As a growing company, you want to be seen as much as possible to increase your reach to customers. While marketing strategies are important, there’s nothing much like a bit of good old-fashioned press to get your name out and about.

Unfortunately, a newscaster doesn’t just turn up at your door to ask you about the milestone your up and coming business just reached. Instead, you’ll have to send out press release after press release to get your voice heard – but the benefits when you do will be plentiful.

Here’s a short run down of everything you should consider before hitting ‘send’. Have a read; who knows, it may just bag you that interview!

Make your subject heading stand out

The first thing that a journalist will see when you send over a press release is the email subject heading. That’s why it’s important to make sure it stands out.

Consider especially the number of emails and other press releases a journalist will receive everyday; you’ll need to make sure you don’t get lost in the crowd along with the other ‘Company Celebrates One Year of Trading’ headlines.

Keep it short and snappy and show the journalist that you have a unique story that will catch the attention of their readers.

Get straight to the point

Once you’ve got a journalist to open your email (a reason to celebrate in itself) you don’t want to scare them away with mumbled industry jargon and bad grammar that takes away from the the story.

The headline should be succinct and easy to read, while the introductory sentence should include the vital information a reader will need to understand the story.

From there you can begin to include information that’s good to have, but not important to the reader’s understanding of the story – more like embellishments than crucial points.

Keeping the good stuff at the top will allow a journalist the minimal amount of time to create the story and get it to their readers, timing is everything after all!

Don’t make a fuss about nothing

As briefly pointed out, journalists inboxes are a lot like a never ending pit, but instead of darkness, it’s menial stories about irrelevant news that won’t matter to any of their readers and is simply a waste of inbox space.

Before you type away about the office dog’s birthday party, just think about if you would really read about this on the way to work. Sure, it might be an important event to you, but will a huge readership who don’t even know the name of your company care just as much?

If your story isn’t newsworthy, don’t be afraid to leave it alone until something better comes along. Journalists don’t appreciate time-wasters after all!

Include a quotation from a relevant party

To give the press release another layer of input, you should include a quote that’s relevant to the story you’re sending.

The more authority on the quote the better, so don’t shy away from giving it yourself if you’re the director, you deserve some bragging rights after all the hard work you’ve put into the company!

If you don’t include one, it’s just another obstacle the journalist has to go through to find the right story, and could mean you’re taken off the list.

Make yourself easy to find

In the event that your story does get chosen and they need more information from you, don’t make it a chore to send you an email.

All of your contact details should be put clearly at the top of the page, including your email address, phone number and the address of your company (if it has one).

Not only does it make you easy to contact, your press release will appear more professional and they may even consider you a more reliable source than others.

Have you got any press release tips for fellow small business owners? Share them in the comment section below!