Choose the right 'angle' for your release

So you've decided that your business would benefit from some marketing and PR. The next question is... what do you write about?

Many of our other tips talk about how you structure or send a media release to make sure it gets through to and grabs the attention of editors and journalists. Another important ingredient is the subject matter of your release.

Editors want to publish articles that their readers will be interested in. That means your subject matter needs to fulfil at least one of the following list of criteria:
• Is it new?
• Is it different?
• Is it timely?
• Is it topical?
• Will it affect the industry as a whole?

You need to give editors a reason to publish your news and industry publications will need to be able to slot press release content into a designated section. These generally include: news and industry comment; issues-based feature articles; product news; and case studies. To slot into one of these, you may like to tailor your message into a:
• New product release (product news)
• Announcement of a new distributorship (news and industry comment)
• Expert comment on topical industry issues (background for feature article)
• Company results announcements (news and industry comment)
• Staff appointments (news and industry comment)
• Application of new technology (case study).

Finally, don't send the same news release to an editor more than once if the content was published the first time. That doesn't mean you can never submit more than one media release on a particular topic or product, you just need to make sure you come up with a different angle each time - for example, if you've added new features to a product that's already been published.