Getting Ready to Write a Press Release – Part II

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About this lesson

To write an excellent press release, there are four additional aspects you need to research.

Quick reference

Getting Ready to Write a Press Release – Part II

When it comes to getting ready to write an outstanding press release, everything you need to do falls under the big umbrella of research. This lesson continues to look at what you need to know and research before writing a press release.

When to use

Before writing a press release.

Instructions

To write an excellent press release, there are four more aspects you need to research:

  1. Research your industry extensively: learn from competitors who are already at the top of their game and find out the preferences of publishers in your field to increase your chances of getting your press release published.
  2. Identify the buzzwords in your industry: before starting to write your press release, do keyword research to find out the buzzwords in your industry. This will not only help with your SEO but also make the press release flow more naturally.
  3. Get to know your product: contact the product manager in your company to get the product file, which tells you why, how and for whom the product was created.
  4. Understand your audience: catering for your audience will increase the readership of your press release. Find out the needs and desires of your audience, with questions such as:
    “What information do they want to know?”
    “Why is it relevant to them?” and
    “How does this product improve their life?”
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  • 00:05 Now we're going to continue discussing preparation, but
  • 00:08 we're gonna look at it in more depth.
  • 00:12 Now let's continue with researching the industry extensively.
  • 00:17 This aspect that we're going to research is about a specific industry.
  • 00:24 So typically what you would do is bring up the last 20 releases that was done within
  • 00:31 the industry, and see what is there that we can learn from the industry leaders,
  • 00:36 what discussion did they follow on in all their releases?
  • 00:40 Typically there is commonalities, if we look at 10 or
  • 00:44 15 press releases over the last couple of months, there'll be some common elements
  • 00:49 that we can extract and vote on that going forward.
  • 00:54 What are the buzzwords in the industry?
  • 00:56 What are the things that matter in this industry right now?
  • 01:00 And is there a way that we can perhaps bolt the buzzwords into our release?
  • 01:06 Of course, this will also help with our search engine marketing, but
  • 01:09 it's not just about that.
  • 01:11 It's about being relevant at this point in time to your industry.
  • 01:16 Now, with product knowledge, there's a few more things that we want to consider.
  • 01:20 Number one, you want to work with the product manager that's in your company and
  • 01:24 you want to make this person known to the industry, so
  • 01:27 that any follow up inquiries about the product will go to the right person.
  • 01:32 Now, the product file that they can provide you with would normally tell us
  • 01:36 why and how the product is being created.
  • 01:40 And it'll contain some demographic information about the target audience that
  • 01:44 the product's been created for.
  • 01:46 The product and the audience would be related to one another.
  • 01:51 Some products are only relevant to, or they're designed for
  • 01:54 a specific segment of the audience, and so working with a product
  • 01:58 manager to establish that is gonna make the press release so much easier.
  • 02:03 The product manager really has got the task of finding products for
  • 02:08 your customers.
  • 02:08 So, in order for your release to appeal to the right audience,
  • 02:12 you just need to know who this product was created for.
  • 02:16 Understanding the audience,
  • 02:18 there's so much that we can do to better understand the audience.
  • 02:22 Once you've identified the target audience for
  • 02:25 the product, make sure that you zoom in on their needs and their desires.
  • 02:30 And this you can do by asking yourself what information, and
  • 02:33 do they want to know right now?
  • 02:36 Why is it relevant to them?
  • 02:38 And how does my product improve their life?
  • 02:41 Through social media analysis,
  • 02:44 you can even track the conversations that matters to them at this point in time.
  • 02:48 And write in such a way that we address
  • 02:51 the most common concerns that they raise on social media.
  • 02:55 If you do your research well, you will have a well-equipped tool box.
  • 02:59 And that will contain everything that you to write an effective press release that
  • 03:03 will get high coverage that will be read and shard by many people.

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