Locked lesson.
About this lesson
There are five aspects you absolutely have to include to make your press release an effective marketing and branding tool.
Quick reference
5 Press Release Must-haves
There are 5 aspects you absolutely have to include to make your press release an effective marketing and branding tool.
When to use
Tips to use when writing a press release.
Instructions
- Nail the headline: a good headline will get you more traffic to your website. The headline is the first thing people see: it needs to be accurate, concise, and engaging.
- Display excellent writing skills: write professionally and creatively. Edit and proofread the press release several times until it is flawless, make every word count, add at least one relevant quote, and present your news from a different perspective so that it sounds fresh and original.
- Tell readers what to do: make it easy for readers to interact with your content by offering different types of call to action, such as sharing, liking, commenting, visiting your website, learning more about a product, listening to a podcast and watching a video.
- Use strategic linking: add links to relevant additional information and incorporate them into the text so that they appear natural.
- Include company & contact information: you want your readers to know about your company, what you do and why you are worth their time. They should also be able to contact you if they are interested in finding out more information.
- 00:05 Now we can easily get excited about free press, sometimes to the extent that we
- 00:09 forget about the most important parts of our press release.
- 00:13 There are five aspects that I would call absolute must haves.
- 00:18 I'd like to talk you through these, one of them at a time.
- 00:22 So let's start with nailing the headline.
- 00:27 A good headline is really what's going to get you more traffic on your website.
- 00:31 And what's ultimately going to get the reader to spend
- 00:34 daytime looking at your content.
- 00:36 So it's gotta be absolutely brilliant to get the reader to read on.
- 00:41 And of course we want to continue that trend in our copywriting
- 00:45 throughout the press release.
- 00:46 In other words,
- 00:47 the good headline, the purpose of that copyrighting is to get them to
- 00:51 read the next phase of the press release and eventually work their way through.
- 00:57 You've got to display some good writing skills because now that we've
- 01:02 got the readers and the journalists attention,
- 01:04 you kind of need to sustain that with some excellent writing skills.
- 01:08 So a good press release needs to be written professionally and
- 01:11 creatively for that reason.
- 01:13 This will typically include editing and
- 01:15 proofreading it several times until we feel that it's flawless.
- 01:20 So this is where your brainstorming and
- 01:23 your second opinions from other people in the company is gonna be handy.
- 01:28 The nature of the work that we produce here is that we wanna make every word
- 01:33 count, and we want to be concise.
- 01:36 Remember, adding one relevant quote is going to be useful because it's
- 01:41 going to give us that opportunity to add a personal tone and some credibility.
- 01:46 You've gotta think about how you can present your news from
- 01:50 a different perspective so that it's going to sound fresh and original.
- 01:56 Now you've got to guide readers and
- 01:58 tell them what to do next because they might quickly move onto something
- 02:02 else unless you actually propose something else for them to do.
- 02:06 Thinking requires time, which many people are short of, so do the thinking for
- 02:10 them, make it easy for them with calls to action, sharing or
- 02:14 linking or commenting to get them involved and to get them to visit your site.
- 02:19 Given that opportunity to interact and learn more about your product,
- 02:24 or even to listen to Podcast that supports the information that's presented.
- 02:29 If these options are readily available,
- 02:32 the readers will be more likely to choose the options, and
- 02:36 this of course will encourage the readers to explore your website and your product.
- 02:41 Now you shouldn't be shy here about using appropriate calls to actions because
- 02:46 readers who genuinely like your content and your company,
- 02:49 they will naturally want to tell others about it, so don't worry about this.
- 02:54 You should feel quite at ease to propose a point of action.
- 03:00 By telling the readers what you do and what you are, you're not really being
- 03:04 patronizing, neither are you when you tell them what it is that they need to do.
- 03:08 You're simply helping them, you're making it easier for them to interact with
- 03:13 your content and with your brand which will ultimately give you more exposure.
- 03:19 It's also good to use strategic linking.
- 03:22 So you're gonna incorporate the links in a way with your text that they actually
- 03:27 appear naturally, as per the example that you can see on your screen right now.
- 03:32 So, only add links to relevant
- 03:35 additional information that's gonna drive real traffic to your website.
- 03:40 You also want to include the company and contact information,
- 03:44 because the press release is really incomplete without that information
- 03:49 because where should people go for follow up information and queries?
- 03:53 So you want to your readers to know about the company to know what you do,
- 03:58 what you stand for, and why it's going to be worth saving time.
- 04:02 They should be able to contact you quite easily upon reading the press release.
- 04:09 Okay, so provide this information to them, because it's all going to help us to
- 04:14 build that customer base and to draw additional benefit from the press release.
- 04:19 Remember these things, guys, please.
- 04:21 Don't get too excited about the press release.
- 04:24 These things are what's going to make it more successful at the end.
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