THE ‘DO IT YOURSELF’ NEWS RELEASE: WHAT COUNTS
By Duane Brodt, Coles Marketing Communications

Publicity is a critical component of building and maintaining a successful business. Positive publicity from a news source helps establish credibility and instills the feeling that your organization is newsworthy and therefore worthy of consumer confidence.

An excellent way to gain invaluable public awareness is to offer your story to media outlets in the hope of being featured on a news program or in an article. The most common tool used to attract media attention to a story is a news release.

A news release is a one-page story. That story may be about business in general, a person or people involved in the business, a product or service or a special event. News releases are sent to newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations, Web sites and trade publications. They can also, when relevant, be sent to community and neighborhood organizations, schools, government agencies and chambers of commerce. News releases can also be posted to free public relations Web sites.

Your challenge is to get your news release to stand out from the piles of information media outlets receive each day so that they will publish or broadcast your story. This sounds like a difficult feat. But businesses are able to get their information in front of the public through media channels every day. These businesses succeed because they know how to create and present their news releases properly.

LOOKS COUNT
The first criterion an editor uses to reduce the daily onslaught of news releases is based purely on looks. If it doesn’t look professional, the editor simply won’t bother to read it.

FORMAT COUNTS
Most media outlets prefer news releases be sent through email. Make sure you identify that what you are sending is a news release in the subject line of your email. Make sure you put your contact information at the bottom of your email. And don’t mass email members of the media: that’s a sure way to get listed on a Spam list somewhere. If you must send several news releases, hire a third-party experienced at bulk email distribution.

CONTENT COUNTS
Be sure to cover all critical information for your story; don’t make a busy editor dig for what’s important. The best way to do this is to be sure that the following questions are answered: who, what, where, when, how and why.

CONSISTENCY COUNTS
A quick reference guide for grammatical accuracy and proper style is the Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual. Use this to check everything from what to abbreviate to the way you should present figures. The Elements of Style will serve as a guide to correct language usage.

ACCURACY COUNTS
Triple-check critical information. Use the spell-checker. Make sure names are spelled correctly. Read and re-read your news release and editing yourself, have at least one other set of eyes look over your news release.

Duane Brodt is an account manager at Coles Marketing Communications, a full-service public relations, creative, Word of Mouth Marketing and promotions agency in Indianapolis: www.colesmarketing.com.