The main features of a press release as a genre of journalism are dictated by its sole purpose: to briefly and clearly state any event, news, announcement, or achievement in the media. A press release is a unique opportunity for new brands, companies, and organizations to announce their appearance in the market. For public organizations, allows acquiring a fairly extensive target audience.
A press release can play a pivotal role in the reputation management of a company. Thanks to an effective press release, a company can maintain its reputation in the market.
Press Release Structure
There is no clear structure from which one cannot deviate. And this gives a certain freedom to journalists and copywriters. But there is a rough structure that you can focus on:
- Title: A name that attracts the attention of the target audience.
- Lead (the most important part): The first paragraph in the press release, which reflects the essence of the news and brings the reader up to date.
- The main part: It reveals the details of the event, contains quotes from participants, figures, facts, and statistics.
- Additional information: All information about the company, contact person details, address, mail, instant messengers.
But the most important thing is that the news should be useful and interesting to the reader. Think about what is important to your audience, what to tell about so that the reader can spend five minutes of their life with your release.
Features of The Press Release
As a rule, a press release bypasses events of a global scale so as not to distract the reader from what is happening here and now. A press release is positive since its task is to raise the status of the main character of the news and also to attract new clients or audience members. You can either entrust writing a press release to a professional – a journalist or freelancer or do it yourself.
The main features of a press release are:
- Capacious and, at the same time, attractive title
- Informative article: Press release strives for brevity, so each of its sentences should carry the maximum semantic load. At the same time, after reading the publication, the reader should not have any unanswered questions regarding the significant moments of the news.
- Statement of facts without excessive emotionality: In contrast to the reportage, the press release does not need the author’s emotional coloring at all. This is exactly the case when you can keep your opinion to yourself, state the facts.
- Third-person narrative: You should not be in the press release at all. Even if you are writing about yourself or your company, avoid the pronouns “I” or “we”.
- Correct design: Without a doubt, a press release should grab attention. There should not be an abundance of capital letters, exclamation marks, and other journalistic bad manners.
- Optimal text size: There should be nothing superfluous in a press release; it’s no secret that too much text is boring. As soon as you feel that everything is said, put a point.
Additional Guidelines
In terms of volume, a press release should be 2,000 – 2,500 characters without spaces. Visually, this is an A4 page and a half. However, be prepared for the fact that the editor of press release distribution may shorten the text.
To make the text look neat, notice that in the text:
- Do not use Caps Lock
- For selections, bold and italics are acceptable
- Paragraphs start with a red line (for printed versions)
- All abbreviations must first be deciphered since the reader may not know the meanings of abbreviations.
- Each paragraph should be no longer than 6 sentences so that the text does not look like a continuous canvas and is easier to read.
- Be sure to check the text for typos, double spaces, dashes (-), and herringbone quotes (“).
Final Words
By following these key guidelines and maintaining the proper structure of a press release, it can become extremely effective. Also remember, when writing a press release, try to avoid primitive or bearded humor and stick to the key point.
