Big Bad Weekly Tip: Does Your Press Release Bite?
By Ryan Wheeler
Launching your own publicity campaign can be a daunting task. You’ve spent years writing your masterpiece, and now you’re faced with writing a killer press release the gets the media’s attention. Here are a few press release writing tips:
- The most important piece of a press release is the headline–make it count with a hook that has bite! Look for news headlines, events, holidays, seasons, comparable movie or book titles, and attention-catching happenings that you can tie your book to. Be creative, and try to send out a new release every 4 to 6 weeks.
- Make it newsworthy, objective, and accurate.
- In the body of the release, include the most important information (who, what, where, when, why, how) in the first two paragraphs and the least important information at the bottom, in the “inverter pyramid” style.
- Explain the relevance and benefit of your book to the intended audience.
- Make sure it is not self-centered and does not sound like a sales pitch–it should read like a newspaper or magazine story.
- Use relevant keywords that the search engine spiders will latch on to for increased visibility.
- List your book’s bibliographic data (ISBN, pub date, price, page count, cover, etc.).
- Be sure to include your contact information for the people who want more information.
Give your release some teeth!
September 30th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
Your advice on press releases is right on the mark.
Good headlines are critical if you’re writing press releases because you only have a few seconds to attract a reader’s attention, and the headline is what either pulls them in, or loses them.
I’m offering a free email course called “89 Ways to Write Powerful Press Releases.”
I explain why we should no longer be writing press releases only for the press, but for consumers who can find the releases online, click through to our websites and enter our sales cycle, even if journalists don’t think our release is worthy of attention.
The course includes several terrific press release samples as well as “before” and “after” makeovers.
You can sign up for the free press release writing tutorial at http://www.PublicityHound.com/pressreleasetips/art.htm
It’s a very long tutorial, with an entire week devoted to writing good headlines, but please stick with it. By the time you’re done, it will be like earning a master’s degree in writing and distributing press releases. And you’ll know more about this topic than many PR people.
October 5th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
[…] Now that you know how to create a press release with teeth, you may be wondering, How do I go about unleashing it? […]