More than 81% of customers feel empowered after reading personalized content from a brand and this includes press releases. Therefore, through the right content marketing techniques, you can build up brand awareness and reach out to more prospects. Furthermore, you can leverage this strategy to convey your brand values.
Speaking of values, about 90% of consumer loyalty lies in the brands whose values align with their personal values. Moreover, over 92% of consumers are loyal to brands with complete transparency. By mastering the art of writing an engaging press release, you can draw the attention of all these audiences.
With a good press release, you can also express your brand values and capture loyal followers. In the meantime, prospects can use the press release about your brand and what it offers before buying your services or products. With that said, do you know what it takes to write a striking press release? Here are some key elements to guide you:
1) Consider the purpose and angle of the approach
Before you dive into how to write a press release, you must consider the purpose. Without a clear purpose, you will be wasting your time creating a press release as audiences won’t spare time to read your content. If you waffle on and on without a clear intention, you’ll be sure to lose the attention of even the most attentive reader. Moreover, your story angle plays a vital role in how effective your press release will be. In this case, you need newsworthy content to appeal not only to the public but also to media outlets.
What you decide to write about will determine which media outlet will publish your content. You can use multiple story angles to capture your readers’ attention, including:
- Unveiling of new products or services
- Announcing a business merger or partnership
- Announcing upcoming conferences or trade shows
With the purpose and angle of approach set, it’s time to learn how to write a press release. Remember, you’re writing for both consumers and journalists.
2) Create a captivating headline
Over 75% of audiences start their reading at the headline. Thereafter, only about 20% of them continue into the rest of the story. Therefore, if you want to capture the attention of both consumers and journalists, a striking headline is crucial. Besides being striking, it should compel the audience to continue reading.
As you write the headline, consider your angle of approach and purpose. The headline must highlight the announcement or the main message. Once it’s ready, trim the headline and make it short, precise, and interesting.
3) Work with a press release template
If you’re new to the process of writing a press release, working with a press release template is resourceful. This is because mastering the skills required to write a winning press release takes time. Before we get to what the template should cover, you must create a list of target reporters or journalists. In this case, focus on those in your industry. At the beginning of this process, choosing the kind of publications or outlets you’ll work with is vital. For instance, you might be interested in:
- Radio shows
- Influencers
- Bloggers
- Magazines
- Newspapers
Once you’ve decided on the publications, the next step is to look into their writing and submission guidelines. Thereafter, work with a template that contains the following:
- Release date
- Company’s logo
- Contact info
- Good headline
- Subheading
- Dateline
- A lede
- Body
- Boilerplate
- ### to mark the end of the release
4) Enhance credibility
Once the outline of your story is ready, you can capture media attention by enhancing its credibility. You can do this by including a quote from an authority figure. Including a quote from an industry expert gives your press release some social proof. This could be someone from the company with the ability to boost your press release authority. You can reach out to stakeholders and the chief executive officer for a memorable quote to boost the news you’re sharing.
5) Engaging content
Even with a compelling headline, you still need the audience to read the entire press release. For this reason, you need to add engaging content that will enrich your press release. To create such content, consider the inverted pyramid style of writing. In the beginning, you should focus on vital information while moving toward less important info. Don’t forget to include CTAs if you want the reader to take a specific action.
6) Add visuals
Another way to engage your audiences is by adding visuals. They’ll break the text monotony and make your content more catchy. Beyond that, they’ll shed more light on the story and help the audiences understand it better.
7) Write a compelling pitch
Learning how to write a press release is just half the journey. The other half includes learning how to write an enthralling pitch. With an effective email pitch, you can leave a journalist curious enough to read your entire press release. If you find it hard to write a compelling pitch, consider working with professionals like those at Pressfarm. This will not only save you time but also ensure that the journalists can read your entire press release.
8) Distribute the press release widely
After writing the press release and adapting it to fit your target publication, it’s time for distribution. You can send many copies of your release to various media outlets that publish content from your industry. While not all of them will respond, try to be patient. Reporters receive tons of press releases daily. If you don’t hear back after a few days, you should follow up to find out whether the journalist is even a little interested in your news. If they express some interest but seem unsure, you can share additional information to encourage them.
9) Leverage social media channels
In addition to reaching out to media publications, take advantage of social media. As a global platform, this is the perfect avenue if you want to reach many audiences from all over the world. With over 4 billion users, social media platforms can give you access to almost half the planet’s population. Therefore, you have an endless list of prospective clients to tap into.
When sharing the press release, include your company’s site links. You can incorporate these in the boilerplate to drive traffic toward your business site. With a better ranking on Google’s pages, your chance of getting potential clients increases.
Your turn
With the help of these nine tips, writing a press release is quite simple. It usually takes several tries for you to become a pro. Even so, don’t struggle to craft a compelling press release alone. With the help of professionals like those at Pressfarm, you can develop an attention-grabbing press release that will captivate both media and prospects.
The PR experts at Pressfarm specialize in crafting winning press releases and distributing them widely to the right target audience. Moreover, the expert writers and creative designers at Pressfarm can help you turn your knowledge into newsworthy content by creating email pitches, press releases, guest posts, and media kits that can be used to capture media attention and inspire your target audience.
Pressfarm’s PR professionals and expert writers can also help proofread and edit an existing press release for you. This is in addition to providing insight and advice into the PR industry. Moreover, by providing custom media lists and a database of 1 million+ journalists, Pressfarm can help you connect with the best journalists in your niche. By partnering with Pressfarm, you could launch a PR campaign that boosts your online visibility.