How the hell do I write a press release?

-Fred K., Boise

Hey there, Fred.  Writing a press release totally isn’t hard.  Feel better?  I do!  Now that we’ve taken press releases down a notch’er two, let’s get down to it.  Press releases are free ad space, free exposure, and often, free SEO.  Make the media do your marketing for you!  Just do it right.  Writing a press release is about two things: 1) facts and 2) making the life of the publisher as easy as possible. We’re talking mints on the pillow.  After all, a journalist who receives a well-written press release just had their job done for them.  They get your press release and, bam!  Time for a smoke.  Yes, they should actually want to take up smoking after reading your press release, it should be that meaty and satisfying.

OK, first, facts: the cold, hard ones.  A good rule of thumb is to stick to cause and effect, action and reaction.  Let’s say your company, Screwmasters General, is making a new screwdriver with an ergonomic grip.  To spread the word, use short, brisk sentences that tell the truth, the whole truth—and maybe just a few additional things.  But overall, be ruthless. Here’s a little quiz to sharpen your eye.

Pick the sentence most appropriate to start a press release:

“Responding to high rates of repetitive stress injury in the workplace, Screwmasters General is releasing an ergonomically designed screwdriver in March, 2011.”

Or…

“Revolutionizing comfort in the workplace, Screwmasters General has crafted the solution to repetitive stress injury and joint stiffness in the new SmoothGrip 202z, out this spring!

Ding ding!  You got it, Slick; you want the first one.  The second one isn’t newsworthy—even if it might be true—it’s hype-worthy.  If you’re used to spouting off about product benefits, this will be a subtle but crucial adjustment.  Press release sentences and paragraphs should be simple and short, so keep those m-dashes, parenthetical asides, and exclamation points in your holster. Press releases are great sources of free advertising, a way to have your cake and eat it too, but we’re grown-ups now.  Scrape off the frosting and just give us the moist cakey goodness.  If you must include exclamation points, use only singletons.  Then, rewrite the whole thing and find a way to ditch them.  Anything that sounds like hype will either not be picked up or will be rewritten so much it mangles what you originally intended, which brings us to #2.

So, how do you make the life of a journalist easier with your press release?  Simple.  Write it the way they would write it.  Ideally, they can integrate it into a story with few or no tweaks. They want to take your release, hit ‘select all,’ and follow up with ‘copy-paste.’  So, if the publication you’re going for runs a little on the dry side, suck it up and do it just like they do.

Remember, the meat is key here.  Make sure that you have additional details to drive your case home.  You can grab a quote from the CEO—Oh, you’re the CEO?  How convenient!—include data from studies, or tantalizing facts about your little do-hickey.  Was it all done in-house, or does it contain a chip that was blessed by Tibetan monks at the top of Mount Everest?  You can say it all without resorting to hyperbole, which is Latin for horseshit.  Lastly, include a bit about “further information” being available on your website.

What’s that?  Oh, OK, we’ll cover formatting too.  Look at you, so responsible!  A nicely formatted press release definitely seals the deal.  Here’s your brief formatting checklist:

-       Keep it to about a page.  If your press release is longer than a page, you’re playing with extreme fire.  Why do you like living so dangerously?  Who are you running from?  Is it your own past?

-       Have a .PDF with your company letterhead available as an attachment or link if you’re using email.  Naturally, if you’re going the haptic route, use some nice company stationery.  At the very least, include your logo, and send it from a company email address.  Yes, we know.  We think that’s a no-brainer, too.  And yet.

-       Start your press release with the city where the release comes from and the date, AP stylee.  Like ‘CHICAGO, ILL. – January 15, 2011’  That’s illin’!

-       Contact info should be right on there.  Web address, location, and phone number.  If it isn’t in evidence, nobody will be willing to burn the 14 precious calories it will take to Google you.  Those are my calories and I’m saving them for swimming with dolphins.

-       Above the contact info put “FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE” if that’s what you have in mind.

-       This is actually really important.  And, get ready for MORE CAPS!  I know you’ve been told to steer away from CAPS, BECAUSE IT IS INTERNET SHOUTING! But here, it’s OK.  Sometimes people, especially journalists, like to be shouted at.  SEE, YOU KIND OF LIKE IT, DON’T YOU, JUST A LITTLE?  So shout PRESS RELEASE in bold caps at the top of the page so people know exactly what they’re looking at, and have something to refer to when they forget what they’re doing and who they are.  SO AT LEAST THEY’LL HAVE THAT, FOR GOD’S SAKE.

-       Sum up your press release with a couple of lines at the top, just under the title.  If your title is “Tiny Medical Device Comes in Avon Pink”, your summary can read, “After decades of research, scientists at ThinkPink Labs have found a way to merge nanotechnology with a rosey shade of light fuschia.  The consumer model of the device is positioned to open the field of internal medicine décor.

-       You can also throw in a little publishing-world sparkle by using a trio of hash marks (‘# # #’) or dash-thirty-dash (“-30-“).  The number 30 was supposed to keep demons from drinking the printing ink, so it was utilized by early newspaper publishers to tell them to back off.

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(Errgghmmmphm…grrrgm…pfff…ahhh, there we go!)

Listen: Let me preface this blog re-start with some advice: if you’re not updating your blog at least once a month, you should take the darn thing down. I was spouting this off to a client last month when I realized the Ten K One blog had been chilling on ice since Christmas or so.  Of the previous decade!

So, time to take action.  Kick into gear.  That action, for the time being?  Take it down.  Eliminate all links.  Deny its existence and head underground.  OK, head into Twitter.  I’m a Tweetfreak.

Really, I’ve had a lot going on in my life—oh, you too?—and somehow, blogging didn’t fit into all that stuff.  Finished a big, huge, secret project.  Started on some little, not-so-secret projects (hey there, Mr. Homeless Copywriter).  Had some personal crises, a few successes.  Ate, slept, read, struggled, tweeted, but didn’t blog.  Productivity?  I had it, but not here on the good ole blogosphere.  Anyone who came to my site checked out my samples and didn’t seem to suffer too badly when they couldn’t find me spouting off about the marketing brilliance of Stephenie Meyer.  (Just wait!)

Projects rolled along.  Maybe I didn’t need a blog, at all!  But, really, what sort of copywriter doesn’t have a blog?  Quite a few,

as it turns out.  They may work for larger agencies or they’re freelancers like me.  This guy scrapped the blog and opted instead for nudity.

But that naked guy*, guess what he does?

He writes really manly, hairy copy.  With little wavy lines of man-stench wafting up from it.  And it works.  His brand is cemented.  You want to sell some hunting knives?  Or something meant to cover odor while making you stink to high heaven at the same time?  Call the naked guy.  He’s damn good at what he does.  But the rest of us, those of us keeping our clothes on?  We’ve got to work a little differently.

This probably applies to you, too.  Your company has a voice, and your blog helps you determine it from the get-go.  Let me show you what I mean:

If your company is formal, laid-back, ragey, happy, schizoid, ghoulish, sentimental, funny, serious, casual, hairy, capricious, sleepy, intimate, slick, sexy, left-leaning, right-leaning, ornery, flexible, big, little, tired, callous, warm, irritable, young, old, sinister, pure, sarcastic, sincere, crotchety, nubile, arrogant, naïve, or expensive, you can just let it allllll hang out.  Your right people will find you and they will appreciate you for your unique personality.

Or not.  It’s up to you.  Take my hand, and let us blog.

*Actually, I have no idea if that’s him.

In fact, this one was a tough customer all around.  I’d had to explain just what I did before we met, that it was more about mental pen-chewing and repeated paragraph-hacking than fine print and trademark law.  Once I’d explained that, I’d offered to stop by to talk about our businesses, and now, she was giving me The Shrug.

Now, I’m OK with The Shrug.  Potential clients are free to shrug as hard as they want.  I don’t, on principle, do hard sells, on the principle that eww.  But I wanted to let her know just what she was declining before I packed up and headed home.  Really spell it out, as it was clear I wasn’t getting the message across very well.  I knew that my product was great, knew the people I was looking for, and that my product was useful.  Easy, usually.  People love my stuff.  But I was faltering here.

Really, we were having the same problem.

Who cares?

If she was shrugging at my hand-waving, grunts and whistles about newsletters and product descriptions, imagine the wave of shrugs she’d be facing with her stuff.  The European-sewn bears.  The phthalate-free line of bottles.  The extra-large price tags.  Sure, many people would walk in and think paying $300 for a bisphenol-A-free rocking horse was a deal.  Their shoulders wouldn’t move an inch.  Those folks looked your store up on Google four hours ago and already drove 45 minutes to find you, and they’re wondering if you do eco-friendly gift-wrap.  OK, well done, but what about those other people?  The ones who wander in and don’t know an eco-friendly toy from one they’d pick up somewhere else.  Quick now!  They see that $300 rocking horse and go, “Three hundred for a fucking rocking horse?”  Shrug. Come on, we’re losing ‘em…Think of something!  Aaaaand…there’s the exit.  Total time: about 30 seconds.

Those people are the ones who need what a copywriter can give them: the antidote to The Shrug.  We take your enthusiasm for your product and make it contagious, giving the right information in the right way.  Bisphenol-A?  A lot of people have no idea what that creepy stuff is.  So what if it’s not in your rocking horse?  Go ahead, jot it down on the display.  Tell people who come in.  Some people will get it, and the rest, they’ll shrug. How are they supposed to know that it’s suspected to cause a number of health issues, especially around children?  Getting it out of their kid’s bedroom is something many of your Shruggers would probably be interested in, but not until you have a way to tell them why.  In under 30 seconds.

That’s why you hire yourself a good copywriter.  What I shoulda said.