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Edward Bernays would dig me. Seasoned public relations strategist (10+ years in the game) who has practiced PR in multiple cities: Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago & DC. I'm an observationist and a soon to be card carrying member of the Twitterati. I love comfortable silences, revel in the Seinfeldian absurdities of life and have been described as a habitual line stepper. These are my thoughts...

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Why Your News Release Needs Enzyte: 10 Causes of Impotency


Despite not being the magic bullet to securing media coverage some executives (and PR Pros) believe it to be, the news release is still a time tested and valuable tool of the public relations trade. I’ve been in the PR profession for about 15 years now and I’ve probably written and/or edited more news releases than I care to remember. With the exception of the Investor Relations release, I’m intimately familiar with all manner of news release types imaginable, so no one is ever going to throw me for a loop in asking me to draft a specific kind of release.

Over the years, I’ve come to know the good, the bad and ugly of news releases. Unfortunately, for those in my profession, it’s usually the bad and the ugly that we get called out for by our brothers across the aisle wearing the journalism hats. And if we are to continue utilizing the news release as a tool, we are going to have to stop writing ineffectual crap and sending it to the media in hopes of acquiring coverage.

Call me the News Release Whisperer.

To assist in this effort, I offer the following 10 suggested reasons that your news release might be coming up limp and not getting the results your company or client desires:

10. Drafting a release for the wrong reason. Many news releases start out D.O.A. because they are drafted for all the wrong reasons at conception. When someone first suggests drafting a release it is always best to ask the naïve question, “What are we trying to accomplish by drafting this and who is its intended audience?” You’d be surprised to learn that sometimes the media (the original reason press releases were first created) are the last audience the release was intended for and sometimes they don’t make the list at all.

9. Misguided attempts to create content. Sadly, sometimes news releases are drafted simply as a source of content for an organization’s website or social media outreach. Granted a good news release drafted for legitimate reasons also will achieve this goal, but for whatever reason, some opt to forgo the legitimate aspect of it and go straight to the dessert. The hunt for SEO and fresh content has given rise to the unnecessary news release. Yes content is still king (and if not king a very buck wild prince on a weekend bender in Vegas) but a news release shouldn’t be used as some stand in for an informational enticement. If you want to create new content that doesn’t particularly lend itself to announcing news, try instead writing a new blog post, a case study or an issue brief.

8. Your news release only makes sense to you and those closes to your company (staff, industry peers or Board of Directors). Having worked at a PR agency I’ve seen this occur on numerous occasions. When we would draft a release, on a client’s behalf, in understandable language for the media using the universal AP style of writing and submit it to them for review/approval, the client would return the draft chocked full of their industry’s jargon, terminology and rewritten in the style of their industry (think legalese or real estate). This happens a lot when the release really wasn’t meant for the media to begin with (see #10). As an organization you must remember that not every reporter knows your industry or what you mean when you say {insert indecipherable industry lingo here}. It’s always best to follow the K.I.S.S. rule and write for the media receiving the release.

7. One size does not fit all. The same news release that you write for specialized and/or trade media outlets may not work for the general market/consumer media. If the ultimate goal of your news release to generate a B2B outcome, it might be best to just focus your efforts on outlets that are more suited to achieve this result. But I already know what your boss probably told you, “We want to maximize our exposure. Besides, business people read {insert name of highly coveted publication} too.” While trade media outlets don’t always have the readership of general market media nor are nearly as sexy, they often attract the right people. And let’s not forget that the trade and general market media don’t necessarily speak to the same people, and definitely don’t speak to their audiences in the same way. The focus of your news release shouldn’t only be targeted to a reporter’s interest and beat, but also their audiences.

6. Too damn long. I’m almost certain there is a special place in hell for people who draft four to six pages long news releases that have nothing to do with investor relations. I remember the very first time I saw a news release that boldly encroached upon the four pages mark. I cringed reading it as the information seemed to go on and on and on. I couldn’t wait for it to end. If that was the feeling I had as a PR pro, I shuttered to think of how a reporter receiving that thesis paper of a news release would feel. If your news release is more than 1 ½ to 2 pages, you are officially doing too much. News can often get lost in a sea of words and concepts. And if the reason for the lengthy release is directly related to the inclusion of a slew of c-suite approved boilerplates, consider just supplying a hyperlink back to the org website pages that contain that same information. (I have a specific boilerplate rant, but I’ll save that for a future blog post).

5. You’re giving away the milk for free. In follow up to the previous cause of impotency (see #6) sometimes a release is too damn long because a company wanted to throw everything in it, including the kitchen sink. I understand that you want to give the reporter as much information as possible to aid them in the coverage of your news, but there are other ways of doing that (think social media release). I’ve never viewed a news release as a do it all solution, but rather as an enticement to want to find out more. I prefer that the interested reporter follow up with me to learn more or ask to speak to one our subject matter experts or executives. A great pitch or news release will always leave them wanting more. And if they like it, then they should put a ring on it (and in our profession that ring comes in the shape of well rounded, positive story).

4. Lack of creativity. Somewhere in the history of the press release, probably shortly following its genesis, I believe a meeting was held by a secret order of c-suite executives that made a pact that from hence forth, all news releases should be written in the same manner for all eternity: The header shall begin with the name of our company followed by a commanding verb; the opening sentence of the lead must begin with the name our company followed by an authoritative verb; the opening sentence must contain a differentiating positioning statement and/or some elements of our boilerplate; and we must include an executive quote that repeats what was said in the lead paragraph (but only in a more executive tone). Yeah, I know how many of these things actually came into being, but the circumstances driving their necessity have long since passed. We are now in a new age that requires new tactics. Reporters receive goo gobs of news releases on the daily, so you have to do something to make yours stand out and scream report me! Don’t be afraid to embrace creativity when it comes to drafting your news release.

3. Death by benign quote. Ever seen a news release with an inconsequential executive quote, or worse a plethora of inconsequential quotes from a variety of different people at the company? I have. And I’ve also seen the multiple quote approach used where everyone quoted was offering competing variations of the same nothing burger statement. When was the last time that you saw a quote included in the news release actually included in a story being covered by a noteworthy media outlet? I’ll wait. The reason, you’ve probably not encountered this unicorn sighting is because most executive quotes are really bad and don’t offer any new information. Also, good reporters want to conduct their own interviews and get their own quotes. But just think of how much you’d increase the odds of having the quote used if it contained some actual valuable information (not found elsewhere in the release) or was actually interesting.

2. I hear voices (but none of them are consistent). More does not automatically equate to better. Sometimes there is a painful downside to group think and crowdsourcing, and that usually occurs when a bunch of different people at one company (sometimes external consultants chip in on this too) all contribute to the writing of a single news release. Want to take your company news announcement from concise to gumbo, just ask everybody to contribute to it. When different departments evaluate a news release’s intent, it is often done so through the lens of their departmental needs and not of the overall organization and brand. My counsel would be the less cooks in the kitchen, the better. Trust your org communicators, the guardians of your voice and brand.

1. No News is bad news. The one constant that every effective news release shares is that it contains actual news. Without the news part, what you have is giant waste of a reporter’s time. Now here is where things get really tricky, because every company actually believes that the thing they want to talk about is news or at minimum noteworthy of mention. However, in reality most of these instances don’t pass the news smell test. This is when sound PR counsel becomes paramount. Before you begin crafting that “news” release, you need to ask yourself some simple questions, such as: Will anyone outside of our office find this interesting? Does this provide a solution to an existing problem or make life easier for others? Has anyone else ever done this before? Has this been recently covered by the media? And lastly, can you provide a real life example showing how this works? There may be other questions that help you determine whether or not you have news to share, but these five ought to do the trick. In my experience, more times than not, the thing a company wants to pitch is not actually news and may be better suited for an ad. Always be honest in your assessment of what’s news and you’ll have better results.

So in the future, if you want your news release to be a little more potent and stand out with the media, think of adding some natural news enhancement. You're are bound to see some improvement in your...(cough)..."coverage."


 Okay pr pros and journos, did I leave anything out to improve the company news release?


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