Pique the Media's Interest With a Well-Crafted News Release

You have news you want to shout from the rooftops? Get the media to help you spread the word. Create a professional, high-impact news release.

News releases can be used to announce a new product, a new company, a special event or something unique about your business.

It doesn't matter whether you are a startup or a large corporation. Anyone can generate publicity from a news release. That release, however, needs to express enough excitement and interest to generate attention from the media. An announcement that a new accounting firm is opening in your neighborhood may not generate enthusiasm from the media. But if the firm created new software that can prepare taxes in less than 30 minutes, that may pique interest.

Some key points to keep in mind when creating your news release:

• Cut to the chase. Don't bog your reader down in flowery or overly descriptive words. Tell your story in one page (or two at the most), and be conservative with your words. If you've never written a news release, visit a top site for news releases and view some of the most popular releases to get an idea of the format and the way they are written.
   
• Begin with the headline. This is what will grab the media's attention. Under the headline, a subhead can be used to further pique interest. The media don't care whether you sell products or services. What they're looking for is a good story--so give them one.
   
• Tell your story in the first few sentences. If the reader puts it down after reading the first few lines, he or she should know what message you are sending. Your story needs to include the who, what, where, when and how. These points should all be included in your first paragraph.
   
• Tie the release to a current event to make it newsworthy. In the above example of the accounting firm, this topic would be timely early in the year since people are in the process of preparing their tax returns.
   
• Include your credentials and why or how you are qualified in your field. Also explain how and why your product or service is going to benefit someone. Adding a quote from a customer explaining how your product or service benefited him or her will add credibility.
   
• Add a boilerplate to the end of the news release. The boilerplate is a paragraph providing information about you and/or your company. It should also provide a name and contact information for the media, including address, phone, fax, e-mail and website.

You can submit your news release directly to each media outlet or you can utilize newswires, which the media use to find newsworthy topics. There are both free and fee-based newswires. The examples below are free. You may want to Google "free press release" to expand the list.

• i-newswire.com
   
• prfree.com
   
• free-press-release.com

A reporter might not contact you before running your story. Therefore, tell your story the way you want it to be printed. You can find out whether it has been used in a news article by setting up Google Alerts that contain the title of your news release and any keywords you used.

When the media talk about your product or service, it helps validate your company and spread your news. It's a cost-effective way to inform a large audience. Making your news release timely, newsworthy and compelling is the first step in drawing attention to your product or service. Done right, it will lead to step two--addressing the increase in business.