How to Write a Press Release

A press release simply tells the media who you are, what you're doing and why you're special. It should only be created when you have something noteworthy to say. You do not want to be known for sending out press releases to announce that you're back from vacation in the tropics where the waves somehow inspired you to use fancy new gift packaging.

Only bother to write a press release if you want to improve the impression of your business, garner exposure and thereby increase your sales, all for free.

Appropriate occasions for press releases are:

When you have an official announcement that has a large impact on your business, such as a merger, partnership, or a new unique product or service.
Special seasonal event like donating a portion of sales to a charity.
When you have a large-scale message or controversial statement. Ex. Record numbers of people buying cloth diapers from you all of a sudden, combined with your speculative explanation that it's fueled by Oprah's episode on global warming. OR, you are disagreeing with experts in your field and want to say why.

How do you write one? There's a standard format that you need to stick to. Don't be clever and think you'll catch someone's eye if you try to jazz it up a bit. A great press release is ready to be printed as-is. If you steer from the format, you're just creating more work for a journalist who'll have to change things around.

Here's what you need to know:

Start with plain white 8.5"x11" paper Some experts recommend using your letterhead. Some say it takes up space for your press release body. Since you should keep a release to one page, you decide if your letterhead is taking up needed space.
In the top left-hand corner type your company name, address, phone number, fax number, email address, website address, and the person contact information of the person who will be the liaison between your company and the media, even if this is you. Have a max. of two contact people.
Skip two lines. Underneath your contact info write "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE", unless your press release is for a specific holiday or event, in which case you should write, "FOR RELEASE ON OR BEFORE [date]." If you don't have a really good reason such as this for delaying the release, don't place any restrictions or there's a good chance that it will be forgotten in the ensuing days.
Skip two lines again. Next, in CAPS, boldface and centered, write your headline. Something catchy, attention-grabbing. Newspaper-y. "WORK-AT-HOME-MOMS SAY PINKPOWERSUIT.COM SAVED THEIR LIVES, LIVES OF THEIR MOTHER'S COUSINS TWICE REMOVED." Except, make sure it's true. ;-) And not so long.
Begin body of paragraph, with the city from which your message originates and the date. Make sure that you double space.
Write with the most important information first. Give the who, what, when, why and how that you learned in grade 5, as soon as possible. (I've read that the first 10 words are most important.) When sharing who you are, include some details like how long you've been in business, what you do, how large your business is and/or your projected growth, what major awards you've received, what major press you've received, what your sales are (if it's noteworthy). If you have lotsa kids, mention that. People are fascinated with moms with large families, which I wouldn't need to tell you if you have more than three kids already. Being a mom and mom-owned businesses are trendy right now and a lot of publications are looking for mom entrepreneurs to feature.

An example press release body:
"An Indiana mom of five young children realized the dream of inventing a product and bringing it to market, magnifying the growing trend of "mompreneurs". Mom business owners and inventors are such a growing trend that Entrepreneur magazine recently devoted a column to these power house women.

Mecinna Price and husband Jared saw promise in their invention to save your kids' clothes from ice cream and popsicle messes, and pursued their dream despite the daily distractions of raising young children and the grind and great expense of medical school.

"The sheer start-up cost alone of inventing a product, especially something made of plastic, would scare away most people. But we had no doubt that moms and dads would love our product, and they do." Price adds.

While only on the market for two and a half years, the Dripstik has already found its way into celebrity award show grab bags and has been garnering favorable press from The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, Good Morning America and The Today Show.

Price says they are thrilled with the reception for the in-demand gadget and already have plans underway for future parent sanity-saving products which will be brought to market by their parent company Price Productions, LLC.

"I get a lot of emails from women wanting to know how to bring a product to market. It's hard work but worth it to see your idea come to fruition and have other people share your opinion of its worth. So, I don't mind directing other women like me as to where to go." says Price.

While it's easy to see how one could be intimidated by starting their own business, the Home Based Business Institute reports that 70% of home businesses last at least three years, compared to only 29% of other business endeavors, meanwhile 70% of all home business owners are women. (National Center for Policy Analysis)

There are more venues popping up to direct moms to the business world, with increasingly more joining the online front. PinkPowerSuit.com is one of these websites, again mom-owned, with a message board, simple how-to articles and DIY website builder to help the burgeoning entrepreneur. Ideal for beginners, the easy navigation is helpful for those not so adept online.

If these moms are any indication, moms may be leaving corporate headquarters in droves and setting up shop from the dining room table!

That's just a quick write-up. It would probably need further editing. The key is to think like a journalist. They are writing to create a good story, not to make you money. Avoid bragging. Avoid the MUCH overused phrase, "Finally! A solution for..." I'll throw up if I read one more "Finally!" in marketing. If you can't come up with anything better than "Finally", then "finally" hire a professional (although I've seen even multi-million dollar companies do this). Avoid all other sales-type speak. You aren't writing an ad.

Another thing that I did there was mention two related businesses. It would make sense if writing an article about moms going into business to provide some information to the reader for how they could do the same. I could partner up with Dripstik with a press release. All we want is our name in a publication, with a few intriguing facts. Curiosity on the reader's part usually takes care of the rest. This creates a more complete, less biased-looking article, which make make a difference in getting published.
Include a relevant quote from someone, maybe even yourself. Of course, you'd word it in the 3rd person.
Close by reiterating your main point with some different wording that what you already used.
Keep it all to one page, two maximum if you absolutely have that much that is so pressing (excuse the pun) to say.
Thank the press for their consideration.
When the body of your release is finished, drop down a few lines and write "# # #" in the centre of the page, or "-30-". This is the traditional way of saying that you are done. Go figure.
Have a friend or two read it to ensure that it's readable! Edit for spelling, punctuation, redundancy, awkward too-long sentences, and weak writing with lots of "is-and-buts". And please don't end a sentence with a preposition! Common prepositions are "to", "from", "on", "of". They generally pertain to location. Location is generally what they pertain to. (It shouldn't be to hard to spot the better version of that sentence.) While a sentence should not begin with "And", there is benefit, in certain circumstances, to write the way that people speak, to be more approachable and natural. A press release is not fine literature. You want to use plain speak and avoid excessive adjectives and impressive words, particularly industry words that might make their way into a Dilbert comic.

Choose an attention-grabbing angle.

People usually write about trendy things. You're in luck if you're a fellow mompreneur reading this right now, because work-at-home-moms are super trendy right now. Entrepreneur magazine even recently added a column devoted to WAHMs. Keep an ear open for current fads. Remember when monogrammed items were all the rage? Many product manufacturers were able to use that trend and mention it as a selling point around the holidays as a great gift item.

Ever heard the term "human interest story"? Gotta love media lingo. Makes you feel so warm and cozy... People love rags to riches stories, former-failure-turned-successful-inventor stories, charity stories, and definitely heroic accounts. Can any of these apply to you? Why not get involved in a charity now, with the plan to write a press release about it later? Around October, why not develop/sell a product and give 100% or 110% of the sales to breast cancer awareness? That would grab attention seeing as most businesses share a small portion. When you do your taxes, you can write it off as advertising and feel good that you helped out a worthy cause.

Mistakes to avoid!

1. Follow-up on your press releases. I can't believe that I've read on other sites the recommendation to follow up on your press release! This is the worst advice ever. Imagine that you are a reporter or editor getting 100 press releases a week, or even a day. Would this stress you out at all, knowing that you had to at least skim them all, to make sure that one or two are not gems that would otherwise be featured first in a rival magazine or newspaper? Then, imagine that every one of these press releases were followed by some person "casually" asking if you got her email and what you planned to do with it! How annoyed would that be?

It's like those eBay people who email and ask you to leave them feedback, like you have nothing better to do than make that your top priority since your item arrived all of five minutes ago. This practice is considered very impolite, like asking someone to give you a Christmas present. Even if you gave them a present, you can't ask for one in return!

Christmas presents, eBay feedback, and free press are not contractual requirements. Be gracious if someone decides to give you either of these and be gracious if they don't. The next time that you have something worthwhile to write about, you may just get your just desserts!

And if you don't believe me, feel free to check out what the online marketing gurus at the Internet Marketing Center have to say about this.

2. Send your press release to everyone including your neighbor's pet hampster. There are companies who will do this for a fee and they claim terrific results. It's not impossible that you'll get some bites from this method but be careful when you read a guarantee that 100,000 media professionals will read your press release. It's not the number of eyes that you care about. You want something in print!

Why you should not send your press release to every media personal in the world:

It's a waste of your time.
More importantly, it's a waste of their time. Word will get around that you're sending it to everyone and you will be ignored the next pass around or the one after that.
You'll look unprofessional sending your press release about your children's photography business to Horse & Hound magazine.

These are good reasons for not using a press release service. You'll get better results if you do it yourself. Also, some of those companies will have outdated contact information. Imagine how embarrassed you'd be sending something to a magazine with the name of the person who had the job previous to its current position holder?

3. Buy media lists for sale. Again, this will likely result in outdated information. If you do decide to buy lists, make sure the info was updated very recently, that it contains complete contact information, and that it was compiled by a non-biased source. Make sure that it's guaranteed.

Where do you send a press release?

There are websites that act as directories for media sources. They aren't usually that comprehensive. Google could be your best friend if you have good searching skills. If your target market is moms you can search for parenting magazines, online parenting magazines, mom newspaper, kids magazines, mom television show, parenting television show, women's magazines, parenting newsletter, women's newsletter, homeschooling magazines, christian women's magazines, and on and on. Really try to think of as many niche groups as you can where you might find moms! Then, look at their press page and their contact page for relevant contacts. You can even email them ahead of time and ask their who their media/press contact is to be sure that you target that right person.

And be sure to especially contact news stations near you, if you aren't too camera shy! They appreciate local stories and moms in business are of interest right now.

Here's some other useful links:

Gebbie Press has a media links page that will help you find some relevant sources. This link will take you to their magazine list page, which is far from complete in the categories of which I'm familiar: women's interest and kids.
The Paperboy has links to more than 6000 newspaper websites in various countries.
Oxbridge Media Finder is a great site for more than 70,000 American and Canadian periodicals.

How to Send Your Press Release

Email is standard but don't send it as an attachment. Not everyone can open all attachments and it's just annoying. Who wants another step? Some journalists still prefer mail or fax and you'll only know if you ask. And if you do mail it, I've read that you should not fold it like a letter. Rather, fold it so that the first thing the reporter sees is your heading and headline.

A great product that makes emailing all those individual press releases far easier is iContact. You can use the custom database to store all of your contact information and then just "tell" it which group of reporters you want to mail to and it's sent automatically. (iContact is also awesome for your opt-in offers or newsletters because it will automatically address your recipients by name, making it more likely that they will actually read your emails.)