The story of Bridget Jones celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. Why I do know this? My daughter and I have watched the first movie and laughed about her weird stories. Afterwards, my daughter wanted to hear more about Bridget Jones. So, I turned the internet upside down and found an article about it.
What does all of this have to do with the creation of press releases?
OK. Bridget was a PR manager in a publishing house and waved with press releases, before she married to Marc Darcy. Further it seemed she got talent in writing E-Mails.
Only a few years after the movie got famous, I also learned how to create a professional press release. Not excluded, this inspired by the story of Bridget Jones... A writing trainer, a journalist, showed us in a two day course the dos & don'ts of a good press text and edited rigorously as only journalists are allowed to. In the communication agency I worked at that time it was not so spectacular than at Bridget's office in London... But I'm pretty sure, Bridget would have liked the cool interior of the conference room with the comfortable design chairs.
I'm still using tips from this course, find my favorites here:
#1 The essentials first: Answer all questions of significance directly in the beginning. What do you present? When is/was the launch date of your product? Is there any special to mention, e.g. a sustainable concept or a purpose marketing story? Location and date should never be missed.
#2 Create attention with a short, exciting headline which creates curiosity. Take care, it should not be too attention grabbing... That comes across as negative.
#3 Write news: A press release is actually a news format. Due to this it's better to use less but well chosen adjectives for your text.
#4 Inform. In the middle part of your text you can inform about interesting insights to the product or service, background of the creation, team or special methods. Price, Point-of-sales, benefits as sustainability or purpose marketing. Further variants, news, material, colors, USPs and so on.
#5 Give them a quote... For example from the designer or CEO about motivation, targets or next steps. Here you can show personality and and give your text a spice-up.
#6 Summarize the main aspects in 3-5 bullet points with maximum one sentence or some keywords. Place this text part directly under the headline.
#7 Don't forget the basics: A boiler plate with the key facts of the company like founder, founding year, references, branch, USP, motivation or significant point of sales is important and round-up the view of product and company.
#8 A picture is worth a thousand words. Due to this you integrate a filesharing link to your press photos in printable and online resolution.
By the way. Have you ever noticed that Samantha, the PR lady from 'Sex and the city' is called Jones by last name? Maybe a coincidence or an intend parallel? After all there was already a Mr. Darcy in Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice'. Possibly those two ladies are distant cousins. Who knows more about that?
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