What is a press release? When and why do I need one?
For high school founders with a flair for writing and a fire for PR, press releases are a golden ticket to getting free brand publicity. A press release is simply a concise, official announcement about a newsworthy event. It is directed toward targeted members of the media and contains all the core details reporters need to craft a publication-ready story. Unlike media advisories, which are released in advance of events, press releases are created and disseminated immediately after noteworthy events take place. In the context of your life as a high school entrepreneur, you might create a press release for situations like these:
Your startup rolls out a new product or service
Your school’s business club launches a district-wide entrepreneurial mentorship program
You publish your own book, podcast, or other form of media
So, why write a press release in the first place? Well, the primary goal of press releases is to attract the attention of journalists and get news coverage of your event. Especially as youth, it’s difficult to establish credibility for your initiatives. (You’ve surely noticed how every 3rd high schooler on LinkedIn these days seems to be a “Founder and CEO”.) News coverage validates your work from a professional outsider’s perspective. Press releases are a 100% free way to reap the benefits of press coverage, which include the following:
- Grow brand credibility
- Build name recognition
- Raise awareness of your products, projects, initiatives, etc.
- Attract new customers, team members, and partners
- Drive online traffic and improve SEO ranking
- Provide proof of your accomplishments
Knowing all these benefits, it’s tempting to just dive right into writing your latest press release! Before that, though, you need to take some preparatory steps to ensure your press release hits the right points, reaches the right people, and ultimately turns into a news story.
How do I prepare to write a press release? What research do I need to do?
Research your recipients
Before you begin writing your press release, research the audience for your press release. Do you want to reach business professionals, other teens, or the community at large? As high schoolers, the vast majority of us will likely be contacting local press outlets, at least in the early stages of our initiatives when our impact is typically more localized. As such, this post will focus on local (district/city/county level) coverage. Regardless of who your target audience is, you should have logic-based answers to the following questions:
- To which media outlet(s) will you be marketing your story?
- Ex: Chamber of Commerce magazine to reach local business-owners
- Is your desired medium print, televised, or radio?
- Ex: print (online) because articles are easier to share via social media (which users are especially active on nowadays due to COVID-19)
- Within those media outlets, which specific journalist(s) will you be reaching out to?
- Ex: small business reporter because they have the same target audience as you
Most local newspaper websites have “Contact” or “Staff” pages where you can find journalists’ contact information and reporting roles (e.g., Education Reporter, Politics Reporter, etc.). Be sure to check other stories these journalists have published to ensure your story fits soundly into their niche.
If you plan to contact multiple journalists from different publications, consider keeping track of reporter names, contact information, and reporting areas in a spreadsheet. You could even share this spreadsheet with your team and have team members contact their local press independently for wider geographic coverage.
Build Relationships in Advance
Remember, journalists are busy people. Especially in more populated cities, even local journalists could be inundated with hundreds of emails and press releases every day. Personal connections and established relationships will do you wonders here. As you start writing your press release, reach out in advance to the journalists you intend to contact. Introduce yourself and why you’re relevant to them (e.g., I’m a student at [local high school] who recently launched a startup with 2k in revenue and would love to share my story with our community).
You could then ask them about what kinds of stories they want to cover, what issues they see as important in the local community, or what their short-term publishing schedule looks like (so you know when there might be an opening for your press release to be published). Like all good networking, your focus here shouldn’t be on what the journalist can do for you, but what you can do for each other.
When sending these cold reach-out emails, capitalize on existing connections you have to the journalist to establish rapport from the get-go. You might mention a particular story of theirs you enjoyed or a connection you have to an individual they interviewed. This is great news (pun intended) for those of you living in smaller towns. Chances are you know at least one person who has ties to the local press, whether through a parent who works in city government or a neighbor who frequently organizes community events. Take advantage of these relations, and see if someone you know would be willing to put in a good word for you or even arrange a meetup for you with the journalist. This helps build your relationship more organically.
Don’t be afraid to reach out to your school administrators or teachers and see if they can offer any guidance, resources, or connections that will help you understand the media workings of your school district and local community. Remember, your school officials’ job is to support students as much as possible, and chances are they’ll be happy to share startups, events, and other impressive projects founded by their own students. (Not to mention, schools receive positive PR for their own institutions by producing self-motivated, entrepreneurially-minded students.)
How do I write a press release?
Press releases are stories, not advertisements. They are told in an objective 3rd-person tone and read like a standard news article, complete with quotes, statistics, and sources. Good press releases cover the “who, what, when, where, how, and (most importantly) why” of the event as concisely as possible and should be no longer than a page.
Contact Information
It’s typical to put the name, email, and phone number of the individual who wrote the press release at the header of the page. “For Immediate Release: [Date of release]” is also commonplace here; some also add the company logo at the top.
Headline
Your headline needs to be catchy, clickable, and share-worthy. The journalist may be doing you a favor by providing coverage, but you should also think of how you can do the journalist a favor by driving readers and revenue to their published story.
Target your headline so it’ll not only fit your needs but also suit the journalist’s beat. Ultimately, your goal is to drive traffic and build credibility for your organization; to do that, prospective readers need to be captivated by your headline enough to click on your story in the first place.
Take note that local media loves a feel-good story. As teens, we have the added advantage of youth: people love stories about kids doing inspiring things and helping their community. Does your event/product benefit your community in some way, particularly community members who are most in need (e.g., unemployed, low-income, elderly)? Does it relate or provide a solution to a current issue (e.g., COVID-19, social isolation, loneliness)?
Depending on the angle of your story, emphasizing your positive contributions to your community as well as your age can add an additional wow factor. Headlines like “16-year-old founds startup aiding unemployed” are be more compelling than “New Bay Area startup successfully launches.”
1st Paragraph
Begin with a location stamp (as in “Albany, OR”). Following this will be your 1st sentence, or lede, which summarizes the who, what, why, where, and how of your update in 25 words or less. Some press releases include a brief 1-line summary of the article right beneath the headline and above the 1st paragraph too, as seen in the lovely “Catbrella” example below. Like much of press release formatting, this line’s inclusion is largely up to personal preference.
2nd, 3rd, and (Optional) 4th Paragraphs
The order of these final body paragraphs is flexible. Collectively, though, these paragraphs should provide applicable supplementary details that strengthen the narrative behind your update and answer additional questions readers/journalists may have. Keep in mind that no new key information (e.g., any of the 5 Ws) should appear after the 1st paragraph.
Quotes (from the founders, customers, or anyone else associated with the event) are key in developing the human side of the story. Statistics further create credibility for your brand. A call to action (e.g., link to pre-register for your next product) may be included in the concluding paragraph depending on the nature of your release.
Boilerplate Paragraph
Your boilerplate paragraph sits at the bottom of the press release as a separate blurb introducing your company’s work. However, some press releases combine the boilerplate company description with the concluding paragraph. Again, it’s all personal preference — just be consistent with what you choose. One more commonplace rule, however, is including 3 hashtags (###) to conclude your releases. This is a leftover tradition from the days of paper press releases, but it is still common practice for professional press releases.
How do I distribute my press release and turn it into media coverage?
Sending the Release
After editing and proofreading your press release, the next step is distribution. If the contact information is provided, you could call the journalist with your self-introduction and pitch ready (after ensuring the journalist isn’t busy or working towards an imminent deadline at the time of your call).
However, the most common and accessible way to distribute your press release is by emailing your target journalist. Given our limited resources and funding as high schoolers, paid services like PR Newswire are rarely worth it and would probably yield fewer results than well-prepared pitches to specially targeted journalists. The final press release email is quite simple:
- Paste your headline into the subject of the email.
- Paste the body of your press release into the body of the email.
If desired, attach a PDF or Word document of your press release to the email. Opinions differ on this, as large attachments bog down emails and are prone to spam filters. So, if you want to stay on the safe side, avoid attaching files to your email. If there are special images and formatting you want to include, consider linking a permalink to the PDF or the applicable press release page from your website/social media.
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