The Joy of Six - How to achieve press release satisfaction
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Any journalist should be able to recite the crucial six points that any story should contain, lest it leave the reader feeling puzzled at best or even cheated at worst.
So when your press release pings into their inbox and they determine how newsworthy your media missive is, almost subconsciously they will be scanning it for these six points. If they are there then the release is already a good way down the road to publication.
However if not, you are suddenly relying upon a busy journalist having enough interest to fill in the blanks that you left gaping on the page.
So when your press release pings into their inbox and they determine how newsworthy your media missive is, almost subconsciously they will be scanning it for these six points. If they are there then the release is already a good way down the road to publication.
However if not, you are suddenly relying upon a busy journalist having enough interest to fill in the blanks that you left gaping on the page.
Kipling's 'Six Honest Serving Men'
That was in his poem 'The Elephant's Child'
I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
Who, What, Where, When, Why & How
Repeat after me...
Did you catch those? Who, What, Where, When, Why and HowThey are absolutely crucial to your copy's potential for publication and if any are missing the reason why should be clear within the press release.
From the smallest nib in The Sun, through to analysis in The Guardian, armed with a highlighter you will quickly be able to point out these fundamentals of storytelling, that hold true in cyberspace as much as they do on the page.
The Six Commandments!
So important are these six points that Morgan PR even refer to them as The Six Commandments in our seminar on 'How to Write a Killer Press Release'. Who
Consider it another way, how often do you send out information via email to colleagues or friends, only to get a seemingly daft question back - until you realise your omission? Now imagine that thousands of readers are articulating the same question? How daft can it make you look? What
Of course the reality is you will get away with it, because the journalist will have binned your story in favour of one that has the full deck of six points included.Remember that journalists are very busy people with little time or regard for lazy PRs who do not bother with The Six Commandments.
Where
So, next time you sit down to type out a press release to tempt the media into writing about your business, just pause and ask yourself what are the six points you will include - and I do not mean simply remind yourself of them, actually answer them before you start. When
Often one or two of them will be dominant within the story and this can give you a clue towards the strong introduction which is another essential to catching the attention of a busy news editor. Why
It can reveal the theme and map out the content of your release and most importantly it can indicate vulnerabilities in your information or position that could leave you exposed if your release does snag the attention of a journalist or 12. How
And the Joy of Six? That is the joy you feel when your release is published and the telephone starts to ring; it is the delight of the journalist who found a decent press release that contained the basics so they could cut and paste it to the page.It is the reader's satisfaction that the story they have just read about your business left them content they knew enough and the time invested had been worthwhile.
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by Nigel_Morgan
Nigel_Morgan
I am a journalist who founded the UK public relations consultancy Morgan PR after I sold my soul to the black arts of spin and spent four years as a p... more »
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