Why News Releases Fail
By Paul Krupin
Sorry about my otaku with this issue (otaku =
more than a hobby, a little less than an obsession).
Many of you may know me, since I run Imediafax,
the Internet to Media Fax Service. I send out over a million news
releases a year for people via fax and email. You probably think
that I’ve got news releases failing on me day in and day
out.
Actually, I don’t. The news releases I write
and send out for people do quite well. My clients are quite happy
with me because they are successful with their outreach efforts.
It’s the draft news releases that people
send to me that are my problem.
Fixing the problems I see in the news releases
people send me takes forever. It is also very painful.
I’ve seen a lot of news release failure
over the years, and I now know what the key problems look like
and how to fix them.
My plight as a publicist is that I spend a lot
of time educating my clients trying to get them to understand
the psychology of dealing with the media.
The rubber meets the road in the news release
because this single sheet of paper is the key nexus for all communications
with the media.
The importance of the copy on a news release cannot
be overstated. It has to be free of negative issues or factors
that will reduce or eliminate media interest and response. One
fatal error and it’s all over.
So identifying the problems and revising the news
releases is crucial. I spend a tremendous amount of time and effort
trying to avoid sending out news releases with problems still
in them.
The issue is that when people send me news releases,
it often takes a long, long time to identify and communicate the
problems, and then more time again to explain and negotiate all
the word changes with the clients, and more time still to finalize
the news release and have it ready and approved for transmittal.
Honestly – it can be very painful for all
involved. I’m quite brutal on my clients, since their success
is all that matters. I don’t pull any punches. My comment
process can bruise a lot of highly inflated egos of some otherwise
very accomplished people, on the way to a problem free news release
that maximizes the chances of success when finally sent. Lots
of people think they can write a news release. Very few of them
can do it very well.
They simply haven’t followed the media response
to enough news releases to learn the errors that are made when
they write news releases. They haven’t yet learned what
the mistakes are, so there is no learning from continuous improvement.
This is where the blood, sweat and tears of the
copywriting business is truly found. It gets even tougher when
another professional publicist wrote the news release for the
client. Now the client is getting opposing advice from two professionals.
One says “Make it Hot” and the other says “Cool
it”. What’s a publicist to do?
So my motivations for doing this article are really
quite selfish. I want to spend less time doing this. My life will
be significantly improved if my clients send me news releases
that take less time and energy to fix.
Very simply, for each and every news release that
comes in and doesn’t have these problems, I’ll free
myself to spend more time doing things that are more profitable
for my clients and me.
The issues listed here have all been identified
as reasons for the failure of a news release. This is based on
over 20 years of experience in dealing with the aftermath –
the actual number and quality of responses generated from the
transmittal of a news release.
So here are the most common reasons why news releases
fail:
1. You wrote an advertisement. It’s
not a news release at all. It sells product. It fails to offer
solid news of real tangible interest, value-added information,
education or entertainment.
2. You wrote for a minority, not for a
majority of people in the audience. You simply won’t
compete with other news releases that clearly are written for
a larger demographic of the media audience.
3. You are the center of attention, not
the media audience. You focus on your business and your
marketing, instead of things the editor and his or her audience
will be interested in.
4. You forgot to put the five W’s
up front. (WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN and WHY THE AUDIENCE
WILL BE INTERESTED). You didn’t clearly and succinctly tell
the media why the audience would be interested in this.
5. You are too wordy and text dense.
You focused on details and minutia, instead of the most important
ideas, issues, factors, facts, and news angles. You fail to address
the real significant impacts your story has on people.
6. You place too much information on one
page – the one page news release has a font size
so small an editor needs a magnifying glass to read it.
7. You included corporate logos and other
non-persuasive low value added graphics that distract the editor
from your key message. You may have also used an unusual
fancy font or a file format that turns to gobbledygook when it
goes through a fax machine.
8. You wrote a personally biased article
for the media to publish, instead of pitching the idea
to the media and the objective reasons why the media audience
will be interested.
9. You wrote about features and facts,
and forgot to explain what it means to real people. Tell a story
about real people. Add in real life human interest.
10. You wrote about how your news ties
in to someone else’s fame and glory. Forget it.
Never stand in the shadow of someone else. Make your own light.
Tell your own story.
11. Your news release responds to something
that just happened. You’re too late. You’re
behind the eight ball. Forget it. Get out in front of the news.
12. You included too much hype, self-laudatory
praise, pithy quotes, useless testimonials, jargon or
gobbledygook. Get rid of it.
13. You may have also identified prior
media coverage, which indicates it’s no longer
a new issue. Get rid of it. Let each news release stand on it’s
own two feet.
14. You tried to impress and be clever
or innovative but you come off naïve, less than
expert, biased, flippant, arrogant, or crazy. Tone it down. Get
straight.
15. You made vague and unsubstantiated
claims, or wild and outrageous claims, or you included
a statement that simply rubs the media the wrong way. Get rid
of them.
16. You are trying to be different, just
for the sake of it, but you come off eccentric. Forget
it. Don’t create a false or inflated image. Be yourself.
17. You wrote a rant and rave, worthy
of a letter to the editor, instead of a problem solving
tips article, worthy of a feature story. Decide what you want,
put your best effort into it.
18. You are simply not credible.
It could be your ideas are simply not well thought out, or that
you’ve offered old well-worn material, or that you are too
extreme or controversial, or not qualified. You may not be expert
enough, or sufficiently qualified, to make the statements, compared
to others in your field. You need to present information that
qualifies you properly and adequately.
19. You provided poor contact information.
You need to identify the best single point of contact and the
correct phone number so interested media can reach you and get
the best possible attention and response from you to meet their
needs. One key person, one phone, no fax, one email address, and
one URL (with no long string addresses).
20. You did not include a clear media
call for action. You didn’t tell the media what
you want them to do with your news release. You need to tell them
what you are asking for or suggesting or offering. Then you need
to offer the media incentives value-added reasons to do so, like
free review copies, free test samples, interview questions and
answers, media kits with story angles and stats and data, relevant
photographs, etc.
21. You did not incorporate and integrate
a primary response mechanism. You need to include a value-added
reason, which motivates the editor to publish or mention your
contact information, which will generate calls, traffic, interviews,
or requests for more information. This usually means something
unique and of special value to the audience, that the editor feels
good about mentioning. Use an offer for a free problem solving
report.
22. You sent the release to the wrong
media. Target the media that your clients read, watch
and listen to when they are in the right mood, that is, receptive
to hearing about your news, and willing to take action when they
get your message. Work with your publicist to target the right
media.
23. You rely on a single fax or an email
to produce an avalanche of media calls. You conduct no
follow up. Get real. Follow up properly and you can triple or
quadruple your media response rate. Better still, you can ask
the editors “what can I give you to support a feature story
and meet your needs”.
Finally, the biggest reason for news release failure
is one of attitude. How do you define success or failure? It’s
called unrealistic expectations.
Get real. You won’t get rich off one news
release. You’re chances of getting famous are just about
as slim.
You might be able to break even.
Look at your investment and compare it to what
you need to break even on your investment. If you need to sell
100 books to cover the costs of a $500 outreach effort, you need
ten articles because each article only produces ten sales. So
that’s your breakeven goal. More books per article, means
less articles will satisfy your needs.
You may simply have to be realistic and understand
that while you are wildly interested in the topic, it may not
have the broad general public interest that you have for the subject.
If you wrote an article that has local interest and you expect
national media to pay attention, think again.
If you want to be on the Oprah Winfrey Show, then
you’d better pray because chances of doing it off one news
release are very slim, near zero in fact. Get real. If she calls,
then congratulations are in order. But don’t count on it.
If you wrote an advertisement and wanted a feature
story and interviews, don’t be surprised if the only media
to call is the advertising manager offering you a package deal.
You get what you ask for. What you offer is often times what you
will get.
Even if you do get publicity, it may not come
out exactly the way you want it. More often than not, the bigger
the media, the less likely they are to run contact information.
Often times, the quality may be there while the
numbers are not.
One or two quality media responses may be what
you want or need. If you get that, it’s a success.
One article in USA Today may out perform ten articles
in small dailies and weeklies in the mid-west.
On the other hand, it may not. The small high
quality articles may outperform the small mention in the big media.
Similarly, one quality 30-minute interview on
a well-liked talk show on a radio station in the middle of nowhere
out in the mid-west, will likely outsell a five-minute interview
on an Arbitron rated radio station in the middle of the morning
talk show in a major metropolitan area. You can’t tell the
listening quality of the audience.
So when you write a news release please review
it against these criteria to see if you’ve made any of these
errors. Then fix each and every one of them yourself, and when
you are done, feel free to send me your final draft. I’ll
be happy to take a look at it.
So listen to your publicist. Heed these warnings
and reduce the risks of failure. Fail to pay attention to these
issues, proceed at your own risk.
About The Author
Paul J. Krupin is the author of the book “Trash
Proof News Releases” and creator of IMEDIAFAX - The Internet to
Media Fax Service .a personal publicity service that transmits news
releases to custom targeted media lists via fax and e-mail
His website http://www.imediafax.com
is packed with articles and a comprehensive media jump station. The
244 page first edition of “Trash Proof News Releases” is
available as a free pdf file download or via email upon request. Email
him directly at Paul@imediafax.com 800-457-8746 509-545-2707
Free Publicity Resources
Free
eBook: Fast Track to Free Publicity
Get all the free publicity you want, attract hot prospects
who are ready to buy, skyrocket your credibility and close more sales
in less time--guaranteed! Includes interviews with a former TV reporters,
newspaper editors, and radio talk show hosts. Great tips, tools and
tricks from media pros who have "been there and done that."
1 hour digital audio and 65 page ebook download.
Free eBook - Press Release Magic
Download it free when you subscribe to our internet
marketing newsletter.
FREE
Press Release Tutorial
This tutorial will take you through the various steps to help you build
a successful publicity campaign. Learn everything from writing a press
release to using creative ways to gain free publicity for your website.
Free
Publicity Crash Course
Free mini-course will teach you basics of using the media to get getting
thousands of dollars in FREE publicity and advertising.
Special
Report "The Best Search Engine"
“How to get listed quickly in the best search engine (Google)
using only your own efforts at virtually no cost by accessing millions
of targeted prospects through the vast reach of mass media”.
What's the fastest and easiest way to generate publicity, build your
credibility with reporters, and actually get the media to start calling
YOU? Read this free Special Report by former TV anchorman George McKenzie
to find out how to use news service websites (like www.news.google.com)
to access reporters who are most likely to write about you.
