[Thomas the Rhymer]

As part of my marketing strategy, I've decided to make a presskit for my small business to send to the local newspaper.

That said, I'm a bit confused as to what exactly a press kit is. I did a search on the forum on this topic and nothing came up.

From what I can tell from google searches, a press kit is basically just an invitation to journalists to be lazy. In a nutshell, it should have all the information already available for writing an article, so that the journalists can just quickly whip up a random article ina few minutes and submit. In fact, in a press kit you can provide a sample news article that a journalist/editor can just copy, edit a little, then paste into their newspaper.

I found a decent introductory article to this concept:
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/57260

Has anyone here submitted or dealt with press kits? What tips can you give and what are the obvious blunders to avoid?

[MrTickle]

I've done this a few times for my business. Saved a bit of dosh on outsourcing to PR companies. Essentially write it in a third voice as though you were the journalist and don't be obvious about pushing the business and feel free to quote yourself. As a very rough example let's say you recently moved premises:

Thomas Tech on the move

After 3 years at XYZ location, Thomas Tech is moving to new premises at ABC location. Thomas the Rhymer of Thomas Tech said "We really excited about the new larger premises. We've had strong growth over the last year particularly in Y service, so this is a natural progression for us. The extra room will allow us to invest in X to the benefit for Y service." etc. etc.

If they have a slow news week they will add it in. I suggest you don't send something too frequently I stick to once every 12 weeks for my local rag. Over time I have my personal contact with people at the paper and they know if they are short of material they can email me and I will provide something. So in addition to the above which works around 50% of the time I have had a few emails over the last year asking me if there is any news.

[The Beast1]

Funny, I just recently wrote a bunch of press releases.

I sent them out using prweb. Not sure it did any good because the person who submitted them ended up chucking most of my work and using his poorly written ones (don't ask).

Make sure the press release follows the inverted triangle formula and is spell checked with proper grammar.

[H1N1]

Yes, I've done a bunch, and got them into all the major news outlets for my various product sectors.

Your best bet is to write the article for them. Marketing guys usually tell you to write it in an extremely simple way that's very colloquial. Personally I think that's bollocks and patronises the audience. I had much more success when I was little more technical, and trusted the intelligence and inquisitiveness of my audience to engage with the subject matter.

The most important thing is to try to find a unique or new and interesting angle on what you're selling. You want to get across what it is you're doing in that first paragraph, and then really just give people the essentials after that - ideally in the form of a short and pithy case study with a quote from you as Director.

It's all common sense stuff, you'll be absolutely fine. The most important thing is to spread it around. The real work is done in collecting your database of contacts to send it to. Then just send it to them all.

IMPORTANT: Put the text of the article in the email itself. Journalists get lots of these things, so make it easy for them. Having to copy, save, then find the document dramatically reduces your chances of it being picked up in my experience.

If there are particular publications that could be really good for you, it's always worth picking up the phone and having a quick chat with an editor or journalist.

[Ringo]

(I have a background in Journalism.)

Good points above already.

Key elements:

- Don't be clickbait-y.

- Structure your text with:

Title
Deck
Text

(The title and deck should make it clear what the release is about. The text will just go into more detail)

- Embed the text into the email

- If possible, embed good/interesting pictures in HQ (depending on the vehicle you are trying to reach, this is key) above or by the main title. If you have more than one GOOD picture, you can link the gallery. Don't forget to link who the photo should be attributed to (photographer, your company, etc)

- Include quotes from key characters in the story

- Include numbers when possible

- H1N1 is right - you don't have to dumb everything down into simple terms. But if you are referring to something with niche or obscure meaning, it's worth explaining or using a comparison. For example:

... our new sauce is one of the top 10 hottest sauces in America, with 400.000 Scoville Heat Unit (SHU), the scale used to rate the pungency of foods.
... our new sauce has 400.000 SHU - hotter than a Habanero chilli.

- Truth is, you have to know who you are writing to. If you are writing to Pepper Aficcionado Magazine, you probably don't have to explain what Scoville units are. But if you are writing to Interesting Facts Magazine - then the chance of them knowing what that is is much smaller. Tailor your writing according to the outlet you are aiming for

- Before writing, list the key elements you want in your text. When you write, your mission is not to write what is important to you, but to include those key elements in a text that is compelling for the journalist and the publication

- Include your contact information (email, website, phone number, full name, hours in the office) to make it easy for them to reach you if they want to follow up:

[End of text].

Thomas the Rhymer
Phone number, email, website
Address
Working hours

- Spell check thrice and get other people to spell check it as well

- Don't make it long, ~2000 characters should be more than enough

- Try to establish good rapport with the journalists you are sending these to. Often good releases get deleted before they're even read because the email looks like junk and the send is unknown

- H1N1 is right - a quick telephone chat is vital for optimal results. But don't contact them too often and don't be pushy or scare or the cat, that's a sure way to get blacklisted