5 Ways to Get Your Press Release Picked Up By The Media
Monday, December 1st, 2008 by Dana WillhoitThanks for being a return reader! If you haven't already, you may subscribe to our articles by email alerts or via RSS feed . Also you can follow us on Twitter !
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:
- 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.
- 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.
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