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Other Added - PR Power: How to Write a Killer Press Release
After all, you’re no dummy or idiot. You’re a talented business person that wants to make his or her Yellow Pages effective and profitable. The only problem you have is that you’re good at fixing water heaters or painting houses, not doing marketing. So you have come to rely on your YP rep when they come out each year for guidance. Is that a bad thing? It depends. Who are they working for?If you said, “the advertiser,” you’re wrong. Who pays their salary and commission? Why it’s the YP publisher
- Run a competition, offering your products or services as a prize.
- Offer your expertise in an "ask the expert" feature or column (if your paper isn't running one, offer to write it for them)
- Conduct a survey and present your findings in the form of
The world of Public Relations and Press Relations is certainly interesting indeed. Sometimes articles in the news are really ad-vertorials and not actually stories or articles at all. That indeed can be a huge problem. Sometimes if the news about your company is too good people will think that you are paying the newspaper, magazine or trade journal reporter, author or writer of the article or story.Case in point, recently a public relations and press-relations expert say an old article about our
Quite apart from leaving me with some pretty good conversation openers, it left me with a good understanding of what kind of story makes the news, and what kind of press release gets filed straight under "bin". Here's how to make sure your press release is one of the good ones...
1. Get your story straight
Before you even think about writing a press release, you need to make sure you have the right story. The fact that you've just started a business isn't a good story. Trust me on this. At the last newspaper I worked on, I lost count of the number of press releases we received, which basically boiled down to, "Hey! Guess what! I started a business!" Well, so did a lot of people. If you want your press release to work, you're going to have to find an "angle" that your target publication will be interested in. There are various different ways to do this:
- Tell a strange/funny/touching story about how your business started, or how you helped one of your customers.
- Run a competition, offering your products or services as a prize.
- Offer your expertise in an "ask the expert" feature or column (if your paper isn't running one, offer to write it for them)
- Conduct a survey and present your findings in the form of a
In management seminars I often compare debt to an infection. A reasonable amount of debt will not kill a business, but too much debt will. While most businesses carry a substantial amount of debt from time to time, it must be maintained in an acceptable relationship to stockholder’s equity.Infection is also a threat in business relationships. How serious the illness your business’ relationships experience depends on how effective management is at controlling business relationship germs that
Quite apart from leaving me with some pretty good conversation openers, it left me with a good understanding of what kind of story makes the news, and what kind of press release gets filed straight under "bin". Here's how to make sure your press release is one of the good ones...
1. Get your story straight
Before you even think about writing a press release, you need to make sure you have the right story. The fact that you've just started a business isn't a good story. Trust me on this. At the last newspaper I worked on, I lost count of the number of press releases we received, which basically boiled down to, "Hey! Guess what! I started a business!" Well, so did a lot of people. If you want your press release to work, you're going to have to find an "angle" that your target publication will be interested in. There are various different ways to do this:
- Tell a strange/funny/touching story about how your business started, or how you helped one of your customers.
- Run a competition, offering your products or services as a prize.
- Offer your expertise in an "ask the expert" feature or column (if your paper isn't running one, offer to write it for them)
- Conduct a survey and present your findings in the form of
Have you caught the fantasy-baseball bug yet? When asked to join a friend’s fantasy league this year, I accepted, not knowing what was required. I knew I was in trouble when my friend told me he had spent over 20 hours dissecting his team, position-by-position, and searching other rosters for possible trading partners. I didn’t even know my team’s name, let alone how to access the league’s Website! Here’s the point.My buddy is obsessed with fantasy baseball, and to do something extraordin
1. Get your story straight
Before you even think about writing a press release, you need to make sure you have the right story. The fact that you've just started a business isn't a good story. Trust me on this. At the last newspaper I worked on, I lost count of the number of press releases we received, which basically boiled down to, "Hey! Guess what! I started a business!" Well, so did a lot of people. If you want your press release to work, you're going to have to find an "angle" that your target publication will be interested in. There are various different ways to do this:
- Tell a strange/funny/touching story about how your business started, or how you helped one of your customers.
- Run a competition, offering your products or services as a prize.
- Offer your expertise in an "ask the expert" feature or column (if your paper isn't running one, offer to write it for them)
- Conduct a survey and present your findings in the form of
Being at university is no easy picnic for the majority of students. Okay, so it may look on the surface that they are just a bunch of scruffy layabouts that do nothing but feed off pizzas, sleep all day, and party all night, but I think we need to give the majority of our well-read rebels a bit of slack here.For many undergraduates, their education is not taken for granted. Most do not arrive at campus in BMW sports cars and credit cards to boot. In fact, a large amount of those entering highe
- Tell a strange/funny/touching story about how your business started, or how you helped one of your customers.
- Run a competition, offering your products or services as a prize.
- Offer your expertise in an "ask the expert" feature or column (if your paper isn't running one, offer to write it for them)
- Conduct a survey and present your findings in the form of
Are you itching to make a career move? Is that corner-office position calling your name? Have you convinced yourself that job-hunting is impossible because you're a mom? Here are five practical tips for the successful job-hunting mom.1. Get clear about what you really want.Landing your ideal job starts with knowing what you’re looking for. On a very basic level you probably want to earn a certain salary. The deeper inquiry is to ask, “What are the other, more i
- Run a competition, offering your products or services as a prize.
- Offer your expertise in an "ask the expert" feature or column (if your paper isn't running one, offer to write it for them)
- Conduct a survey and present your findings in the form of a press release. Sponsor a local student or organisation
- All you need to get your "angle" is a little bit of imagination. And once you have a story to tell, it's time to start selling...
2. Writing your press release
First things first, remember it's a press release you're writing, not a novel. Of course, you want to make sure you get all of the relevant facts across, but try to do it concisely. It's worth bearing in mind that the newspaper will probably re-word your release to make it fit their style or the space available in any case, so don't worry too much if you're not exactly Stephen King. Focus on your main points. Tell the reader:
Who
These are the building blocks of any story: as long as you get these down, you're off to a good start. And speaking of starts...
3. Get your opening paragraph right
It's a sad fact of life that editors are overworked individuals, and their time is precious. If the opening paragraph of your press release doesn't grab them, they probably won't bother to read the rest. In newspaper journalism, the convention is to make the opening paragraph short and snappy, and to use it to sum up the story as best you can.
4. Use quotes
Quotes are more interesting to read than straight text, and if you don't include some,
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