Media releases are not marketing copy: How to write a release that will get picked up

Media releases remain a key tool for alerting journalists to news and other important information about your small business or startup, but it’s crucial to remember that a media release is not marketing copy. Anthony Caruana and Kathryn Goater, co-CEOs of Media-Wize, explain.

Whether you’re releasing a new product, announcing a new partnership, senior appointment or significant customer win, updating an existing service, or mentioning a funding injection a well-written media release can help garner positive coverage that enhances your business’ reputation and increases visibility. 

The key thing to consider is that the audience for your media release is journalists and by extension their readers. The media’s role is to inform and educate. It is not an extension of your marketing department or sales team. They are not advertisers.   

While marketing copy can be a useful input when drafting a media release, you will have a journalist slamming the delete key faster than you can say “marketing” if your media release reads like a sales brochure, advertorial or marketing pitch.  

A well-crafted media release contains several key elements: 

• – A brief headline – something that’s punchy that fits on one line 

• – A short description of your company. For example, “Company X, a leader in the production of special widgets…” 

• – The news must follow directly from the introduction. For example: “… has released its all new (insert details), which will give customers the opportunity to…” 

• – A one or two paragraph description of the news value, how it is interesting, special, different, unique etc.   

• – A quote from your senior spokesperson. 

• – A quote from a customer will greatly increase your chances of coverage if you can get their approval. 

• – Contact details should a journalist want more information. 

• – Attached images or a link where images can be easily accessed if appropriate. At the very least, a good headshot of the company spokesperson is useful.  

• -Boilerplate that gives a bit more detail about your company. This should be no more than two paragraphs and include your URL.  

Marketing copy is used to gain attention and to persuade customers to engage with you in purchasing decisions. A media release has a different but related purpose. When a journalist publishes a story or asks you for an interview, they are providing independent validation that your news is interesting or has value for their readers. This means your media release should be written accessibly and not positioned as a thinly veiled sales message, but about providing a topical and relevant news angle.   

For example, a marketing brochure might describe a product in this way: 

Our all-new Widget 1000 boasts 25 enhancements on the Widget 500. It promises to deliver best of breed efficiency gains that must be seen to be believed. It will be a game-changer for the industry. 

A media release for the same product might describe the same product as this: 

Company X, a leader in the production of special widgets, has released its all-new Widget 1000, which will give customers the opportunity to enhance operations. More than 20 new features enable customers to become more efficient while reducing costs. 

The two paragraphs say the same thing but use different language. The first makes bold claims and uses more emotive language than the second example.  

Journalists are extremely time poor. Cutbacks in newsrooms across every major masthead in Australia, means media releases that are written in a way that enables them to be quickly converted into news stories are more likely to be picked up. Anything that reads like a marketing brochure will either be deleted or forwarded to a sales team who will contact you to sell a sponsored content deal. 

Media releases are a valuable tool for disseminating news about your small business or startup. Their purpose is to generate positive coverage. By writing a media release that gives the journalist what they want you can boost the chance of being the subject of a great story. Marketing copy does have an important place but it’s not in a newsroom.  

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