Used effectively, press releases can help your business earn valuable media coverage, all at a surprisingly low cost.

Unfortunately, many businesses take the wrong approach to their press release strategy. Rather than tailoring their press release to reach a specific audience, they aim wide, distributing content that ends up failing to make much of an impact.

Luckily, this is a fairly easy problem to rectify. Below, we’ve outlined six tactics that you can use to attract the attention or journalists and get your press releases published, helping you to earn valuable media coverage for your business or organisation.

Make it interesting and newsworthy

Unless it’s a slow news day, it’s unlikely that your press release will be published as a story if it doesn’t contain anything interesting.

Build your press release around at least one interesting piece of information, whether it’s a new product you’re preparing to release, a special offer your business is providing to the public or a statistic or survey finding that the public might find interesting.

Avoid writing anything repetitive

Journalists read press releases like news consumers read stories — with an eye for fun, exciting and important information. Because of this, it’s important that your press releases read well and lack the repetition that’s often common in business communications.

Stick to one key announcement, then expand on it by providing extra details without going over the same ground multiple times. Remember, it’s better to be overly concise than repetitive.

Master the art of writing great headlines

As a press release writer, your job is to attract the attention of journalists and prove that your story is newsworthy.

Nothing sells like a great headline. Before sending your press release, it’s best to write down several different potential headlines, then select the one that you think will have the strongest impact with readers.

Proofread, shorten and simplify

The most common mistake many first-time press release writers make is preparing a release that’s overly long, detailed and wordy.