What Is a Press Release? And How to Write One

If you ask the majority of PRs what the first skill they had to learn when they started working in public relations was, they would probably tell you it was how to write a press release.

Let’s start at the beginning: what are press releases?

To put it simply, a press release is a document written by a PR person to grab the attention of a journalist – with the intention of making them want to cover our story to secure earned media coverage. A press release is a fundamental part of our PR toolkit because it’s a way to communicate important information to our media contacts in a digestible, engaging way.

But, because journalists receive thousands of press releases each week, the challenge is making sure yours is one of the ones that captures their interest. So, what makes a good press release? Here are our four top tips.

1. Find Your Hook

Firstly, think about what’s newsworthy about the story your press release is going to be about. You need something interesting, topical or relevant for the audience you want to talk to. There are a few ways you might go about trying to identify what will work as your hook:

• Can you link it to something topical or trending in the media? 
• Do you have interesting information such as research findings that you can share? 
• Is there a human-interest angle?
• Are you revealing something genuinely new or unique to the market?

With experience, a PR person will develop an instinct for creating an angle that works. And PR agencies work closely with journalists across a wide range of media outlets, building relationships that gives them insight to what different journalists like and dislike, so that they can tailor information accordingly.

2. Tick off the 6Ws

Any good press release will include all the relevant information in a concise and accurate way – journalists are busy, and they don’t want to get to the end of your release and have questions about the basic facts.

So, make sure you have covered off the six Ws: who, what, where, why, when, and how.  Noting down the answers to these questions can be a helpful way of making sure you don’t leave out anything important.

• Who is doing something?
• What are they doing?
• Where is it happening?
• When is it happening?
• Why is it happening?
• How will it happen?

3. Get the Basics Right

There’s a tried and tested format for writing press releases and it works.

One of the most important elements to master is how to write a winning opening paragraph. A great press release gets straight to the point and sticks to it. If you can capture the story in a sentence or two, you’re off to a good start. There’s a high chance a journalist won’t read your whole release, so getting all the most crucial information into the first paragraph is a great way to convince them to keep reading. 

You also need to think about tone and style. We always write press releases in the third person. It’s a relatively formal style because it’s the journalist’s job to write it in the style of their media outlet – not yours. But that doesn’t mean there’s no room for brand personality.

If you’re writing about a fun, entertaining topic, the overall tone of your release will definitely be different from a more serious subject. Make sure you haven’t included any jargon or terms that might require explanation though – you should use simple, clear language.

Finally, thoroughly check your work for spelling and grammar mistakes and don’t just rely on spellcheck for this. You also need to double check the spelling of brand names, spokespeople’s names and job titles. And ask someone else to review your work too. 

There will always be a sign-off or approvals process before a press release is ever shared with the media – and this step must never be skipped. At our PR agency we have an internal sign-off process before any written content is shared with a client, adding an extra layer of checking before any content leaves the building. No matter how creative you are, how brilliant your writing, or how urgent the deadline, mistakes can happen, which is why these processes exist. 

4. Write Like a Journalist

Journalists are busy people with news teams shrinking year after year, but output still expected to increase to keep websites continually updated and social media feeds filled with breaking news.

The easier you make it for a journalist to use your press release, the greater the chances of it being picked up. So, write like a reporter, not a marketer or brand manager.

Among many things, this means:

• Watching how you write dates e.g. Monday 10 July, not 10^th July (or worse 10^th of July).
• Never capitalising job titles
• Writing single digit numbers in full and using numerals for 10 and over
• Not dropping your company name in too soon, or too often
• Keeping paragraphs short. Not many of us read the news in columns anymore, but a traditional writing style still prevails, so keep paragraphs to one or two sentences (so the traditional column wouldn’t be too lengthy and tricky for the reader to digest)
• Using speech marks at the start of every paragraph containing a quote, but only at the end of the paragraph closing the quote
• Not putting words into a journalist’s mouth – in news terms, they need to stay relatively impartial so would never describe your business as amazing, or even good, and your product as exceptional, or even satisfactory

In Summary

Many talented PR people first come to the industry through a love of the written word – it’s something PRs and journalists have in common – and knowing how to write a good press release is a fundamental PR skill.

Whether you’re an aspiring PR professional who wants to develop your industry knowledge, or a marketer wondering whether you’re maximising the potential of your media relations and press office functions, get in touch if you’d like to find out more.

The author: Rebecca Williams, director (people and planning), is responsible for everything ‘team’ at WPR. From work experience to recruitment, through to team engagement and retention, Rebecca ensures WPR’s team is one of the best – and happiest – in the industry.