You’ll usually find that basic core of a press release can remain pretty well same across all media groups, because it consists (or should consist) of pure facts – old journalist’s formula of who, what, how, where, when and why.

What changes is angle, and particularly lead-in. That means headline, which should be short and attention-grabbing, and then first two or three sentences that support headline and set up whole story. Often it’s worth trying to work in a clever bit of word-play with headlines, but be very careful – a pun or play on words that doesn’t work is worse than writing headline straight.

By far best guidance you’ll get, though, comes from studying audience – people who read publications. What in your story is going to interest them?

·Readers of a trade journal will be interested in what’s new and different about your new product and how it could improve way they do business.

·Readers of local or regional business sections will be interested more in how your new product’s manufacturing and distribution, say, will impact on local business community and economy.

·Local general newspapers and other media will be interested in human side, i.e. how many new jobs factory producing new product will create.

·…etc.

And one last tip on how to get best from press releases – use “quotes” from key people involved in story.

Not those awful, meaningless corporate-babble quotes you so often see in company press releases … “We are delighted to be able to announce new contract at this moment in time and we have every confidence that our latest investment will be of significant benefit to our…” you know type of thing. These are usually first elements that get chopped out by editor.

It’s perfectly OK to write quotes for your senior people, by way. They very rarely give real quotes for anything other than TV or radio interviews but don’t seem to mind quotes being written for them, provided they’re given opportunity to check them before they’re issued.

So, write them quotes that – far from being beatific banalities – actually are telling important parts of story. This is good for two reasons:

1.It makes your senior exec look intelligent and aware of what’s going on in organization, which is 100% more than banality-quote will do for him/her.

2.Because it’s an important part of story and contains useful facts, publication’s staff will be far less likely to edit it out.

Possibly you’re beginning to feel that in order to get press coverage you’ll have to turn yourself, your product and your entire board inside out and upside down. You could be right, but that’s PR. Remember that press coverage is not advertising**. Yes, it’s free and that’s wonderful, but as always there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Editors will only put your stuff in, for free, if it is genuinely good for their publication and their readers, not for you. They do not care about your sales figures. They care about their own sales figures. Successful PR people and writers of press releases always, always bear these points in mind; in fact that’s why they’re successful.

**An exception to this is what’s known (in UK at least) as “advertorial.” In case you don’t already know this is advertising copy written in editorial style, but space it occupies is really an advertisement you pay for. If you’re obliged to write it, please just try to make it as honest as you can. Not easy.

Online tips

Nearly all theory pertaining to offline PR is relevant to online equivalent – especially in terms of what content is of interest to publishers and what isn’t.

Online publishing of relevance to organizations usually falls into one of two pretty obvious groups; one, websites, portals etc that are totally independent and uniquely on web, and two, those which are online alter egos of offline publications.

In either group if you want publications to take your releases or submissions seriously, it’s very important that you follow format and structure of articles that appear on websites concerned. Whatever you do don’t make mistake of submitting a general press release to these organizations, even though you do it by e-mail.

Check first how long teaser paragraph is that appears on home or section page, and check how they lay out full articles. Then submit material that fits perfectly, both in style and in word counts. Here’s why:

1.You will be saving them trouble of reworking your piece which makes it attractive in first place

2.Because it fits so perfectly you will discourage them from changing anything, which is also a huge advantage for you.

The other point I would make about online press work is don’t assume that just because you submit a release to offline publication (and even if they run it) it will be forwarded automatically to publication’s website. It won’t. At least not necessarily. And I’ve found that one out hard way, believe me.

Treat offline and online versions as entirely separate entities; find out who movers and shakers are on each, and often you’ll see that online version is run by an entirely different group of people.

Naturally as you’re professional you will be as objective as possible. But if you do feel strongly one way or another, ensure that your argument is put as reasonably as possible without going on for pages and pages.

Remember, brief is beautiful, although it’s harder to write briefly (and include all important points) than it is to produce words in abundance.

5. Don’t get carried away with illustrations

Graphs and charts are great to illustrate important issues and like man said, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” However ensure that those you use are of a level of complexity that will be understood by least topic-literate of your readers. There’s nothing more irritating than a graph that takes you 20 minutes to decipher.

It’s not so much a case that readers are too stupid to understand a complex graph, as it is that they don’t want to spend too much time working it out. The easier/quicker you make it for readers to understand and assimilate your information, more successful your report.

Try, also, to keep graphs and charts physically adjacent to text that talks about same thing. There’s nothing more irritating for reader if they have to keep flipping from front to back of a document. (When in doubt, think of someone reading your report on that crowded commuter train.)

6. Cut clutter

Still on that topic, try to avoid including too many diverse elements in your report, no matter how long and involved it is.

If you do need to include appendices and various bits of background material, research statistics, etc., make sure they’re neatly labeled and contained at back of your document.

As I suggested earlier, don’t ask readers to skip back and forth, directing them with asterisks and other reference directing symbols.

If you’re writing a medical report or paper then you’re obliged to include these when quoting references from other papers, but please keep even these to a minimum. They’re very distracting and can break your reader’s concentration.

7. Take some trouble to make it look nice

I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but people do. Like it or not. According to UK Image consultant Tessa S, when you walk into a meeting, 55% of your first impression of someone is reflected exclusively in way you’re dressed. Documents fall into same hole.

So how your document looks goes a long way to creating right impression of your work, and of you.

Obviously if a report is due to go outside your organization and particularly to clients or customers, you will be careful to ensure it’s polished and clearly branded with your corporate identity and all that.

However, how an internal report looks is important, too, although your Head of Finance might have apoplexy if you bind it in expensive glossy card. Be sensible with internal variety – neat, understated, groomed looks don’t have to cost much but they “say” a lot about value of your report (and you.)

8. A minute on minutes

I think minute-taking is a horrible job, having done so for 6 years while on a charity fundraising committee. And being useless at handwriting (thanks to decades of computers and typewriters) never mind shorthand (was thrown out of secretarial school after 3 weeks) I struggled for months to scribble everything down to précis later, until I realized that my brain was a far more efficient filter of information.

At end of each agenda item, I asked myself classic reporter questions of “who, what, where, when, why, how and how much.” All I had to do was jot down a few words and when I got home to my trusty PC, I could expand those into realistic summaries of what went on. As much of dialogue in meetings is either unnecessary, repetitive, or both, simply use your brain as a filter. That’s what it’s trained to do for you in your day-to-day life, so it works for meetings too.

One word of warning though; don’t wait too long before your work up your minutes. Another trick brain does is to forget after a few hours or a day or so at most...