There’s no reason to write a news release, let alone send it anywhere, if it’s not going to get published. Newspaper, magazine, and internet editors receive stacks of news releases every day. Giving them what they want in a format they want increases the chances of them publishing your news.

Writing a good release starts with having a solid news story. Winning an award, passing an impressing milestone, releasing results of a study or survey, offering a new contest, and hosting a special event or community service are news stories editors can share with their readers. Editors will avoid giving anybody free advertising. Simply having a sale or offering a new package of products or services is not newsworthy.

Before writing your news release, think about who you want to target. Provide the information your audience wants and needs to know. Write in a language they will understand, but avoid jargon and acronyms not all readers may know. If in doubt, spell it out.

Knowing your audience also means knowing where your audience gets its news. Only send your release to those news sources. Don’t send a web hosting news release to a travel magazine. It wastes your time and their time. By targeting the news media your target audience uses, you will be better able to reach your audience.

It is important to send your message to the right person. Call the media outlet to get the proper name of the person who is most likely to use your news release (spelling counts). Be sure to get the person’s full contact information and how s/he prefers to get news releases. Some do not check email as regularly as you would hope.

News releases have a standard format that editors expect to see. This makes it easy for them to get the information they need quickly.

State right at the top that this is a news release.

"FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE" is usually placed next and at the left side.

The headline should be bold and centered. This may be as far as an editor gets, so make sure it is catchy and captures what the news release is about. The headline can work well as the subject line if you are distributing it through email, so it needs to be short as well.

The date line also includes the city and state or country at the beginning of the first paragraph. News releases are not always used right away, so editors need to see the date to ensure it is still timely. Releases also get more attention if there is a local angle.

The first paragraph of the media release is the equivalent to the lead of a newspaper article. If it does not grab the reader, he or she may not read any further. It is important to tell the story quickly here. Use the five Ws—who, what, where, when, and why. Tell the editor, and more importantly his or her readers, why they should keep reading.

The second paragraph gives more detail about what the news story is about. Here, the focus should be on why this is important. What is in it for the readers? How will they be affected? How will they benefit? Focus on what is new, different, or unique. Remember, the first three letters in the word news are new.

The third paragraph should provide a quote to add a personal touch and more details about the benefits. It is more natural of a flow to describe the news before stating who is announcing it, so leave the attribution to the end.

The fourth paragraph sums up the news story.

The fifth and final paragraph should provide information about your company. This can be two or three sentences about what your company is, what it does, and how long it has been in business. This can be standard for all of your news releases.

At the bottom of the story, media like to see "—30—" or "###" to indicate the end of the transmission to ensure nothing has been accidentally cut off.

Like any good marketing strategy, end with a call for action. In this case, the bottom of the news release should read: "For more information, contact…." Editors will rarely run a news release as is. They will often assign a journalist to do a more thorough article. This includes interviewing key people identified in the release.

That being said, write the release so it can be used with as few edits as possible. This not only means ensuring spelling and grammar are correct, but also the writing style for things like symbols (%, #, &, etc.) and numbers (nine, 12, 1,250, etc.). Do not rely on your word processor’s spell check as it will not catch the wrong word that is spelt correctly. Writing in the active voice means having somebody doing something rather than doing something to somebody. Use strong, active verbs.

Keep it simple and to the point. Do not use more words than you need and try to keep it to one page. If that is not possible, include "…more…" at the bottom right corner of the first page and number the second page. This will ensure that part of your news release (like the contact information) does not go astray.

There is some debate about whether to email news releases as attachments or as the body of the text. While letterhead and logos make a media release look and feel more official and business like, attachments are a concern for viruses. Editors might not be able to read the attachment if they do not have the same software you used to create it. By including the media release in the body of the email, there is the problem of returns being added to the end of each line or ">" being added to the beginning of each line when the email is forwarded. It is best to ask the editors you are sending the news release to how they prefer to receive it.

Attachments are also a concern for photographs and supporting information such as studies, surveys, company histories, spokesperson biographies, etc. Your news release can state that these are available on your website. (Don’t forget to publish your news release on your own website.) This is a great way to generate traffic to your website. (Remember, photographs for print media need to be 300 dpi, CMYK color, tif files while images for the web can be 72 dpi, RGB color, gif files.)

By keeping your audience in mind and giving editors what they want and need, you are sure to increase the effectiveness of your news releases.

About the Author:
Virginia St-Denis
TheWebWire.com (http://www.thewebwire.com) includes a collection of web hosting articles, guides, tutorials, profiles, press releases, and other resources to help steer readers in the right direction when considering web hosting and development related issues. It is a great place to find various how-to guides, development tutorials, the latest news, interesting interviews, and other useful web-related information.

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