Press releases
How Press Releases Can Boost Your Business By Turning Everyday Events Into Stories
They’re not just for big players or earth shattering revelations
Have you ever seen an initiative by a huge national, or multinational, corporation covered in the media and thought, ‘What I wouldn’t give for some coverage like that for my business’?
Well, guess what? There’s no reason you can’t get some of that coverage.
While getting mentioned on a prime time national news or current affairs show may be rarer than rocking horse poop, there’s every chance of local coverage. This post will show you how you can aim for that coverage by using the humble press release.
Using press releases by businesses to announce updates, initiatives, community outreach or various other happenings is nothing new. Examples of huge corporations releasing news of takeovers, mergers and store openings may come to mind. But is there a reason that your organisation can’t benefit from them?
Press releases aren’t the sole preserve of big boys like Walmart, Apple or MacDonalds. They are a great way for smaller potatoes to get themselves in the news too. I say ‘in the news’ but the ambition of press releases is not so much to make headlines as to get mentioned.
What are press releases good for?
In a word, anything different which is happening in your business or organisation may be a suitable candidate for a press release. Started stocking a new product range? Opening a new branch? Contributing to a charitable cause? Any of these things and more have the potential to get you noticed using a press release. But how?
Press releases are used to notify editors, journalists and researchers of stories available for reporting. Practically any event has potential as a story providing it is newsworthy. So now we can see an equation forming. Your desired exposure is on one side. Outlets looking for something to expose on the other.
I know, ‘expose’ sounds a little cloak and dagger, but you get the picture. Outlets are looking for stories to tell; present your event as a newsworthy story and you have every chance of being covered. Simple, right? Well, this is where the press release becomes more of an art than a science.
How worthy is newsworthy?
What is, and what is not, newsworthy could be a field of study in its own right. It probably is. We know large corporations and political bodies time the release of some stories to either get them noticed by as many people as possible, or obscured behind some other scandal of the day.
I recently heard a cold-case murder detective state on his podcast that all murders result from motives of sex, money or power. The same topics will generally be newsworthy. These are the topics that get people interested and wanting to know more. And stories related to those stories will also attract attention. Here’s an example.
A church which I am involved with here in the UK has been operating a food bank. During the recent school holidays, we teamed up with a national supermarket to provide meals to vulnerable kids in danger of going hungry because their usual school meal was not available. A decent, noble endeavour to help others, though hardly an earth shattering one in terms of news. Or was it?
You see, the topic of schoolchildren going hungry during the school holidays was in the national news thanks to a campaign by a high-profile sports person who was lobbying the government to do more. So, ‘millionaire footballer pressures government to help the poor’ was the big story. And that allowed me to craft a story of a local church and a supermarket teaming up to step in where the government had refused to. This was enough to get our release picked up by a couple of local outlets. By tagging our small piece of news onto the larger current affairs picture, we reached more people than we otherwise would.
And there’s no reason that your business story can’t do the same. By linking your story to the general news climate of the day, you stand a good chance of generating interest. And by following a few simple rules, you increase your chances of getting noticed.
Short, sharp and to the point
Journalists are busy people. With deadlines. Strict deadlines. They receive a lot of press releases. Yours needs to get their attention with the headline and keep it long enough to let them know what is happening, where and when and why they should care. If you can do that, and your reader hasn’t moved on, then you can spend the next couple of paragraphs providing more detail, quotes, contact details, background, etc. The body of a decent press release will look something like this:
- Headline;
- The who, what, why, when and where. And why is this story news?
- Background and any other relevant information;
- One or two quotes from those involved in the story;
- More detailed information regarding times, locations, contact details.
So, frame your event as relating to the current affairs of the day. Easily digestible while including any other relevant information. Of course, there are still stars which need to align before you find your story swept up in the media storm and blown to the four corners of the earth.
Choose your targets
While you can maximise the chances that your press release will get noticed and picked up, you can never guarantee it. The importance of individual stories will wax and wane against the backdrop of the events of the day. A slow news day may allow stories to be picked up which, on a busier day, would go unnoticed. Selective targeting helps.
My press release about the school holiday meals initiative related to a very local affair. The bigger story was national, but our story affected a parish of a few thousand families. Submitting this to national, or even regional, outlets would have been unproductive. Instead, I focused on local outlets covering the city, and the area of the city in question. Sure, I would have liked to have been picked up by more than a couple of local news sites and a local radio station, but it turned out that a lot of other organisations, big and small, were contributing to the same wider cause. All in all, it was a successful release.
Press releases aren’t just for the big boys. Find your story. Get it in front of the right people. Wonderful things may happen.
Contact Abundant Creative today to discuss how we can help craft your next press release!
This post was first published here.
