How To Write A Powerful Press Release? (Must Read)

The online adoption of businesses is ever-growing. With so much competition in the market, brands need to find more effective ways to gain visibility and authority.

According to research, almost 89% of Americans receive various media announcements and updates from local online sources. The press release is one of the most used marketing strategies that increase brand visibility, reputation, authority, and sales to some extent.

What is a Press Release?

The press release is an official announcement a brand makes to its audiences and media publishers' network. A press release generally announces an achievement, any milestone, a new feature, or a product launch, sometimes for hiring bigger roles as well, and many other announcements.

A press release is sometimes also referred to as a ‘news release’ ‘media release’ or ‘press announcement’.

Is the only use of press releases to make an announcement and alerts? The answer is no. There are more important reasons behind publishing press releases.

How do press releases help your business?

There are various reasons why a business should write a release. The four main reasons are mentioned below.

Brand Image building through quality publishers

Many well-known PR publishing platforms exist today online.

Some of the most used PR platforms are PRWeb, PR Newswire, Meltwater, Cision Communications Cloud, Business Wire, and many more.

Such platforms serve audiences from across all industries like eCommerce, healthcare, SAAS, media, etc. The number of monthly visits to PR release sites can range from a hundred thousand to millions of visits a month.

Therefore, writing a press release for PR sites holds the potential to bring your brand forward to a huge audience base. Thus, the higher recognition and impressions.

In addition to that, writing a press release requires a brand name, website, and logo in the PR Continue reading to know the right format for a press release in the latter part of the blog. PR highlights the branding aspect as well, which further adds to increased brand footprints.

Improved ranking through quality backlinks

Not only does writing a press release help you with brand recognition, but it also yields SEO benefits.

When you publish a press release on external press release sites, check the domain authority of these platforms. The domain authority of the most used and familiar press release sites is as follows.

Once you check if the domain score is higher (more than 50), it will add more authority to your website. On top of it, the quality backlinks also tell the Google algorithm that the linked domain can be trusted and contains quality content.

Receiving quality links from high-traffic press release sites can prove to be useful in increasing site traffic. The higher the traffic, the more chances of acquiring potential leads.

Easy distribution and quick implementation

The press release comes from sources. Some of these are mentioned below.

• A company’s own separate page on press releases.
• The websites from different industries also host press releases on their websites.
• Press release agencies. According to research, close to 14% of press releases are published by PR agencies.
• New media platforms also contain sponsored and PR sections on their websites.
• Google News and Yahoo News also provide press releases and through the syndicated network.

A PR can be quickly created as you will read below. Once you have the perfect PR copy in your hands, you can reach out to the PR platforms mentioned above and submit your release.

In some cases, few PR platforms allow you to directly submit your PR content. Once approved, it goes live without much hassle. And in other cases, you need to submit a PR draft to the content and editorial team, which then goes through further changes as per the guidelines. Also, sometimes, paid PR includes a pre-written PR draft from the PR portals’ side.

As PR distribution is not a complex process, what is difficult is to write a perfect Press release. There are important PR strategies that yield good results when used in an appropriate way. Continue reading to know these not-to-be-missed PR strategies.

Before we understand the important PR strategies, it’s crucial to understand the PR format.

What is the right PR format?

A PR contains the following elements.

• The headline
• Subheadline (an elaboration of the headline)
• Location and time of announcement
• The introduction paragraph mentioning in detail the announcement.
• Supporting paragraphs elaborating the announcement
• Genric industry-related information
• About your company.
• Contact information such as email id, phone number, website chat link, etc

How to Write PR that works? A PR that takes less time?

Below are some of the most effective strategies to make your effective PR copy. A press release should be top-notch from the beginning to the end and must engage the readers. So how do you write your PR?

Headlines to kickstart an announcement

A press release can either make a positive or negative impression through its headline. If your PR headline is too complex to understand, readers may just ignore it like any other media announcement. The PR headline should clearly compelling and convey the key message to readers.

Some of the basic things to keep in mind while writing your PR headline.

• Include numbers or stats in your headline rather than a generic boasting title. For example, take a look at the below PR example of Truepush.
• The headline contains powerful words like ‘Top 10’ and includes the name of the issuing authority. Here it is G2 in case. As G2 is a well-known marketplace for the B2B industry, it adds the trust factor to your brand if you include it in the title.

Example 1:

This is what a boring headline looks like:

“ (Brand name) bags award from G2, world’s leading B2B market place”

How to make your headline more powerful?

“ (Brand name) bags award under Top 3 brands for Push Notifications by G2”

• Similarly, you can always make your headline interesting by mentioning words that evoke customer’s emotions and urgency such as ‘helped’, ‘achieved’, ‘grow’, ‘best’, ‘most affordable’, ‘leading’, and so on.

• Try to keep your PR headline short (between 8-12 words) and to the point.

• Avoid using jargon as it may lead to lower click-through rates.

Back your PR content with supported links and numbers.

Include supported links in your PR. As a result, it will increase the trustworthiness of the PR and ensure users that it is a genuine source of consumption.

Take a look at another PR from Truepush. (See image Example 2)

The highlighted part denotes some important aspects of writing a PR. The content in the image below shows how the press release is backed up by facts and numbers. It includes supported links as well.

Example 2:

Also note in respect to the first point on the headline, if you look at the PR above, it uses powerful words like ‘Extensively’ and ‘User engagement’.

Define PR objectives

A PR should have certain objectives. Before writing the PR as yourself these questions.

• Who is the target audience for the press release?

• What do I expect from PR readers?

• What shall I include in the PR?

• Is the PR focussed on brand awareness, achievement, and awards, technical update, market expansion update, etc?

Having PR objectives makes it easier to create PR with specific goals in mind.

For example,

A press release from an e-commerce company can have the following objectives:

• To target the specific buyer segment of the US such as Male under 50 years of age, Woman audience, etc.
• To expect an increase of x% in sales through PR distribution across 100+ platforms.
• To increase the user base through an event release.
•    A press release from a B2B SaaS company can have the following objectives:

• To increase the tool sign-up by x% through product update release.
• To acquire x% of new potential customers
• To get more registrations through events like yearly webinar announcements, and so on.
• To create brand recognition through press releases on awards and achievements.

Keyword Optimization for better PR visibility

A PR should contain relevant brand keywords in the content. You can always include keywords for which your website is ranking and some keywords that are industry-specific.

Including keywords in the PR content makes it an SEO-optimized news source. As there are countless numbers of releases every day, keyword optimization helps in getting search engine visibility among the tough competition.

You can use Ahrefs or Ubersuggest to find relevant keywords. They provide free as well as paid plans for the same.

Considering an example, if you see the highlighted part of the introduction in the image, you will notice how it succinctly covers all the crucial aspects of the announcement along with keywords like ‘Push notification’, ‘Push notification tools, and so on.

Use Images in PR

Include images in your press release. An infographic captures more attention from readers rather than a page containing only text format. Visual content assets are highly consumed and increase the page on time.

Below is an example of a Nike press release where they include their flagship products in the PR.

What type of images can you use in the PR?

• Include product images
• Include awards images
• Include customized infographics

Provide informational content in your PR

A PR not only contains announcements or updates but also useful information for readers regarding your industry.

Think of it this way.

Assume a new reader comes on the Press release site and reads your PR. The reader has no prior knowledge of your industry. Though your PR mentions some sort of achievements, to give a broader overview, a reader needs to be aware of some basic information.

Therefore add an industry-specific paragraph in your release. It could include the market size and share, the impact of your brand in it, the future scope, and so on.

A PR aiming to educate users and introduce your brand growth goes a long way in creating a brand image.

Encourage the PR audience to take action.

The key to the right PR copy is to encourage users to take any further actions.

For example, if the PR talks about any product added to the suite, then encourage readers to use the product. You can include lines like,

‘Sign up today to use the Product’

‘Book a demo now’, and so on.

As the website traffic of PR platforms is relatively higher, including a click-to-action button in the PR content helps boost conversions as well.

Create an effective PR pitch

The above points talk about how to make your PR stand out among the crowded PR platforms. However, one important thing we can not forget is that pitching your PR to publisher platforms plays a crucial role.

A wrong PR pitch can put all your efforts in vain if the targeted audience is not right.

Some of the factors to keep in mind while writing a PR mail pitch are as follows.

• Check the serving region of the PR platforms. If your focused audience is in India, then publishing your PR in the US or another region might not be that effective.

Therefore, make sure that your targeted PR site serves your audience and your preferred location.

• Include a brief about your brand and its achievements. Include the right facts and numbers such as awards, old media coverage, etc.

• Speak of how your brand is different from others in the market.
• A link to your PR collateral altogether. It should contain the PR document, Images to be included, Brand logo, etc. An organized PR folder can also make your publishing process easier as the publisher has all the brand details in hand.

Conclusion

Press release brings in a lot of benefits for the brand across different aspects. It builds brand visibility, increases website traffic and quality links, increases user base, and boosts conversions.

While writing a PR, check the publisher guidelines and other information like the targeted location, audience, links, etc.
The objective of the PR differs from the context of announcements. It could be a product launch press release, award achievements, an announcement of brand collaborations, and other reasons.

The above-mentioned strategies are aimed to improve your Press release quality and to optimize it further. Let us know what works best for you?