PR has the benefit that it doesn’t have to be particularly well-targeted if it gets to one million people in your city and doesn’t cost you anything! PR is excellent, so let’s take a closer look at this form of promotions.

A Public Relations Overview
Public Relations covers a wide range of activities, but in a promotional sense, it’s about building goodwill for your business by gaining unpaid media attention. The whole premise of PR is that you "borrow credibility" from the media, rather than looking like an advertiser who’s simply paid for exposure.

So, how does it work? First, you have to attract the press. Now, you can get the media’s attention in two ways—the easy way, or the hard way. The easy way is to write a concise, well-constructed release about your newsworthy event. The hard way is to write a sloppy release on something that nobody cares about.

Here are the basic rules of thumb you’ll need to follow:
Media releases should be one page long—and one page only. You need to tell your entire story in that single page. Your release should be on A4 or US Letter size paper only, no odd sizes.

The paper you write your media release on must be plain white, not colored—no letterhead, no logo, nothing but white. As you get a bit more confident, and become recognized by the media, you might want to bend these rules—this will probably be OK once you’ve established yourself a little. But to begin with, stick to these guidelines. Now, let’s look at what you need to include in your release.

Contents Of A Media Release
Your media releases should always follow this standard, accepted format. It's what journalists and editors will expect, and it allows you to communicate your message clearly. Your media release should contain the following elements:

Release Timing Details
The timing of publication of a media release can be extremely important in some cases. To let the press know when they can use a release, it’s common practice to include release timing details in the upper left corner of the page. You have two options; choose the one that's more appropriate for your purpose. You can either write "For immediate release," to let the journalist know that he/she can report upon the information at any time. Or you can write "For release on October 1st, 2003," which lets the journalist know if your story is urgent or time-relevant.

Headline
The headline of the release is next. Your headline has a big job: it must grab the attention of your readers, and encourage them to keep reading, so it has to be compelling. Make it as interesting as you can.

Body Copy
The body copy is next. Split this into three parts:

1. In the first paragraph, tell the whole story: the who, what, when, where and why. Tell the whole story in 2, or maybe three sentences. It's sometimes a little tricky, but it can be done.
2. The second part of the release should contain quotes that give credibility to the story while fleshing out the most important details.
3. The third part of your media release should contain your call to action.

What do you want to have happen as a result of your media release?

As you write, think about your release from the point of view of someone who doesn't know you or your company. Who cares about the information you’re discussing in the release? If you can't answer that, then your release isn't newsworthy. If you can answer that, make sure you write the release in a way that will be interesting to them.

Contact Details
When the release is complete, write "ENDS" on its own line. Below this write: "For further information, contact:" followed by your name and phone number.

And that’s it!

Top Ten Tips For Your Media Release

• Make sure the information is newsworthy.
• Write a great headline. Start with a brief description of the news: the who, what, when, where, why and how.
• Ask yourself, "Is this really newsworthy?"
• Make sure the first ten words of your release are effective, as they're the most important.
• Avoid the excessive use of adjectives and fancy language.
• Focus on the facts.
• Provide contact details, and make sure you can be reached.
• Send it to the right person! There’s not much use sending your IT story to the sports journalist.

How To Distribute Your Release
With the range of distribution outlets available these days, it’s a simple matter to pay a media list to shoot your release off to 500 editors across the country. But is that best? Should you sit at your fax machine and slowly send out release after release to the editors you’ve targeted? Maybe you should send the release off to an Internet-based service for rapid email distribution.

What's the best way to distribute your release?
The answer to this question will change with the type of release you’re sending. As usual, we'd suggest you test various methods and closely monitor the results. You might find that your Internet-related media releases have great success when distributed via an Internet-based service.

But our big word here would be ‘targeted.’ In our company, we first identify the specific publications or media we want to target, then take a look at what they produce and the news angles they take. After that, it's a simple matter of writing our release specifically for that publication or show, that editor, or that particular journalist.

Sure, this might mean a little extra work, but the results that a well-targeted media campaign can provide can be well worth it.

The Call from the News Agency
It’s all gone well so far. You've sent your media release off to your targeted media contacts and you sit back, imagining your face on the nightly news… and then you get the call. Suddenly, you have a journalist on the phone who wants more information on the story, and perhaps a quote or 2! What do you do next? You have a couple of options:

1. Panic, start um-ing and ah-ing, blurt out a few long-winded answers, and generally squander your opportunity to get your message across.
2. Calmly gather all the relevant material you have had sitting on your desk ready for this call, and start the interview. 

If you want to take the second option, you’ll need to be ready ahead of time. So, when you prepare your release, prepare for what may happen. Try to think about what journalists would want to know. In our experience, they want information. They want it concise, they want it relevant, and they want it now. It’s your task to give them what they need to do a good job. Make it as easy as possible for the media to do their jobs. Most people seem to assume that journalists are hunting around for the dirt, that they'll grab any slip-up you make and turn you into a laughing stock. In our experience, this has not been the case. The vast majority of journalists we've dealt with have been professional, accommodating, and have taken great pride in putting together a story that’s interesting and top quality. If you don't have much experience with the media, rest assured that they won’t make your life harder. They’ll almost always guide you through the process and make it as easy as possible. When you’re speaking with the media, try to relax. Imagine the interview is a friendly conversation with someone who wants to learn a bit more about what you have to say, because that is exactly what it is.

So, before you send off the release, make sure you have handy as much information as might be required. Also, have a list of the contact details of the people the journalist might like to interview about your news item. That way, when the press calls, you’ll be ready for action!

The Release Has Been Run! What Now?
The local television station has sent out a journalist to cover your media release and you find yourself featured on the evening news. It makes a big impact for business and lifts the business profile a mile! Fantastic!

What’s next? Do you send the journalist a gift of a dozen bottles of wine, send her out for dinner or just send money? Well, none of the above actually! Look at this situation from the perspective that we use to approach client care. Anyone who helps your business is doing you a favor. If you reward the behavior, it will be repeated. And, it’s just good manners. So, what should you do when the media runs your story? Say "thanks." It's common courtesy. Here is an example letter you might like to use:

Dear John:
Just a quick note to say thanks for coming out to interview me about our business now selling pieces of the moon. We were thrilled to see how well the story came up on the news, and I just wanted to say thanks for guiding me through it all. It really helped having a professional treat me with kid gloves so we could look our best. We have had some tremendous reactions to the story.

Thanks again.

Regards,

Stephan Boehringer

What Not To Do With Your Public Relations Release
Imagine you've written your release, honed your headline, penned a terrific opening, and presented all your information on one page. Your contact details are all there, the release is well-formatted, and it's newsworthy. You're off to a great start!

Now, you fax or email it to the editors at various media outlets. Terrific. Then, you ring every single person that you faxed the release to, and say those magic words:

"Just checking to see if you got my media release?"

Don't do it. Don't ring...... Why not? Editors don't enjoy it. They have your release. If it's newsworthy they'll follow up on it. Leave them alone!

We've done the math and here it is. Let's say you fax your media release to 100 editors. Later, you start the follow-up telephone calls. Each call costs an average of $0.25 and takes three minutes to make. The tricky part is in actually finding the person you want to speak to. It takes an average of two phone calls to find the person you’re after. That's 200 phone calls, 600 minutes and tons of money you will spend following up that release. For that money you could fax a release to another 500 editors! 600 minutes is ten hours. That's a full day's work. Your time could be better spent!  The media has enormous power and influence, and is always looking for good stories to run. If you have a newsworthy story, it might well be run—good luck.