Knowing to write the company boilerplate is important for branding, promotion, advertising, and consumer education. Your boilerplate provides a glimpse of who you are as a company and what difference your product or service is making. While many people will scroll past the boilerplate, having it there can be useful for someone who needs more information about your brand.
Who does a boilerplate help?
Your company boilerplate is especially useful for a media professional such as a journalist or blogger who wants to write a story based on your press release announcement. Having your boilerplate easily accessible makes it easier for these people to write an engaging story without having to contact you for more information about the company. However, even when you’ve included a boilerplate, it’s important to share your contact details so that readers can reach out in case they have any questions or clarification.
Potential customers who are weighing the benefits of buying from you would also appreciate having a boilerplate to refer to. While the typical boilerplate is only 3-4 sentences long, this is enough space to convince a prospect that your company is worth buying from and that you have what it takes to offer a quality product or service. By explaining your reason for being, you can create interest in your company and connect with potential customers and business partners.
We’ve compiled this guide to teach you how to write a company boilerplate for your press release. Before getting into that, let’s talk about the value that a boilerplate adds to the press release
What does a boilerplate add to your press release?
Simply put, the boilerplate is the “about” section of your press release. The presence of a boilerplate ensures that all your readers understand your company’s reason for being.
While the content of your press release will change from one press release to the next, the boilerplate remains the same. Most companies only update their boilerplate once every quarter, or even yearly.
The basic role of a press release is to inform the media about newsworthy elements of your business or company. On the other hand, the boilerplate shares essential pieces of information about your company or business, including what you do and why you do it.
When drafting a press release, you must consider the 5Ws (who, what, when, where, how). The boilerplate adds more value to the “who” aspect of your press release by sharing more information about the company you’re writing about in the press release.
In the standard structure of a press release, your boilerplate appears at the end. As we’ve already said, it’s a paragraph of 3-4 sentences, so you need to keep it concise.
How to write your company boilerplate
With that in mind, here’s how to write a company boilerplate for your press release:
1) Business description
In order to write an effective boilerplate, you need to describe your business well. This is the part where you inform the readers about what your company deals with. You should define the goods you trade in, whether they’re services or products. Don’t forget to mention your business name in full.
2) Highlight your accomplishments
When writing the boilerplate, your main focus should be your company’s accomplishments and how these accomplishments benefit the audience. For example, you can highlight the number of people you’ve helped so far. You can also demonstrate how quickly you’ve reached your current level as a business. To get this part right, consider what you want the audience to know about your brand and capitalize on that.
3) Demonstrate your experience
Your boilerplate provides you with an opportunity to demonstrate the experience you have as a company in your industry. You can indicate your company’s launch date and success rate up until this point. Oftentimes, longevity in the industry creates trust and positions you as an authority in your niche. However, if your business is a startup, you should focus on your accomplishments in the short period since its establishment.
4) Rely on the journalist’s perspective
Thinking like a journalist is important if you want to write a boilerplate that will be of value. In this case, consider the questions that a serious journalist may ask. For instance, they may want to know what you’re selling. They’ll also want to know how your product or service is relevant to the consumer and industry as a whole. Ultimately, they will want to know the value of your business.
You can list all the questions that pop into your mind before addressing those that are most relevant. While you don’t have to provide answers to all the questions that you think a journalist will ask, you should address the critical questions. Doing this will reduce the chances of your press release being seen as a sales tool, instead positioning you as a trusted expert in the industry – one who is happy to provide informative content.
5) Think of the search engines
Beyond addressing the journalist’s needs in the boilerplate, another important element to consider is the search engines. Your boilerplate is a valuable space to use the keywords that will help your press release get picked up in search engines. In order to identify the right keywords to use, you will need to find out what search terms your audience uses most often. To make your life easier, you should stick to high-volume, low-competition keywords. Using these keywords will improve the visibility of your content online.
6) Don’t leave out your mission and vision statement
Nothing communicates your purpose as a business any clearer than your mission and vision statements. Your vision statement will give you a succinct way of communicating your ultimate goal. On the other hand, the mission statement communicates your daily goals. You can include either or both of these statements in your boilerplate.
7) Include a CTA
The boilerplate is also designed to encourage the audience to connect with your brand or business. With the help of a call-to-action (CTA), you can achieve this. You simply need to demonstrate how readers can be part of your business, connect with you, or support your endeavors.
8) Get different people to review it
After preparing your boilerplate, you’ll need a fresh perspective to determine if it’s perfect and newsworthy. You can involve people in your organization or company to help you with this. Encourage them to share their views after reviewing it. Their insight will help you identify loopholes that need fixing.
In a small organization, accomplishing this is easy. There are few employees to consider for this task. However, if you have a big company, you should consider high-ranking staff, the management team, and the executive. If it’s easy to connect with your shareholders, you can also consider their views.
9) Final adjustments
After asking various team members in your company for their input, it’s time for a final review and adjustments. You should also take multiple views into account while you’re adjusting your boilerplate. Thereafter, you’ll need to copyedit it and check for grammar errors with the help of a tool like Grammarly. Read it aloud one more time before submitting it for distribution.
10) Distribute your press release
There are many distribution services for press releases online. With paid subscriptions, distributing your content is easier and less stressful. However, most paid services also offer a free option. Beyond distributing your press release to media outlets, you should also establish a relationship with the local journalists.
Some of the local media outlets to consider include magazines, newspapers, and TV stations. These channels are always searching for fresh and newsworthy content to publish for their audience. A perfectly written boilerplate can give them something to write about. It makes it easier for them to craft an article about your business.
Over to you
Never underestimate the potential of a boilerplate in a press release. As much as many readers will scroll past it, the people who matter – such as journalists – will actually stop to read it. A well-developed boilerplate will help them to quickly understand what your business is about.
Since boilerplates remain the same across all your press releases, it’s worth creating one that offers value. You can connect with PR experts to help you develop a professional and engaging boilerplate.
How the press release writers at Pressfarm can help
Do you need help with this? Check out our press release templates for some guidance on how to structure your press releases – including the boilerplate – for maximum effectiveness. You can also sign up for a Pressfarm PR package and let us worry about writing your press release.
In addition to writing professional press releases, the PR specialists, expert writers, and certified designers at Pressfarm are skilled at developing winning guest posts and eye-catching media kits. With this content, you can capture media attention and win your target audience over.
We’ve also built a content distribution strategy that has proven successful for hundreds of brands. By submitting your content to the right media outlets and startup directories, we can boost your online visibility and ensure your brand ranks in relevant search results across different search engines. Our media database can also help you connect with over 1 million journalists across different industries and share your brand story with the world.
At Pressfarm, we can build a customized campaign that puts your brand in front of the right eyes.