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Journalists are busy people and you only have one chance to catch their attention. Get to the top of the news pile with these press release writing tips…

01

Tell them why it's a great story

If you can’t tell a journalist why this is a good story in two lines – perhaps it isn’t. Think about a news peg. Why is your story relevant? Why tell it right now? What makes your product/event/venture different or interesting, and why is it a fantastic story for this particular publication?

02

Target your story

Get your press release under the nose of the right person. Do some research into who this is. This is a handy article. Don’t just blanket email your release to every journalist. There’s no point in sending a release about gardening to a motoring journalist. Editors generally don’t have time to read releases, so find the section editors, assistant eds, or features/news editors.

03

Keep it short

Keep your press release to one or two pages. Journalists don’t have time to read long releases – even if they’d like to. See also ‘Buried Stories‘.

04

Spell check

Always spell check. Errors make your writing look sloppy, and, by default, your business. Get someone else to read what you have written to check for typos and errors before your send it off. There’s also lots of online tools to help, like this one.

05

Keep it simple

Keep the language succinct and uncomplicated. Why use ‘advantageous’ when you can use ‘helpful’? Or, ‘facilitate’ when you can use ‘aid? ‘Commence’ when ‘begin’ will do? There’s a place for a thesaurus but you don’t need to swallow one.

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