You probably don't know it, but a well-structured press release can be one of the most powerful tools to spread your messages as a company or brand. Especially online press releases, which although they have similarities with the traditional ones, have some advantages that will help to better promote your message. Would you like to know how? Keep reading!
If you have reached this post is because, probably, someone has encouraged you or you have read somewhere that press releases are a good communication strategy for companies. At the same time, you are thinking that you don't know where to start because you don't have any journalistic knowledge. Don't worry! Let's go step by step.
First of all, it is important to know what a press release is and to be able to distinguish it from articles (post) or news. In a simple way, we can say that a press release is nothing more than a document of no more than two pages (preferably one) with which we present important information or news about our company or business to the media.
Once this document has been drafted, it is sent to the media so that they can evaluate it and publish it.
The objective of a press release is clear: to get our project in the press, to be talked about in articles and to end up publicising our brand in one way or another.
Depending on what we want to make known to the media with our press release, we will talk about one type of document or another. It is important to differentiate them in order to know how we should present each one of them.
We can talk about:
In the same way, whatever type of press release it is, all of them are informative and serve to establish a first contact with the media so that they can evaluate it and publish it. Press releases, once written, are directly sent to the media where they will evaluate characteristics such as: the newsworthiness of our information, how attractive it can be for the public, how to relate it to an interview or news item, etc.
For this reason, it is important that as well as being attractive and innovative, our press releases must have a good structure.
It is important that the headline is written in slightly larger letters than the rest of the text or even in bold, but never in capital letters or italics.
The lead-in will serve to slightly expand the headline, but we must not forget to use a direct, clear and precise style so as not to lose the attention of our addressee.
The lead is also usually written in bold and in a slightly larger font than the body of the article but smaller than the headline. It is advisable to include keywords to improve the positioning in search engines.
The place is not the city where we are, but the city where the headquarters of our company is located. In other words, if we work with a communication agency in Barcelona but our company is in Toledo, we can use Toledo.
With regard to the date, we must put the date of the submission, which will help the media to prioritise the information and know when they can publish it.
The body text should follow the journalistic pattern of the inverted pyramid, i.e. the most relevant information at the beginning and the least relevant at the end. In addition to showing the information in order of importance, it is important that it answers the 7 key questions: what, who, when, how, where, why and what for.
In the body of the article we will continue to use a direct and clear style where short sentences are the most important. It is advisable to include a quote from someone responsible for the company as long as it can add value to the content. The body of the article should normally be written in 11 or 12 point font and highlight some words in bold, without overdoing it, in order to capture the media's attention at the first glance.
It is important that our press releases are well structured as this way we will make the media participants in our project and they will know in a very simple way what we want to communicate. If they understand our purpose well, it will be much easier for them to publish our information and give greater visibility to our company.
if you have something to communicate, do it through a press release and gain visibility for your brand! Remember that what is not communicated .... does not exist.