Across the world, there are literally hundreds of PR pros pitching on a daily basis to journalists. In the UK especially, the media are inundated with emails, and I should know because I used to send them! Do you know how many press releases they get every week? Hundreds. Each and every brand is sending out releases to communicate new news or just to piggyback off the latest ‘heatwave’ essential. This means every email journos choose to open gets less than one minute of their attention and that’s assuming you get past the subject line!
All of this results in A LOT of noise so what can you do to get their attention? Here are my top tips for what to avoid in your next release…
1. Stop pushing irrelevant news.
Now, this can be a little sensitive because naturally something new for you or your client’s brand that has been in the works for a while is exciting but unfortunately, this may not actually be something that warrants an announcement to the media…
Releases fall flat for a number of reasons, but one specifically sticks out. Is the release communicating actual news or just news for your brand or client? The best way to answer this question is to ask: Why should an editor care? Why should their audience? If your "news" is not relevant to their audience, they aren't going to care regardless of how exciting the new packaging, reformulation, NPD revamp is. Research, research, and research again before hitting send.
2. Trying to cram everything and the kitchen sink in.
Focus on the intent of the press release. Your press release should home in on a sole primary aspect or action of your brand, message, product announcement, update, expansion, etc, etc. Whilst it might be tempting to see this as an opportunity to pitch and pack every single nuance of a product or brand element into the press release as if it were another form of advertising...spoiler: it’s not. Press releases (done well) offer drip fed communications to the media that they actually want to open in order to be kept up to date. Sending sporadic releases saying ‘here’s everything you could ever need to know about XXX brand’ doesn’t build relationships and unfortunately media coverage is still very much a who-you-know-s game. So if in doubt, keep the core intent of your press release at the forefront and avoid dropping in extra 'oh by the way, we also do x and y too'.
3. Making it too long
A slight cheat here as it’s intrinsically linked to tip 2 but put simply, it’s important to just get to the point. Remember what I said earlier about HOW many releases journos get sent on a daily basis? It’s crucial to get to the point quickly and concisely. This type of writing is a real skill so understandably you just might not be that great at it. Not everyone can be a brand builder, owner, finance department and content writer...
The bottom line…
So, if you can’t afford a flashy PR agency or if you can and they’re just not *bringing in the goods*, you could get someone who used to work in the industry day in and day out write them for you. Someone who knows what beauty journalists want to actually publish and can give them an (unofficial) nudge on your behalf that something exciting might be landing in their inbox soon…
Hint: that’s me!
Charlotte x