How to write a press release.
Where should press releases feature in your overall PR and communications strategy? And how can you write a good one?
Sometimes, I see PR briefs that stipulate a fixed number of press releases.
Sometimes I hear clients bristle at the idea of writing them at all.
In this article, I’ll suggest where press releases should feature within an overall communications strategy, and how to write them well.
Here’s the TL:DR:
Press releases build a story around your business, to engage external audiences.
Press releases confirm facts, things you do. They’re not good at ‘pushing messages’ or points of view
Measurable impact is the most important part, how real people are impacted in the real world
The impact number determines how ‘newsworthy’ an event might be. Plan around that.
No journalist will print a non-story. But additional activity increases the odds of better coverage.
The more information you have at the start, the better. Download our template.
A press release can’t tell the full story. Before and after numbers add context and increase interest.
1. Press releases exist to confirm something important has happened.
Most press releases don’t get read, or written about.
The problem here is not press releases per se. The problem is poorly-written, badly-timed, mis-targeted, non-stories dressed up as ‘press releases’ and sent out to bulk mailing lists as spam.
Press releases remain the best way to put important new facts about your business out into the public domain and on the record, and to build a positive narrative around your business.
The key word here is facts. The facts mark a step on a company’s journey that points to a wider story. They provide a hook that allows journalists to create or to add to an existing story.
Are the facts important? Of course, if your company gets bought, or something else amazing happens - that’s worth writing a press release for. If the office has just ordered a new photocopier or booked a stand at a trade show, less so. So where do you draw the line?
2. Measurable impact is the most important part of a press release.
Newsworthiness is less about novelty, narrative and storytelling (important as they are) but about impact.
Who has done what thing and who is impacted? What does this event mean to real people in the real world?
Novelty and narrative are important, but if there is no impact number in a press release it is unlikely to get coverage.
It’s also particularly important to note that what is an important and significant event in our world (a big impact number for you), might not be in the minds of others.
This is why product launches tend to disappoint in terms of PR coverage: important moments from an internal operational/ marketing/ sales perspective but a new product is by definition yet to have any impact on people because it’s brand new.
There are exceptions.
New product launches from big companies (with a proven track record) get coverage on the basis of perceived future impact because there is a reasonable chance that lots of people will buy this product. Or, the product looks so incredible, its benefits and features so obviously meeting an unmet need for the first time that too many generate interest... but this can be hard to prove with no track record.
For the same reason, big funding rounds get coverage. This is because an investor with power and a track record has made a bet on a company because they believe that the business will have a big perceived future impact, and this carries weight. Plus, an injection in the tens of millions of pounds makes it more likely that the company will succeed.
It’s also true in b2c PR (consumer-facing publicity). Superstars and global consumer brands get lots of clicks = high impact, nobodies at unknown brands do not = low impact.
Ditto in corporate/mainstream business PR, if a big telecoms company hires a new executive in an existing role = low impact, if that same telecoms has a service outage meaning hundreds of people are unable to make 999 calls = big impact.
Ideally then, identify the impact number in the event; the numbers of people directly impacted, or potentially impacted in the future and use this as a basis to decide how much work you should put into the press announcement, as this is the key determinant of how much media coverage you can expect from it.
The best metrics are people (who, and how many are impacted), time or money (how will be saved/lost) as these are personally relatable.
3. Use the impact number as a basis to decide what else to do around the press release.
There are lots of good reasons to write and issue press releases, even if they don’t have an impact number - deciding what to do should depend on how potentially newsworthy the story is. Generally, I will put a press release in one of four broad categories.
🔥 HOT NEWS (expect multiple outlets to report on it)
Hot news will typically involve a famous third party person and/ or company, and deliver a clear benefit to a measurable group of people, or have a big number associated with it.
“Big” and “famous” is also relative to the media outlets where you want the story to be featured and where the business has been featured before. A hot news story is an opportunity to feature more prominently in higher-profile titles than you have previously, and tell a wider story about the business.
These stories may come along once or twice a year, so when a company has hot news it’s worth pulling out all the stops to maximise the media coverage.
🪴 POT NEWS (could grow into something if nurtured)
If the news doesn’t have an impressive impact number or any famous names or companies involved, then the story may be what I call pot news… in the sense that coverage could grow from the story in time, if well-nurtured.
Pot news may earn media coverage in media titles where the business or person in the story has been featured before, or be referred to in round-up type coverage i.e. it gets mentioned but doesn’t lead the story.
Pot news can also be used as a hook to pitch for other types of media coverage. If the story has a topical theme (e.g. working from home / AI / industrial strikes) it could be expanded into a longer opinion article on that topic, form part of a feature or trends story, or be used to sell in a wider story about the business as a profile interview.
When a company has hot news it’s worth having a wider PR plan around the news itself, to earn media coverage.
🤖 BOT NEWS (expect reprints of the press release, but no earned coverage)
If there are no impact numbers, no famous names, or any hot topics or themes that the news directly relates to, but it is a relatively significant development as far as the business is concerned - that’s what I call BOT news - in that human journalists are unlikely to cover it, but it’s worth putting on the record.
This is when presswires come in handy. For a modest fee the story will be syndicated to high-domain authority websites, it gives you collateral to share the news on owned and social media channels and will be online for future reference, helping you build a narrative over time.
🤔 NOT NEWS (probably more opinion than news)
The final category is not news - typically an opinion about something. A good example might be a small fintech firm offering a view on a third-party news event, such as a change to banking regulations.
A business may offer a statement that can be posted on the website or expanded into a letter or long-form analysis and pitched to the media but this is not ‘news’, but comment.
A final word on white papers and research. These can allow smaller companies to break the rules above to ‘create’ news, but the days of Nine-Out-Of-Ten-Cats style consumer poll research gaining wide media traction are over - with media results limited unless they are created to support a bigger announcement (such as a new measurement of a new market) and even then, much depends on the novelty of the findings, quality of the data, the credibility of the research house, topicality of the story and more.
4. Don’t just write a release and send it. Related content and ‘putting on a show’ can increase the odds of coverage.
Irrespective of how good the PR agency/ person is, or how well-connected they are - no PR person can convince a journalist to cover a press release as news…. if there is no news.
But there are things that can be done to boost a story’s chance of earning bigger and better coverage.
a press conference; a select f2f/ online media briefing
a launch platform; like a major event or conference
offering as an exclusive, to aim higher
fielding the business leader for an interview
topical opinion pieces, related to the news
supporting emails/ social media activity to staff and partners
new data, to put more context around the numbers
making supporting infographics/ media/ opinion
a newswire to amplify reach & boost SEO
a visible/ physical activation, to get people talking
Deciding which of these levers to pull will depend on the quality of the news; for example, a press conference will not work if all the business has done is changed the colour of its logo.
Similarly supporting opinion pieces will not work if the business has nothing to say of interest in the wider world.
But for a minor announcement, just issuing the news on a press wire, sending it to the mailing list, sharing it on social media - and encouraging people to engage may dramatically increase the odds of the news being seen by others.
5. Before writing, get the best information possible.
Before writing a press release we’ll always ask 13 key questions, which should provide everything you need to produce a press release and a supporting plan.
The more of these you can answer well, the more chance the release has of earning media coverage.
What are the facts (what has/ will happen)?
Who is impacted, and by how much?
What’s the context around the number?
Any famous names or brands involved?
What key message does this support?
Any topical themes?
What images do you have?
What data is there to support the story?
Which people will be speaking?
What are your expectations?
Will you invest in a wire service?
How will you amplify the news or coverage?
Do you need any support beyond writing and pitching?
You can download the form here, which outlines a little more detail on how to answer these questions.
This form also proposes an outline structure that proposes how to lay the facts out in a release; where to put the information and why.
6. Consider the arc, context and narrative that exists around the news.
A press release can’t tell the full story of a business or deliver all its key messages in one go.
They should be thought of as pieces of a jigsaw puzzle - events that add up to create a story.
It’s important to keep press releases as short and brief as possible. This is what makes them so hard to write; brevity and clarity.
An event (which is what a press release confirms) should contain just the key facts that will interest a journalist enough to ask more questions, so they can tell the story.
Like any chapter, or scene in a movie, to make sense of it you need to consider the narrative going in, and the narrative coming out.
It is this narrative that a journalist will tune into when deciding how significant your story is. If they have no sense of before and after, there is no story.
Putting numbers in the release, or facts - and giving a sense of before and after - will help people understand the overall narrative of the business.
So what to include?
🚀 Has the business ever stated its purpose and aims?
Putting targets in the public domain helps people to see how you are progressing towards the destination - it’s also an opportunity to remind people of the company’s mission, purpose and intent. If the aim is clear, bold, understandable and tangible - the more likely it is that people will be interested.
🔥 Does this support the key messages?
Before and after numbers help show what’s been achieved since the last thing you said, which builds trust. A key message should aim for a specific change in behaviour.
A business that says it’s raised £2m to enter the UK, and is aiming for a 10% market share, and achieves that is more likely to earn coverage than a business that decides to keep its cards close to its chest.
💣 What is the impact of this incident?
A before and after number can dial up the impact of otherwise isolated incidents as it puts context around the single number. NHS waiting times going up by 3.2% is not significant if they went up by 3.3% last year and the target was 3.1%... but it is significant they went down by 7.3% last year and the target was 9.6%.
So… My advice is whether you’re writing a press release or briefing an agency - look for those before, during, and after numbers.
Put them front and centre in the release and pitch so it’s clear where you’ve come from, what’s happened, and where you’re going.
To conclude:
Press releases are an important tool in PR; over time, they help build a story around your business, helping you engage external audiences, such as journalists, customers, investors, business partners and staff.
Press releases are there to confirm facts - events that have happened. They are not the right instrument to ‘push messages’ or express a point of view
The measurable impact is the most important part of a press release; if you can’t convey how a group of people have been impacted (or might be in future) by an event it is unlikely to earn coverage.
Use the impact number to determine how ‘newsworthy’ the event is, and build a plan around that. A good number may mean you have hot news, a lack of a number may mean you have no news.
No journalist will print a non-story however well-written the press release is. But putting on a show, i.e. additional activity around the writing and pitching of a press release, will increase the odds of better and wider coverage of the story.
The better information you can supply at the start, the quicker a release can be written, and the better it will be. We use 13 questions to get the facts we need to write a release, and a format to structure it. This can be downloaded from our website.
A press release marks an event in time; on its own, it cannot tell the full story of a business. Finding numbers and facts to tell a before and after story will add context and increase likely interest in your story.