. Finally, the account executive at Pressfarm builds a custom media list to help you connect with respected journalists across different media outlets. By connecting with these media contacts, you can keep doing extended media outreach long after the team at Pressfarm has wrapped up your PR campaign.