The Best Way to Submit a Press Release to a Newspaper
People get their information from newspapers, the Internet and TV news reports. If your business or organization has a new product to announce or a fundraising drive to let the community know about, a press release is an excellent way to generate awareness. A press release is an official communication from a business or organization for distribution by the media. Businesses send press releases in the hopes that reporters at newspapers and TV stations will pick up the release and write a story about the information contained in it.
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Instructions
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Make sure your press release is well-written. Give it a short, attention-grabbing or informative headline. Summarize the most important information in the first two sentences of the release. Place the most important information at the beginning of the release, leaving historical or inquisitive information towards the end. Keep your sentences clear and concise. Include statistics, facts and financial figures where appropriate. Work quotes from high-ranking company officials who are relevant to the subject matter into the beginning and throughout the release.
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Check your spelling and grammar to rid your release of any embarrassing and unprofessional errors. Save your press release as a pdf (portable document format) file so you can email it to the newspaper(s) of your choice.
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Determine the audience for your announcement. Identify the newspaper(s) in your community, region or state that are most likely to be read by your target audience. Contact the editor of the business or living section of your selected newspaper(s) early in the day on a Monday or Tuesday. Build a relationship with that individual, starting with this press release.
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Tell the editor that you have an important announcement and ask for the his email address. Email a pdf of your press release to him, and then confirm that he has received it.
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Ask if he’d like an interview with one of the company officials quoted in the release. Offer to give the editor or one of his reporters an inside look at the new product, if your release announces a new product or service.
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Follow up with the individual later that day or the next morning to see if he’s planning on running your release. Continue to contact the individual regularly to build and maintain a relationship with him, which should make it more likely that your press release will get published in the future.
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