By Yvonne Meacham Buchanan

Press releases are so easy to write that everyone’s writing them. That’s just the problem. Reporters are inundated with press releases. Some good. Some bad. Some they post by the copy machine so everyone in the newsroom can have a good laugh. With the current trend toward electronic submission of press releases, this problem has been compounded. In self-defense, reporters have begun to brandish a lethal weapon: the delete option of their e-mail programs.

To make sure your press release escapes the round file (electronic or otherwise) and gets the coverage it deserves, follow these Seven Steps to a Bulletproof Press Release.

Step 1: Send it to the right reporter.
If you have just invented a way to power your car with chicken soup, don’t send a press release announcing this to the local newspaper’s financial reporter, a trade publication specializing in garden products, or the Fisherman’s Gazette. They won’t read it, won’t print it and won’t like you for it. Identify the publications, reporters and editors who cover your topic and send your press release to them. This can easily be accomplished by using a media directory such as Media Finder (mediafinder.com) or Finder Binder (finderbinder.com).

Step 2: Send it how they want to receive it.
Find out your target reporters’ preferences: do they prefer to receive press releases by e-mail? Fax? Snail mail? Carrier pigeon? If you submit your press release through a vehicle that they like, you have one less hurdle to clear in getting them to read it. Reporter preferences may be listed in a media directory; if not, ask.

Step 3: Make it newsworthy.
A press release announcing a new hire is often newsworthy (dull, but newsworthy), unless you’ve hired a temporary stock person for the holiday season who won’t even be around when their hire is announced. Make certain your press releases contain real news that will be of interest to at least some of the publication’s readership.

Step 4: Avoid hype.
Words like “revolutionary,” “best” and “leading-edge” should be avoided, or at minimum backed up by facts and figures or used in quotes from non-biased reviewers. Otherwise, leave them for the infomercial magnates. Chances are, they’d be edited out anyway. No self-respecting reporter would include them in copy to an editor. If you’re not sure how to avoid hype, try writing as if your closest competitor were writing it on assignment for the publication. It will probably come out grudgingly factual: just perfect for the news media.

Step 5: Avoid non-meaning words and phrases and industry jargon.
You know these non-meaning phrases; you see them often in high tech press releases. Phrases like, “cross-platform functionality,” “utilization procedures” and “user-facilitated interface.” These terms will only confuse the reader. The reporter will have to either take the trouble to decipher this babblespeak, call you for a translation, or-the delete option is just a click away.

Step 6: Use standard journalistic style.
Use the inverted pyramid style. This is the practice journalists have of putting the most important information first, followed by information of decreasing importance (but still germane to the release). The lead should contain as many of the 5 Ws and H (Who, What, Why, Where, When, How) as possible without creating one big run-on sentence.

Step 7: Be brief.
I once edited a press release for an aspiring public relations writer. It started as two pages. I edited it to one half-page and it still contained the same information. As I handed the writer the revised press release, I worried about her reaction to being so severely edited. I was trying to think of a way to spare her feelings when she asked, “But isn’t it too short now?”

There’s no such thing as “too short” in a press release. If you’ve said what needs to be said, stop writing.

So I will.

Yvonne Meacham Buchanan is a public relations instructor for PR Essentials, an online public relations course available through Careers in Public Relations http://www.careers-in-public-relations.com.

By Yvonne Meacham Buchanan

Wouldn’t it be deadly dull if everything was the same? One type of breath mints: Tic Tacs cinnamon. One flavor of ice cream: pistachio. Variety is the spice of our lives. It’s what makes the eyes twinkle, the taste buds tingle, and the ad guys rich. If every toilet paper was squeezably soft, what could you say about Charmin?

As we all know, though, every toilet paper is squeezably soft (unless you’re in a public restroom – where do they find that stuff?). But Charmin was the first to call itself squeezably soft, and they communicated this message every chance they got using a variety of methods (a spokesperson who couldn’t resist squeezing the Charmin, soft focus product shots, splashy magazine ads, billboards, you name it.) This is what’s known as differentiating a product. It also positions the product within its marketplace: if Charmin is squeezably soft, where does that leave its competitors? They’ll have to come up with another “position” because that one’s already been filled.

The above is an example of how advertising positions and differentiates. But who has the bucks to do an expensive ad campaign like this one?

Let’s take a look at how we can do the same thing (albeit on a smaller scale) with public relations.

A public relations program for differentiating Charmin might work something like this:

• Attend the major bathroom product trade shows. Set up meetings in advance with bathroom paper analysts and the editors of Toilet Paper: Just Kleenex On a Roll?, Two-Ply Gazette, and Bathroom Products Journal. (Of course, I made these up)
• Hold a “Softest Toilet Paper” contest. Publish the results; Get media coverage. Send demo products to toilet paper reviewers.
• Get Charmin’s spokesperson on the popular talk show, “Potty Talk.”
• Garner an industry award. Send a press release.
• Do a press tour of the bathroom paper trade magazines.

I won’t go on because I’ve still got that product demo image in my head, but you get the idea. In all of these activities (called “tactics” in PR lingo), the key message would be reinforced, like a mantra: squeezably soft, squeezably soft, squeezably soft. Pretty soon, the target audience (people who use toilet paper) find themselves thinking: “I think I’ll buy Charmin this time. I don’t know why, but I have this feeling it must be squeezably soft.”

For larger organizations like Charmin’s parent company, Procter & Gamble, a combination of advertising, marketing, merchandising and public relations is used. But if you can only afford one avenue, public relations can be an effective, low-cost way to differentiate and position your company, its products or services.

Yvonne Meacham Buchanan is a public relations instructor for PR Essentials, an online public relations course available through Careers in Public Relations http://www.careers-in-public-relations.com.