PRESS Releases - An Editor's Perspective

There are often posts to many of the listServes I participate in that are worth remembering and sharing on my blog! The below was in response to an inquiry regarding the best approach to Press Releases now that we are heading into 2005. A BIG THANKS to Julie Lindy, Editor of INSIDE Public Accounting for indicating that it was ok for me to repost her insight here.

From Julie:

As an editor who's covered the accounting profession for nearly a decade, I have a vested interest in this thread, so I hope you don't mind if I add my 2 cents. First, Erinn is absolutely right on all counts, especially when she says, "The reporters and editors will quickly get tired of the repeat with no value." Amen! Amen! Amen! THANK YOU, Erinn! As far as e-mail vs. snail mail & fax, I personally don't have a preference, but my colleagues increasingly prefer e-mail. E-mail definitely saves the editor time if he/she uses the release, and it makes the release very easy to file in a "futures" folder if it's something that may be used down the road. (My company sends out press releases, and we find that if we don't send them via e-mail, we get requests for e-mail versions, so we now send all press releases via e-mail.)

I'd like to offer these additional thoughts on e-mail press releases from the editor's side of the desk:

-- Make sure the subject line tells the editor what the release is about. The subject line is the headline for your e-mail press release: It's gotta hook the reader (ie, the editor). I get a zillion e-mail releases every day and really get irked if the marketer  can't bother to tell me what I'm receiving. By using no subject line, or one that simply says "Jones & Jones Press Release," the firm is telling me, "We've got news, but we're not willing to shout about it. Dig on down and you'll find it." Please give us inundated editors the tools (and the courtesy) of being able to make quick decisions about using your release. "Smith & Smith Wins Elite Award" or "Jones & Jones Admits Johnson to Partnership" adds so much more value to your release.

-- In my opinion, the ideal e-mail press release has the entire contents pasted into the body, as well as a Word version as an attachment. Anybody who uses e-mail is wary of attached files, including journalists. If editors can read your release without opening an attachment, they will think you are the epitome of courtesy and professionalism (to heck with the formatting!). If they decide to use your release, they can then file the attached Word document in the appropriate place on their computers. (Notice I said "Word" document. In terms of adding efficiency from an editor's point of view, a pdf really adds no more value than a paper copy). At minimum, please at least give a paragraph or two about the attached press release in the body of the e-mail so that editors have some inkling about the file they're being asked to open.

Finally, I beg you to post your press releases on your Web sites and maintain a press release archive there. I can't tell you how helpful that is to journalists. I'll often go there long after a press release is news just for research: what date a merger closed, when a niche launched, when a satellite office opened, when somebody joined the firm, etc. And please post contact info along with the release -- I've noticed a lot of firms post releases on their Web sites without the contact info, which makes it a lot more difficult to follow up.

Anyway, that's a brief glimpse inside the brain an editor who deals with a jillion press releases every day ... thanks!

Julie Lindy, Editor
INSIDE Public Accounting
(formerly Bowman's Accounting Report)
3340 Peachtree Road, Suite 2600
Atlanta, Georgia, 30326
Direct Dial: 678-686-6528; Fax: 404-264-9968
[email protected]
www.insidepublicaccounting.com

Comments

[Steve Head]

Excellent advice!! This is great inside information, so to speak.