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5 Ways to Get Your Press Release Picked Up By The Media

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In my 17 years as a newspaper reporter, I can not even count how many times an editor had me go through stacks of press releases that were faxed to us, to see if there was anything worth printing. Usually the answer was no.

Obviously every single person who sends a press release hopes their press release is worth running in the newspaper.

Most of them get it dead wrong. And 99 percent of them end up in what we call “The Round File” – otherwise known as the garbage can. Which means the press release writer wasted their time and money faxing their press release to us.

Here are some ways to make your press release newsworthy and figure out if a particular media outlet would be interested in your story:

  1. If it’s a small local paper, radio station, or TV station, they are looking for local news. If you self-published a book or just created a new product that you want to market…you need to find a local angle or the media will not be interested. If you live in town, that can be a local angle. If there is no local angle you are likely wasting your time and paper sending the press release to them. Blasting your press release to every media outlet in the country isn’t going to increase the chances that it will get published.
  2. Come up with a charitable angle – donate 20 percent of your sales to a particular charity in your town, or some variation of this. Let all of the local media in your town know.

  3. Hold a contest for charity, and give away prizes. The better the top prize, the more newsworthy the event will be. A pet store could give away a year’s worth of pet food and grooming to the winner of a raffle; all proceeds could be donated to a local animal shelter. Great publicity for the store, very likely to get into the local media, and good for the animal shelter too.
  4. Come up with a publicity stunt to publicize your event or sale. The local media really do not care that you are having a George Washington’s Day sale, but if you have a George and Marsha Washington look alike contest with a weekend getaway for the prize winners, or some such prize – they are MUCH more likely to care.
  5. Tie your press release in to a national news trend. Say you want to publicize a course on web site flipping. Talk about how the real estate market has crashed, but there’s a new boom in the virtual real estate market.

Bio: Dana Willhoit is an award-winning journalist who worked a daily and weekly newpapers for 17 years. She now is owner and lead press release writer at
The Press Release Site in Orlando Florida.

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This entry was posted on Monday, December 1st, 2008 at 8:31 pm and is filed under Press Releases, SEO Blog, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • http://www.mastersofseo.com/ How to Blog

    There are two reasons I think this makes a lot of sense, first I’ve heard about a lot of similar stuff, and so that helps, and also, she has been doing this for longer then I’ve been alive lol. Some great pointers and I definitely agree, this isn’t just in the newspaper world though, we have the same problem in social media all the time. Digg gets thousands of junk articles for every one, that makes the first page. Donations, and Prizes are great ways to help your article stand out from the bunch. Thanks for the tips!

    Jonathan Muller

    How to Blog’s last blog post..The Importance of Linking to yourself

  • http://www.mastersofseo.com How to Blog

    There are two reasons I think this makes a lot of sense, first I’ve heard about a lot of similar stuff, and so that helps, and also, she has been doing this for longer then I’ve been alive lol. Some great pointers and I definitely agree, this isn’t just in the newspaper world though, we have the same problem in social media all the time. Digg gets thousands of junk articles for every one, that makes the first page. Donations, and Prizes are great ways to help your article stand out from the bunch. Thanks for the tips!

    Jonathan Muller

    How to Blog’s last blog post..The Importance of Linking to yourself

  • http://smallbizbee.com/ Matt | Small Biz Bee

    As the owner of an event management company I’ve written a few press releases, and I can tell you that when we were a new company it was VERY hard to get them picked up by local media. What paid off for us was persistence…we sent the PR, followed up with an email, then followed up with a phone call. Once we had a relationship with the local media we found it much easier to get the published.

    Great article,
    Matt

    Matt | Small Biz Bee’s last blog post..Four Essential Business Lessons

  • http://smallbizbee.com Matt | Small Biz Bee

    As the owner of an event management company I’ve written a few press releases, and I can tell you that when we were a new company it was VERY hard to get them picked up by local media. What paid off for us was persistence…we sent the PR, followed up with an email, then followed up with a phone call. Once we had a relationship with the local media we found it much easier to get the published.

    Great article,
    Matt

    Matt | Small Biz Bee’s last blog post..Four Essential Business Lessons

  • http://atmac.org/ Ricky Buchanan

    What counts as a “local angle” though? If I’m wanting publicity for my website business, say, is it enough to point out it’s run by a local woman? The website itself isn’t locally oriented in any way.

    Another thing I’ve been wondering about is playing up my “disability angle”. I’m torn about whether this is a good idea, but it seems that “local bedridden woman can’t even go outside to see her garden, but earns money selling tshirtss all over the world” is much more newsworthy than “local woman sells tshirts on website”. Am I right about that, and what would the negatives be of putting in the disability stuff?

    Ricky Buchanan’s last blog post..How Can I Dictate In Other Languages?

  • http://atmac.org/ Ricky Buchanan

    What counts as a “local angle” though? If I’m wanting publicity for my website business, say, is it enough to point out it’s run by a local woman? The website itself isn’t locally oriented in any way.

    Another thing I’ve been wondering about is playing up my “disability angle”. I’m torn about whether this is a good idea, but it seems that “local bedridden woman can’t even go outside to see her garden, but earns money selling tshirtss all over the world” is much more newsworthy than “local woman sells tshirts on website”. Am I right about that, and what would the negatives be of putting in the disability stuff?

    Ricky Buchanan’s last blog post..How Can I Dictate In Other Languages?

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  • http://www.ifeedfish.com ifeedfish

    You, let me get a lot of thinking!
    I really enjoyed your post.

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    You, let me get a lot of thinking!
    I really enjoyed your post.

  • Aamir

    Great article have you see…
    social media services

  • http://www.wireservice.ca Free Press Release

    Press releases are a great way to get needed eyes onto your product, service and/or website. But not all press release services are built equal – especially so for free ones. Most free ones are little more than link farms as they will publish anything on their service.

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