We, PR pros, have an undying faith in the power of the press release. Every evening, somewhere between 3 and 4, PR execs run to the terrace and load the canons. It’s poetry in motion. With natural grace they slide a fresh press release into the barrel, swiftly point it at the target (in Delhi it’s ITO, CP, INS Building), light the fuse and take cover. BANG! The press release lands with a hiss at the desk of Mr. Business Editor, Leading Daily Times. Mission half accomplished! The infantry, heavily armed with release-loaded plastic folders, launch the assault exactly half an hour later. The team rests only after hitting each and every target.

“Nonsense,” you say? “That was years ago. We have evolved, moved on.” But why are our brothers and sisters still shooting releases. “Necessary evil,” a colleague had said conspiratorially and winked before she reached out for her Gate Pass in the snow white ToI building. For a moment I felt I was part of a secret brotherhood, surreptitiously making eye-contact with the elusive journalist, trying to extract a pledge of 10 cc (or more) of premium space for my client.

I don’t have more to say about the immortal press release. I won’t even be surprised if “Press Release 2.0” has been released(!). I suspect something like that is already in the air, secretly infecting the PR industry. But there are a few incidents about Press Release 0.0 that will forever play in my mind. There was this one time when a senior editor made good use of the press release I gave him. He thanked me and instantly used it as a paper plate for his snack – two tiny, oily samosas. It was a cruel conspiracy – the greasy patches took shape on my client’s quote I’d spent half a day on.

And there was this other journalist who used to look up from her monitor and smile sweetly when you gave her a press release. She read the first two paras (I suspect she looked at it blankly) and if it bore her, discreetly put it in the bin. Though I would be heartbroken, I felt relieved there would be one paper less to scan the next morning…

I chanced upon an interesting format of a press release. There was no longer the ’so and so company/ person today announced…’. sentence in the opening para of the release. The content was simple and to the point. The spokesperson quotes were not merged into the rest of the content as one long story. Instead they came in bullets under their own section titled ‘Quotes’. There was a list of key points highlighted in another section called ‘Quick Facts’.

This was a format of one of the press releases issued by the Ontario government that I happened to see quite by chance browsing through my Del.icio.us subscriptions (thanks to Boyd’s post).

Now what is so interesting? While the standard opening sentence of press releases have been omitted in many press releases by government organisations and NGOs in India and it’s not new, how the Ontario Government placed their quotes and the Quick Facts were new (at least to me).

Is this just a good example of a social media news release? Or can we replicate the same for our press releases that we issue to the traditional media?

Pros: Content is to the point and well segmented that helps reading easily. One can notice the key points quickly without going through the entire document.

Cons: Journalists have to redo the draft. So if you are looking for a time-crunched editor who will quickly cut a portion of your release and put it into tomorrow’s paper, then this is not the ideal format.

What do you say? This is how one of them looked like:

We have heard about press release optimisation for the web, which in simple words means you write your press releases stuffed with keywords that search engines like Google and Yahoo are likely to pick up. This helps in having your press releases come out in relevant online searches and in turn helps boost your marketing and sales prospects from the web, besides the pure coverage factor. Online Marketing Blog has a good post on how to use press releases as marketing tools.

Interestingly, the post also had me thinking since some of the tips can actually be adopted today and even when we are not doing any hard-core SEO stuff. Check it out:

1. Links to action opportunities - Examples include: white paper downloads, free trials, special offers, podcasts, webinars, reports, email newsletters and consultations. So today when we add any new press release to our clients’ websites, we can add links to other pages talking about the examples above.

2. Offering a summary of the press release to the media, offering an exclusive and suggesting story ideas - Maybe we can say the heading, the sub-heading, and first paragraph are the summary. However, how about actually writing a summary so that journalists can get a grasp of the main points of the entire content? We offer interviews on the phone till now when we follow-up for press releases. Can we put up this offer on the press release page?

3. Writing a blog post version of the news and submit to relevant social media sites - This will be a slightly informal version of the press release and can talk about the announcement came through, any issue they faced and how they overcome it, what other people and industry analysts have to say about it, etc. etc…

Also click to Secrets of Press Release from where I got the tip off today- a nice site on what more can we do with our press releases.

Zoom into Pod Universal, the first PR podcast blog in India by K Srinivasan of Prime Point Foundation and the man behind the some of the top online PR groups. In addition to PR, the blog will cover topics including health, career, management, current affairs, sports, and culture.

I like a recent post in which Srinivasan discussed with KT Jagannathan of The Hindu on why corporate press releases are increasingly being rejected by the media, what are the deficiencies, and how we can write good and effective press releases.

The discussion raised certain interesting issues like -

1. Credibility of the press release reaching a newspaper’s office - Is it on a company letterhead? Is it signed - none of them are signed nowadays? Who will take accountability of what is written there in the press release? Companies don’t inform the media when they have appointed a PR agency, which they should.

2. Duplication of information - Sending press releases from multiple locations - media is aware of this practice. Many ignore press releases because they feel that their offices in other cities must be receiving the same news and will take care of them.

3. Press releases are increasingly containing advertorial material, and not real news.

4. MNCs are more closed than Indian companies when sharing information to the media. I feel that MNCs can do much better PR if their corporate communications departments speed up the way they approve anything, starting from a press release draft, or sending out a single para to a journalist.

5. PR should be knowledge-based, not act like courier agencies - only then the industry can gain respect.

Prime Point Foundation’s October 06 issue of Corporate e-zine PR-e-Sense has the results of the survey on Indian corporate press releases. I couldn’t resist putting it here, as I am so in love with surveys in the Indian PR industry. This is straight out of the newsletter.

The survey was to get the perspective of PR/CorpComm professionals and the journalists on the ‘Corporate Press Releases’ released to the media. 38 PR/CorpComm professionals and 23 Journalists responded to the survey and gave their views anonymously.

Conclusion

1. Generally both PR/CorpComm professionals and Media persons have agreed that the quality of ‘Corporate Press Releases’ need to be improved. While PR/CorpComm persons have rated their own press releases at 51%, media persons have rated at 47%.

2. Both PR/CorpComm professionals and media professionals agree with the listed deficiencies, like lack of newsworthiness, usage of marketing and promotional information, etc.

3. Interference from the Corporate Management, while drafting the press releases seems to be eminent, as more than 60 percent of the PR segment and CorpComm segment have uniformly felt the same. This may be because of the lack of understanding of the ‘media
functioning’ by the Corporate Management Executives.

4. Nearly 70 percent of the Media professionals are unable to get in touch with the concerned persons or to get the required information. More than 60 percent of the Press
Releases get rejected or discarded for various reasons.

5. More than 60 percent of the Media professionals prefer to get the press releases through email followed by fax or hard copy.

Recommendations

1. Training programmes need to be organised by the Managements or professional bodies to train / reorient the PR/CorpComm professionals on drafting of Press Releases both in English and Regional languages.

2. Corporate CEOs and other Senior Management executives should get themselves acquainted with the ‘media functioning’. Professional bodies like CII, FICCI, AIMA may organise brief programmes to Top Management professionals in association with PR bodies. Such programmes should enable CEOs to interact with Senior PR professionals and Media professionals.
Technorati tags: PR, Public Relations, India,India PR,