Way back in September, I criticized myself for neglecting my blog and promised to be more diligent regarding its care and feeding. But it didn't happen. I could offer the usual excuses but I won't. Like anyone who has fallen off the wagon, I'm simply going to dust myself off and clamber back on board by discussing news releases. In particular, how you should start them off.
A few weeks ago, I read a column by one PR expert who urged her readers to introduce or "lead" their news release with feature copy. In other words, instead of ripping into the meat of what information the release is intended to convey, you should, according to the expert I'm citing, look for ways to hook the reader by offering a compelling anecdote, lively description or the outcome of a relevant study. That's a feature lead, a technique used by journalists that can be incredibly effective when hammered together by a capable wordsmith. But "news releases" are not "news stories." They are not intended to entertain an audience. They're a blunt communication tool whose aim is to spark news coverage.
So my advice if you're pondering whether to start your news release with a feature lead is don't. And there's a number of reasons why I say that, most of them based on having spent years as a journalist who read thousands of news releases -- many of which were poorly written.
Reporters and editors who are scanning your news release don't want to be entertained by a feature lead. They don't care how clever or creative the news release writer is. What they want when they look at your news release – along with the dozens of others they receive every day -- is to make a simple determination: Is there anything in this news release that my readers or viewers would care to know?
The sooner you can answer that question in your release, the better. If there's nothing in your release that's of interest to the news outlet you sent it to, no amount of tarting it up with a feature lead is going to "sell" the journalist on using it. The real danger with slapping a feature lead on a news release is that if you do have actual "news" to share, an exasperated editor may give up on your news release before gleaning that fact because it's buried so deep in the copy that she'd need a pick axe to find it.
Journalists are busier now than ever, so they won't spend a lot of time trying to excavate the point of your news release. They expect it to be up top, where it's supposed to be, so put it there and vent your creative side somewhere else.
