8 More Terms to Remove From Your Press Releases April 17, 2013Press releases are among other things, great promotional tools, but they’re only as effective as the words used within them. Press release writers often get into the habit of, well, writing things out of habit. But ultimately, what do these words and phrases add to our work? If you can’t come up with a reasonable response, break out the red pen! With that in mind,…
Wave Goodbye to Wordiness February 8, 2013Shakespeare wrote that “Brevity is the soul of wit” and he was as correct then as he is today. Wordiness is everywhere—in emails, ad copy, press releases, websites and it detracts from the quality of your writing. More and more readers are limiting their attention as the sheer number of articles and words they have to read grows ever more exponentially daily. Readers are now…
Hitting The Headlines January 23, 2013For the most important part of any press release, not as much thought goes into the headline as it should. Writers put so much effort into their work that they stop short from advertising their excellence in the most prominent part! Time is of the essence for most readers so headline skimming is a preferred reading method - if you lose them here, it’s unlikely…
Your Five Point Perfect Press Release Checklist for 2013 January 9, 2013It’s a new month, a new year and the perfect time to take stock of your press release writing skills and how to get the best out of your releases in 2013! One of the simplest and most effective ways of getting back into the writing groove and blowing off the holidays snowdust is the Five Point Perfect Press Release Checklist. 1. Is my headline…
Using Your Press Release to Join the Dots of Social Media December 12, 2012Social media often overlaps the world of the press release so it makes sense that the connectivity of Social media joins with and enhances the messaging and strategy of a press release. Some experts would argue that Social Media has changed the press release forever with their disparate sharing methods and availability. The next time you are ready to issue a press release - look…
Don’t Look Back in Press Release Anger November 30, 2012We’re all professional writers so we can admit the unspoken truth that sometimes, some of the press releases we see and read just aren’t up to the job. In fact, for some we could just as easily say most. This is a problem for the industry as a whole because the plethora of badly written, shoddily assembled releases drag down our perfectly crafted, intelligent and…
Apostrophe! November 13, 2012This week’s post is one that drills us down to the basic mechanics of press release writing and one that can undo the best work of writers - the use, or misuse, of the humble apostrophe. There are some specific rules for the use of the apostrophe but these are often misunderstood or misapplied. Here are 10 handy rules for its use. These will keep…
How to Apply Feedback from Online Customer Surveys November 9, 2012A satisfied customer is an integral component of any successful business. One way to ensure loyalty through satisfaction is with customer feedback. Whether through a suggestion box or an online survey, direct feedback that's based on a customer's experience is the best way to gauge what works, what needs tweaking and what should be completely overhauled. The best way to maximize the volume of information…
Seven Ways to Pep up your Press Releases November 2, 2012As a press release writing professional, you will be commonly asked to come up with an array of content designed to serve different purposes. The most regular of course being the press release. The press release remains an essential tool for effectively sharing news with the broadest possible audience, and yet the opportunity to drive news with it is often squandered through poor writing and…
The 37 Point Grammar Guide to Make Your Press Releases Spin and Sing! October 19, 2012The handy grammar/phraseology guide for every Press Release writer. When you’re writing press releases you will soon realize that grammar and the correct use of it is either your best friend or your worst enemy. Master this and you can make even the most pedestrian release sing! We’ve gathered the most common 37 rules, mistakes or misused words in releases that we’ve seen over the…
Non-Traditional Marketing: All Things Golf October 10, 2012It has long been said that the golf course is where deals are made. This statement is so very true, and a great marketing strategy via golf courses, clubs and other items can help marketing professionals land countless deals. Golf did not used to have the sponsorship that it has now. A host of great players have turned the game over and created a new…
Powerful Headlines to Grab the Most Readers with Your Press Release October 3, 2012The headline is the first thing readers see and the most important driver to your press release. You have a few words to make the maximum possible impact. If it is exciting or enticing it will bring the readers in and give you a great chance of getting your message across to the widest possible receptive audience. If it is bland, unengaging or plain boring…
Five Ways to Increase the Pick-up on Your Press Releases September 20, 2012One of the benefits of Social Media is that audiences now expect to find anything they want, when they want it, how they want it. This means that as release writers, we’ve got to squeeze every ounce of meaning out of our releases. We’ve already looked at one of the main problems of releases - being written for company execs rather than an audience -…
How You Can Make Your Press Releases Better – and You Can Quote Us On That! September 4, 2012One of the most under appreciated parts of any press release is an authoritative or informative quote. Any release will benefit from one or more quotes from connected, reputable sources - especially for a corporate or business release. This could come from a company spokesperson, CEO, happy customer or other expert testimonial. If you don’t include a quote then your release will lack the expected…
Six Guidelines for Using Exclamation Points July 26, 2012Interest in the American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald is growing ahead of the release of the remake of his seminal novel ‘The Great Gatsby’ later this year. The movie, starring Leonardo Di Caprio celebrates the elegance and style of an earlier age - which is also the perfect description of his writing. Fitzgerald also had strong views on the use of the exclamation point -…
The 10 most Misused Words in Press Releases April 16, 2012This might surprise you but the internet is full of pedants. It’s true. Every utterance or grammar error is going to be painstakingly dismembered and disseminated for the gratification of the punctuation police and grammar guardians to help keep the web pure. It’s a wonder then that the following words are not highlighted even more, not for their inappropriateness, but just that their general misuse…
Why Use Five Words When One Can Do? April 11, 2012As a writer, sometimes circumstances or mood will force you to take the long way round when you are working on a press release, blog or other form of writing. We all like finding the most colorful sentence or clever phrase to describe our object but more often than not, a single word will suffice for your purpose. This isn’t an accusation on your ability…
Facebook Timeline – How the Revolution is Going to Affect You April 2, 2012Facebook couldn’t have picked a worse weekend to launch their new Timeline, fundamentally reorganizing and altering their sites appearance and functionality than April fool’s Day weekend. As well as some other top tech jokes doing the rounds including Gmail announcing that they were going to incorporate Morse code in their options, it sounds so silly as to be plausible yet it is all to true.…
No News for a News Release? Not so fast… March 23, 2012As a PR professional or Press Release writer there will be occasions when you are tasked or have to find a release at short notice when there is no immediately discernable news to offer. You might wrack your brain to think of a new angle or story to pursue and push but it doesn’t have to be that hard. Compared to April 18, 1930, your…
Can you Write Better than a 5th Grader? March 12, 2012One of the delights of having children is that when they reach a certain age, you can leave them in the care of highly qualified babysitters called teachers during the day to give you some much needed self-time and sanity. They are then returned to you later in the day hopefully thoroughly exhausted from a day of running around and playing with their friends and…