How to Get Your PR Read and Published

We all think that the news our company generates must automatically be the most interesting piece of news every conceived and that journalists out there must be chomping at the bit to get hold of it.

But if everyone thinks like that, imagine just how many press releases journalists and writers must receive every day of the week, and if that’s the case what will make them choose yours to read and publish above all the others?

Here are a few ideas to make your press release more desirable than any of the others...

Recall

If you want a journalist to read your news then send the release, and then two minutes later send it again with 'RECALL' as the prefix to the headline. It's a brilliant way of making writers have a look at whatever it was you wanted to recall. It will work regardless as to whether or not you actually needed to recall the email (something that doesn't in any sense work!).

Embargo

Adding the 'embargo' prefix to your subject line suggests that you're sending the news early. Journalists like that, but increasingly the request to hold back news is ignored.

Exclusive

This helps but make sure the news is exclusive if you label it as such. Journalists hate being told a story is exclusive only to read about it elsewhere. That's going to seriously harm your chances next time around and damage your credibility.

Timing

Great timing works wonders. Hang your news on the back of some other bigger story. Support ongoing stories and weave your news into the discussion. Just make sure it's relevant and contextual.

Short headlines

Email clients have a limited amount of visible space so be sure to write shorter - rather than longer - headlines to avoid them being chopped in half.

Use your keywords upfront

Following on from the above point, it is best to front load keywords and the most important messages in your headline. The first 11 characters of a headline / subject line are incredibly important in persuading the reader to read on.

Punctuation

Calm down when using exclamation marks!!! They won't make writers read your release no matter how excited you get!!!!!!

Plain English

We all hate jargon. You don’t want people to have to spend time translating your press release into plain English, to make sense of whether or not there was actually anything worth writing about. Tech companies are among the worst offenders, when it comes to adding meaningless words to press releases.

Data

Writers love stats, because they can spin them any which way they want, and often they can be used in related stories. So if your news contains ‘new’ facts and figures then make sure your headline reflects that.

Grammar

Journalists are allergic to typos. We all make mistakes but there's no excuse for sloppy headlines.
Using CAPS LOCK

IT'S JUST LIKE SHOUTING! It also reduces readability, looks like spam, and can negatively affect email deliverability. Make sure you never, ever use them on headlines.

Relationships

Probably the best way of getting attention is to form relationships with journalists in advance of sending news. Simply put, writers are more likely to read your news if they know you. It could be that you've met them offline, or talked to them over the phone, or maybe you helped them previously in some way. Forging relationships is a smart move before blasting out news.