A lot of my clients come to me asking me to rewrite a press release that they’ve written – they’ve paid good money to PRWeb or PRNewswire to distribute the press release, but when they submitted it, it was rejected.

Here’s the number one reason why:

It’s not bad grammer, it’s not lack of pertinent information, it’s not excessive length.

The reason for rejection that PRWeb and PRNewswire has given to my clients is that their press release sounds too much like an advertisement.

You need to write your press release as if it’s a news story, not a promotion. 

One big red flag: Using the word "you." As in, "You may have been wondering if now’s the right time to invest in foreclosure property". Never do that.

Instead "According to foreclosure expert Joe Smith, with recent interest rate cuts and real estate prices reaching rock bottom from their peak in 2005, now is an ideal time to invest in forecosure property. That’s why he has  released his new foreclosure investment coaching program…" etc.   

(P.S. – I personally am not saying that’s true – I think real estate prices will fall more. But what do I know.) 

So grab your newspaper and read through some news stories to get the flavor of how news is written, right before you write your press release, and make sure that you write in a "news announcement" style, not a "buy my stuff now or you’ll miss the bargain/opportunity/sale of a lifetime!" style. 

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Here is the standard information that I need to write a press release, and then I also like to speak to the client to get an idea of what news angle we will be emphasizing – sometimes it’s obvious, sometimes we need to find or create one:

Your contact information – the press release sites require this:

Contact person’s name, title, email address, and telephone number
Company name
Company URL
Company physical address

Your keywords

A one paragraph bio about you and/or your company – things that you could include:
Where you’re located, what you do, what makes you and/or your company special and unique in your field, awards or honors that you’ve won, achievements, (have you helped clients create successful businesses? Have you trained hundreds of dogs? Worked with hundreds of clients to successfully achieve their weight loss/fitness goals?), your experience in your field, your educational background, etc.

News: What are you announcing? Types of news announcements: a new product, service, partnership, webinar or teleseminar coming up, book launch, movie release, ebook, an award won, your comments on a new study that is relevant to your business (a dermatologist commenting on a new medical study which has statistics about skin cancer, etc.)

A couple of quotes from you:

What is it that makes your news special, new? What’s in it for the reader? Why did you create this new product/write this new ebook/create this series of videos, or why are you holding this teleseminar or webinar, etc.?

For instance, Jackie Silver wrote a book called Aging Backwards –

"Everyone wants to stay young. I’m here to help make it easier," said Silver, whose book is available at Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble.com and on her Web site, http://agingbackwards.com/.

or Adryenn Ashley,  who was holding a bootcamp called Monetizing Your Passion:

 "Monetizing Your Passion is a training system designed to build credibility for your business and brand you as the expert in your field and transform your knowledge into products that can be sold worldwide,” according to Ashley.
 
"I often hear prospective clients say, ‘I’m not an expert!’ and I always ask ‘Would you say that to your customers?’  Everyone has expertise in their field and our proven techniques not only find that talent, but effectively showcase it the world."
 

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Your headline is one of the most important parts of your press release, because if the headline is boring, or vague and confusing, people have no reason to read any further.

Your headline needs to convey excitement and immediacy and immediately draw people into your press release. It needs to contain a strong action verb and it must sum up, in a dozen words or so, what your press release is all about.

And it needs to read like a headline on a newspaper story. 

"Award-winning Reporter Launches New Press Release Writing Service", for example.  Or "Personal Trainer Releases New Series of Flat-Abs-Now Videos", or "New Study Reveals Link Between Vaccines And Autism".  

One of the best ways to get an idea of what press release headlines should look like is to go to www.prweb.com and look through the headlines of the latest press releases they have posted.

Here are a list of action verbs to use in your press release headline: 

Announces

Appoints

Unveils

Reveals

Presents

Launches 

Promotes

Hosts

Upgrades

Expands

Provides

Introduces

Debuts

Offers

Improves

Selects

Reports

Supports

Joins Forces With

Unveils

Names

Is Recognized For

Invited To

Prevents (illness, major disaster, etc.) 

Recognizes

Awards

Is Presented With

Opens

Features

Reports

Honors

Visits

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The fact that you’re on a tight budget should not stop you from creating your own publicity campaign for your business, product and services. These days it is easy and cheap to be your own publicist; all you need to invest is a little time. 

Here are seven essential tools for your publicity campaign toolkit:

1.) A  webpage which advertises your products and services. Even if it’s a free blogspot blog, you need to grab yourself a piece of online real estate and show everyone what you’ve got. Every website should include testimonials, an "About Me" or "About Us" page, a "Contact Us"  Page, and an "Our Products" or "Our Services", and, if appropriate, samples of your work. (You don’t have testimonials because you’re a brand new business? Do some work for free in exchange for testimonials.)

2.) A "Media Room" or "press room" page on your website. So you’ve never been written up in the press? No big deal. Hire a press release writer – ahem, I’m available – or go to PRWeb and see how they’re written, and then write a press release about your business, and put that press release in the "Media Room" or "Press" page. Write a new press release and add it to this page every time you hire someone, form a merger, release a new product or service, offer a holiday special, win an award, attend a conference, etc. Consider sending the press releases out to free press release distribution sites, or www.webwire.com for $19.95, or www/PRWeb.com for $80.

3.) A Twitter account, Facebook account, and Linkedin account, all linking to your website, with your company bio on each site. Visit those sites regularly and participate in the communities. The payback is HUGE. 

4.) A signature line in your emails that helps spread your message. Set up your emails so that your name, email address, website URL, and links to your Twitter, Facebook, & Linkedin accounts, are in the signature line of each email that you send out, along with a one line summary of your USP.  Mine is "We Broadcast Your Message To the World." 

5.) Other people’s blogs! Use them to grab some link love, traffic, and free publicity. How? Simple.  Find the popular blogs in your field and offer to write blog posts for them in your area of expertise. This gives you backlinks, traffic, and conveys credibility.

6.) An online and offline press kit with a photograph of yourself and/or your product,  a one-page bio of yourself, and a page about your services/product/company. When I say "offline", I mean a printed version, ready to mail or hand to a reporter or editor.

7.) A list of media who might be interested in writing about you. Contact them, find out what reporter or editor you should submit press releases to, or pitch stories to, and regularly follow up with them with timely story ideas. Odds are good that if you are polite, persistant and professional and are pitching good stories, sooner or later someone in the mainstream media will feature you. 

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